Always about people finding freedom
From its early days when The Salvation Army band used to march down the main street of Maitland and perform open-air meetings, to today when Salvos can be found providing welfare assistance or running children’s group; one thing has remained the same. The Salvation Army is about people finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from neglect. Freedom from poverty and addiction. Freedom to dream. Freedom to love. Freedom to make a difference. Freedom to live life to the full and freedom through Jesus. Former convict, Poll Cott (pictured right), found freedom through a surprising invitation to dinner by the local Salvation Army officer. In her book, Booth’s Drum, The Salvation Army in Australia 1880-1890, Barbara Bolton records the story: Poll Cott, of Maitland, stormed into a shop one day looking for an instrument to use in an attack on someone. The shopkeeper knew Poll of old, and fearing that she would wreck his shop, quickly let her have what she wanted without talk of payment. Poll had been transported to New South Wales as a girl of 16. She married a ticket-of-leave man and had a baby who died. She bitterly blamed the doctor involved. Hard-drinking, violent and seemingly incorrigible, Poll had been to prison again and again. But that day, Captain Joe Rundle, the Salvation Army officer, saw Poll in the shop and invited her home. Puzzled, she accepted the invitation and was looking over the house with robbery in mind when she heard the young couple praying for her. They wept as they prayed and something pierced Poll Cott’s protective armour. She drank no more but praised God instead.
