KAREN FLEMMING

Some people have to discover they’re Salvation Army officers; and some people are simply born to be officers. For Karen Flemming, however, it was a bit of both. Her parents were officers, yet it took Karen some time to accept and answer God’s calling for herself to be an officer. "Before I became an officer, I led a mixed bag kind of life,” she acknowledges. “When I left school I did a variety of other things. I completed a Visual Merchandising degree at college, worked in sign-writing, travelled Overseas for a year, worked in a bookstore and managed a Salvo Family Store.” In fact, it was at 23, while she was in Africa at a Salvo Youth Forum, that she finally made a covenant with God to become an officer. “I’d say I knew since I was 15 that God wanted me to be a Salvation Army officer, but I didn’t want to admit it aloud,” she says.

Since saying ‘yes’ to God, she has embraced it completely. Indeed, after seven years, she reflects on what an honour it is to do what she does. “God has given me lots of amazing opportunities through being in full-time ministry,” she believes. “I know I simply wouldn’t have been fulfilled if I had just chipped away at doing a bunch of different things.”

I love what I do!

Karen is involved daily with people who have no place to turn. She is someone that these people can trust and this means she quickly builds strong relationships with them. To Karen, being an officer allows her to show people Jesus’ love in practical ways and showing how it is different from what they have experienced before. “I love people and believe it’s all about the ‘one’. Every person matters and I desire that those I meet know their value and worth in God. That they know Jesus’ love, peace and hope in their lives and sharing this is an honour I don’t take lightly!”

Through her ministry, Karen wants her role to be one that brings hope to those who have given up hope, to fight and advocate for their rights, and right wrongs in the World. God has been faithful in the hard times and is her strength. He helps her see opportunities in the everyday and she trusts him in the future adventure to come.