ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 14, 1996 TAG: 9611140053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
Stephen Long was troubled. It was 1976, and he was a confused college student mired in a culture of mindless, soul-destroying partying. Two of his friends died from drug overdoses.
"I really didn't want to live anymore," he says. "I was very depressed. At a moment of desperation, I cried out to God: `Lord, if you're real, come into my heart and I'll serve you the rest of my life.'''
The next day was Thanksgiving. Brimming with new life, he went to the Salvation Army. He didn't know much about about this quasi-military religious group. But his sister had told him it might be a good idea to volunteer.
That Friday, the Salvation Army set him up in front of a grocery store with its signature fund-raising tools - a handbell and a red kettle.
He found himself sharing the sidewalk outside a Tallahassee, Fla., grocery store with a Hare Krishna who also was asking for donations.
The Hare Krishna knew a lot about the Bible - much more than Long - and proceeded to engage Long in a running theological debate. He was trying, it seemed, to break his new competitor's faith.
Finally, after two days, Long made a stand. "You know a lot in your head," Long told his sidewalk mate. "But let me tell you what happened in my heart."
Long told how he had been saved four days before - how he had cried out in pain and "God came into my heart."
A few minutes later, his competitor disappeared. Long meant him no ill will, but thinks the man gave up his harangue "because of the power of the Lord in my testimony."
Others were moved by Long's new-found faith, too. That Christmas Eve he filled up two kettles with a total of $578 - a single-day record for the Salvation Army's Tallahassee post.
"I was just so happy, and I think people responded to that," he says. More than that, he says, they were moved by the work done in their community by the Salvation Army.
The smiles, the kind words, the clink of coins and rustle of the bills gladly coughed up - it all helped make up his mind.
Long became a Salvation Army minister. For nearly two decades now, he has lived the life of an officer in "God's Army," saving souls, moving from post to post. Since June he's been the the co-commander of the Salvation Army's Roanoke Valley post, which will kick off its Christmas kettle drive today at more than two dozen sites.
The Salvation Army's red kettle has a long history, and is an integral part of the organization's image.
In December 1891, little more than a decade after the Salvation Army's founding, Capt. Joseph McFee of the San Francisco post had resolved to provide a free Christmas dinner for the city's poor.
He wasn't sure where he'd get the money. But then he thought back to his days as a sailor in England and recalled a large pot, called "Simpson's Pot" that had been set out in Liverpool to collect donations for charity.
He decided to do the same thing at the ferry landing at the foot of San Francisco's Market Street.
By 1895, kettles were being used by 30 Salvation Army corps along the West Coast. Soon the practice spread East and kettle tenders began using handbells to attract passers-by. "It was a town-crier kind of spirit," Long says. "The Salvationist was crying out: There are needy in our community who need to be fed. There are needy who need to be clothed."
The same holds true today. The red kettles have become a major moneymaker for the Salvation Army, which has collected more money than any other charity in the United States over the past four years.
The kettles raised $190,000 last Christmas in the Roanoke Valley. Across the nation nearly one-third - $66.4 million - of the Salvation Army's Christmas income came from kettles.
Stephen Long admits that he felt a bit silly when he first started ringing the bell and tending a kettle back in 1976.
But as his kettles became more and more stuffed with donations - he filled two in six hours that Christmas Eve - he felt something else.
"I felt like I was at the center of the Christmas spirit," Long says.
This holiday season he'll celebrate his 20th anniversary with the Salvation Army.
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