Roslyn Car­ring­ton

Tri­nis are among the most gen­er­ous peo­ple Ma­jor Joan Wilkin­son has ever met. The Bar­ba­di­an is a Ma­jor in the Sal­va­tion Army-one of those ladies we see on street cor­ners and in malls, ring­ing their bells next to big red ket­tles, urg­ing us to re­mem­ber the poor at Christ­mas time.

And Tri­nis heed the call.

"When I first came here in 2008, I re­alised the gen­er­ous spir­it you have. I've been to oth­er coun­tries where peo­ple would give ten cents, but you...you just give! Peo­ple here will go to the ATM and get mon­ey. They aren't afraid to give $100!"

She tells heart-wrench­ing sto­ries of the home­less in Port-of Spain putting a dol­lar in­to her ket­tle. A street dweller re­fus­ing a dol­lar of­fered by a passer­by, say­ing, "No, give it to the Sal­va­tion Army!" It makes the hair on the back of her arms stand up just talk­ing about it.As Ma­jor, she is an or­dained Min­is­ter. "Be­cause we're an Army, we use mil­i­tary ter­mi­nol­o­gy," she ex­plains. In God's Army, Lieu­tenants, Cap­tains, and Ma­jors are all Pas­tors.

Stu­dents at Bible Col­lege, where Ma­jor Wilkin­son earned her de­gree, are con­sid­ered Cadets, and or­di­nary mem­bers of the Church are Sol­diers. She and her hus­band, Ma­jor Dar­rell Wilkin­son, are the se­nior rank­ing of­fi­cers in the T&T Di­vi­sion, which in­cludes St Vin­cent and Grena­da. When this post­ing is up, it's any­one's guess where they will be sent next to spread God's word.

Over the years, the Wilkin­sons have trav­elled ex­ten­sive­ly, tak­ing their son with them. Rather than be­ing a trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence for him, it helped open his eyes to the world. "Chil­dren love the mov­ing," she says, "they love to meet new friends. They're ex­posed to dif­fer­ent cul­tures and lan­guages, so they do very well in school, es­pe­cial­ly in Ge­og­ra­phy and His­to­ry."

For Ma­jor Wilkin­son, be­ing 'called' to min­is­ter wasn't much of a stretch.

"My moth­er's house was right next door to the church. I grew up in it." She re­calls the ex­act mo­ment when she re­alised that a life in the Army was for her. "I was 24 or 25, hav­ing break­fast, when I heard some­one speak­ing to me, say­ing 'Full-time min­istry'. I heard it twice, but I ig­nored it. I said, 'Me? No way!'" But, ob­vi­ous­ly, she gave in.

It's a great sac­ri­fice for an ed­u­cat­ed woman who could be mak­ing a sub­stan­tial in­come else­where. In the Army, one is grant­ed an 'al­lowance', not a salary, but it's no guar­an­tee. When mon­ey's tight, they sim­ply don't get paid. Ex­pens­es such as hous­ing, trans­port, food and med­ical ex­pens­es are, how­ev­er, foot­ed by the Army, in­clud­ing a re­turn tick­et to one's na­tive coun­try every three years. They al­so get a pen­sion up­on re­tire­ment.

In spite of this, she's hard­ly liv­ing in the lap of lux­u­ry. "I re­mem­ber when my hus­band and I were post­ed here 18 years ago; a pack of corn curls was 50 cents, and I couldn't af­ford it."But the fi­nan­cial con­straints have paid off in kind. She be­lieves God re­wards the sac­ri­fices of the par­ents through their chil­dren, and sees her re­ward in the suc­cess of her son, who at age 22 has com­plet­ed his Bach­e­lors, his Mas­ters, and owns a home.

One in­ter­est­ing di­men­sion to be­ing a Min­is­ter in the Army, is that you must be mar­ried to an­oth­er Min­is­ter; the post is seen as a joint po­si­tion. She and her hus­band have their sep­a­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ties; he acts as Bish­op over the re­gion, while she man­ages the Women's and Youth Min­istries, spon­sor­ship and projects.

While this is sure to raise the hack­les of many fem­i­nists, she in­sists it works well. The phi­los­o­phy of nev­er be­ing 'un­equal­ly yoked' is tak­en very se­ri­ous­ly. It's a good ex­am­ple for the youth, and when they are post­ed from coun­try to coun­try, the oth­er part­ner doesn't have to sev­er ties with a job out­side the Church.

The Ma­jor, there­fore, is in charge of the pha­lanx of brave souls who stand on their feet for sev­er­al hours every day bring­ing in the mon­ey that helps the Army an­swer its call­ing. The ma­jor­i­ty of the mon­ey col­lect­ed goes in­to the prepa­ra­tion of about 1,000 food ham­pers, which are dis­trib­uted to needy fam­i­lies through­out T&T in De­cem­ber. The Army al­so vis­its hos­pi­tals, homes for the aged, and chil­dren's homes, to give com­fort and dis­trib­ute about 1,200 Care pack­ages.

About 30 per cent or 40 per cent of the mon­ey is used for wel­fare through­out the year. This year, they ex­pe­ri­enced fi­nan­cial chal­lenges, not be­cause do­na­tions were down, but be­cause the need is so great in these gua­va days. Peo­ple need cook­ing gas, toi­letries, med­ica­tion, rent...some just need mon­ey to go home. It's a hole that can nev­er be filled.

But Ma­jor Wilkin­son is one woman who loves her job, and thanks God for it every day. While the Army of­fers re­tire­ment to a cou­ple as soon as the old­er spouse reach­es 65, she has no in­ten­tion of pack­ing it in when her hus­band does. "I don't plan to re­tire. I have to die here. I have been tremen­dous­ly blessed."