God’s Grace on the Mountainsand in the Valleys

God’s calling on our lives rarely takes a straightforward or linear path. Russell Harris, from New Lynn Corps, shares with us his unique journey of faith and God’s leading.

I was brought up on a small farm at Tuturau, in the hills south of Gore. Life was idyllic, with wide open spaces. There was a Presbyterian church down the road where we sang hymns, listened to Bible stories, drew pictures and were taught right from wrong. I don’t remember being taught about personal faith, but the grounding I received in those early years has remained with me ever since.

My family moved to Gore, and we became ‘townies’. We joined The Salvation Army and there I realised I needed to have personal faith, not just what my parents thought and believed. So in the officers’ quarters one Sunday evening at a youth supper, I made my decision to accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour.

One day in class my form teacher came up to me and said that her husband was the manager of the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) and he was looking for a junior and was I interested? Two days later I had a bank officer job that lasted nearly 25 years.

Intersections and directions

Life in the bank was great. I stayed in Gore three years and was transferred to Invercargill, Wellington, Dunedin and Australia. In Wellington I went to Miramar Corps and became immersed in the life of a vibrant faith community. I was surrounded by good people and my faith grew.

I became friendly with a young Kaye Bailes, who had trained as a Salvation Army officer in 1964. I asked Kaye to be my wife. She didn’t hesitate. Six months later, I became a soldier of The Salvation Army, and we married.

We involved ourselves in our local corps, but because I was a bank officer, we transferred regularly. It was while we lived in Timaru that events overtook us, and we found ourselves unable to attend the corps and so became members of the Baptist church.

We loved our time there and grew strong spiritually and relished the fact that it didn’t matter where we worshipped, the saving power of Jesus, the worship of God the Father and the leading of the Holy Spirit was just the same. Unfortunately, we had to move again, and Dunedin was to be our next home.

Kaye just couldn’t get the red, yellow and blue (the colours on the Army flag) out of her blood. She was committed to mission and had an overwhelming love for young people. We began to get a strong sense of giving service within the church, but we were unsure of what form this would take.

At this time, I was often absent from work due to illness. My doctor was worried about my deteriorating health and told me that if I stayed in the bank, I wouldn’t make old bones. Was this God speaking to us? Were doors closing on the life of comfort and security we enjoyed?

Learning and development

We made tentative enquiries about full-time ministry within The Baptist Union of Churches and attended an exploratory ministry weekend. We said yes to God. I resigned from work and we sold our house and moved north to Auckland.

Our first day at Baptist College was a shock! We were introduced to some lecturers then told to enrol for the theology degree at University of Auckland. We were so naïve; we had no idea that ministry involved studying for a degree. We survived with the support of our year group and enjoyed learning and stretching our faith into areas never previously thought possible.

At university we were told in no uncertain terms to work out our theology for ourselves. I still remember our lecturer in the first class of literature in theology saying, ‘God is white, God is black, God is rice’. The whole class sat in stunned silence, but it was this class that sparked my interest in theologian Paulo Friere, who through his faith assisted the poor and oppressed in Latin America. From that moment my spiritual life developed a different dimension, and I began to understand something of God the ‘I Am’. Also, I stopped thinking of theology in black and white terms realising that one size does not fit all.

We gained our degrees and were ordained into the ministry of the Baptist Church of New Zealand and waited to be called to our first church, but nothing happened. We even applied to the Presbyterian Church, but nothing! What was God saying? We had given up everything for what we thought was the right calling. Those were dark days. God was silent. I didn’t have a job and the church seemed remote and uninterested in us.

God’s faithfulness

We had a daughter who we wanted to keep in the faith, so we approached a couple who were Kaye’s Salvation Army training college session mates from 1964. At the time they were corps officers at New Lynn Corps. They agreed to include our daughter in corps cadets. To this day our daughter is a Salvationist, and our grandchildren are junior soldiers—the traditions continue.

I found work and things started to look up. We decided to go back to our roots and attend The Salvation Army at New Lynn Corps, but I found it impossible to worship. I would stand during the singing and tears would stream down my face; I was unhappy and miserable with what had happened to us. It took me months to heal, but one day a light came on in my soul. I clearly heard a voice saying, ‘Go teaching’. I went back to university and achieved a diploma in teaching.

I only taught in one school, it was an intermediate close to home and I loved it. I stayed 17 years until I retired.

When I look back over 70 years of learning about God and his ways, I often wished God would speak in a clear voice. That’s not my experience. God allowed me to find my own way through life by making many mistakes, by doors firmly closing in my face, then him showing me opportunities which I might like to explore. I like the quote, ‘Pray like mad but row away from the rocks’; then I look back and see God’s grace at work.

Kaye and I re-signed our Articles of War in April 2014. Sadly, in 2019, Kaye passed away from cancer-related complications. We had been married for 44 years and were best friends.

I remain at New Lynn Corps playing trombone, leading the monthly Northern Retired Officers’ Fellowship and conducting a monthly rest home service.