Celebrating the beauty of every life
“Everybody has something really beautiful inside of them. It is a matter of taking the time, listening, sharing stories and drawing it out. I find it such a joy to share with people and hear their life stories.”
– Major Alan Peterson
It was the night his father left the family home forever that a young Alan Peterson looked up into a magnificent starry sky and asked God to become his father.
That began what was to become a deeply spiritual walk with God and eventually full-time service with The Salvation Army. It was also the beginning of a lifelong passion for pastoral care.
“I never saw my role as sitting at a desk. I wanted to be out, sharing with people,” Major Alan Peterson smiles.
Alan today serves (in retirement) as a Salvation Army Honoured Friends representative and it is a job he loves.
For Alan, walking with people often in their later years, sometimes through illness, loss of spouse, or even through the end of their own lives, has been a “deep privilege”. He says since taking on the role, he has also repeatedly witnessed God’s tender love.
He says: “I cared for ‘my’ first Honoured Friend when I was still a minister on the Gold Coast. She had been married to a very wealthy businessman and lived a very wild life. However, in her later years, she had no-one, just the birds she used to feed. She felt invisible to the world – like a sparrow. No one notices the sparrows!
“We prayed together and she came to her own faith in Jesus,” Alan says with emotion. “After she passed away, God brought Jesus’ beautiful words in the book of Matthew sharply to my mind. Those verses say: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your (heavenly) Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows!’”
(Salvation Army Honoured Friends representatives support those who support The Salvation Army through an intended bequest and who have indicated they would like to have a representative stay in regular contact.)
Comments
When I was only 10 - 12years old (I am now 58) Alan Peterson was my Sunday School teacher (3 years in a row) at St Stephen's Anglican Church Penrith. He not only taught us about Christ, he enabled us to "see" Jesus through His loving witness to the boys in his class. I will never forget the seeds of faith he sowed into my heart. Thank you my dear brother. May God bless you.