Majors Steve and Connie Long- Parenting

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake. And I'm Cheryl Gillum.

We're so glad that you're here with us. Back in July of 2019, we were in the middle of a series on parenting. And on Episode 7, we were joined by Salvation Army officers Steve and Connie Long. They shared their story and testimony of raising a larger family and the journey of welcoming their adopted daughter as their own. I think Cheryl can speak a lot about their adopted daughter. I would love to say, especially if Steve is listening, that these are two good-looking, hardworking Salvation Army officers, but Steve is someone you don't want to meet on any competitive court. He is super competitive.

And I love that drive that he has. But they have a large family. They do. And Cheryl, you know a little bit about that.

I do. I grew up the youngest of seven. So I know a little bit about what it is to be a child in a large family, but not to parent in a large family. And then the gifts that they've given that child to adopt them and just bring them into that family. I think that's a wonderful ministry for sure.

Absolutely. Sharing a lot of love. Well, if you're a parent in ministry struggling with some of your kids' life decisions or just need some encouraging words from another parent, we know this episode will be a blessing to you. Enjoy.

We'll see you next week on Words of Life. Well, my beginning days with the Salvation Army, my sister was married to a Salvationist. Bill touched it. And Bill was in the Air Force. And my sister was very much in love. And they got married. And so Bill's influencing her brought me into a far distant relationship and knowledge of the Salvation Army. I didn't know anything about it, except that they helped people. At that time, I was a long-haired hippie and carried up into the hippie movement.

And Bill and Peg were very instrumental, I would say, probably through prayer and my mother and my commitment to Christ. At 22 years of age, I came through a very hard, depressing moment with my lifestyle and didn't want to live anymore. I became very depressed. And I just remembered hearing the Lord speak to me at that moment in the quietness of a house. And I said, Lord, if you're real, come into my heart and I'll serve you the rest of my life. And sure enough, I just felt the wave of His forgiving presence just clean me inside and out. And I began to weep. I hadn't cried since my dad passed away at 14. And here, six years later, I'm crying like a little baby.

My mother had come into the house a day later. And she said, well, what are you going to do now? I said, I don't know, but I have to serve the Lord. I've got to do something. And I'm thinking Peace Corps, Red Cross. And she says, well, what about your sister Peggy?

They're in Tallahassee. And I said, well, let's go. And then the very next day after that, I was a volunteer bell ringer. And God just opened up the door and led me to where I'm at today. For me, I have grown up in the Salvation Army with my parents. And from the age of probably four or five, I knew I was going to be a Salvation Army officer. And there were people throughout my life, officers, soldiers, leaders in the Corps that were very influential. My grandparents definitely were those who had a great impact upon my life. Well, the paramount assurance that Connie was the one for me was at Morris Hill in Athens, Greece.

I grew up in a family where several of my brothers were divorced, so I was very paranoid with marriage and didn't want to ruin a calling that God had placed upon my heart. I wasted my life prior to coming to Jesus and didn't want anything like that to happen again. And so I wrote on a prayer piece of paper, Lord, I need an outward sign that Connie's the one for me.

And I put it in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. And so we're on our excursion trip, and I'm out on Morris Hill early in the morning, and I'm preaching Paul's sermon in Acts chapter 17. And I see a couple over there looking at me like, who's this weirdo up here? So I went over and explained and started praying with them, and come to find out that she had been a believer but had gotten away from the Lord, and I was praying with them. And Commissioner Miller was there, and he threw his arm around me. He's an evangelist type, and he was really encouraged to see me praying with a young couple.

And he said, as long as we have young lieutenants like you, the Army's going to be okay. And you know that girl you've been seeing in Atlanta? She's the one. And I thought, there's my confirmation. Well, I know from the beginning we knew he wanted kids. He came from a family of 12 kids, and I came from a family of five.

And so that was a foregone conclusion. We knew that was going to happen. And I don't remember so much us really talking about having. Well, I know that it was a number thing, and it's always been a number thing between us.

I said about four, she said maybe five, and the Lord said six. Well, our first child, Stephanie, you know, we're just blessed with her. And she did not have a very easy coming into the world. She had aspirated some fluid, and it caused, we didn't know if it was meningitis or what was going on. And here my little baby has all these tubes and wires connected to her body, and it was heart-wrenching to see that.

But fortunately, they were able to calm it down within 24 hours, and we were able to take our baby home with us. And then we had Kristen, who came exactly a year later on the same day. Then next came along our Kara, and she was born on Valentine's Day. And so after Kara, then our next one came.

That's right. Well, Catherine, her parents came to our shelter when we were stationed in Winchester. And her daddy was a severe alcoholic, made a commitment to Jesus at the altar at our program, was with us for a while.

And then he went back to the Bible, abandoned his daughter. And she was 14 and a half at the time, and we get a call. She had run away from several places, and then finally from the group home, and came and said, and they did help. And the Department of Social Services said, can she stay with you for a day?

A day became a week, a week became a month. And long story short, Catherine even looks genetically like one of our family members. And she's just been a blessing.

So she came to us in the middle, and we adopted her, and Catherine went on to the training college. Yes. Then it... Sarah.

Yes. Sarah came to us on April the 26th, and we were so thrilled to have another girl. And then finally, our fifth biologically, Steven, we just left. Because it was a boy, and folks were saying, you've got to keep on trying until you get a boy. I would have taken another girl, because I love my girls, and they're precious.

But Lord bless us with Steven. And that was September the 2nd. Before we came here, we sent out a little text to our kids, and we said, what's one good thing, one not so good thing, and one funny thing that you remember about with our parenting?

And they were spot on. And so one of the things that actually Kristen says was, you're yelling is the not so good. And we were yellers.

He came from a family. When you have 12, 13 in the household, you yell just to be heard. And so I remember Catherine coming to me. She had been with us not even a year. And she said, why don't you yell at me like the rest of them? And it made me stop, because just in that moment, just that little statement, because she and I had been going through counseling, through all of this to help her and to help us as a family. And I thought, you know what? I was treating her differently. Not that I wanted to yell at my kids anyway, but that's how I guess I was, we were coming across.

And I said, okay, you got it. And I think in that moment, that was when we began to really... Jell. As a family.

She came at a time when she needed us, but also at a time when we needed her. Connie and I were both raised in very strict homes. And our children, we wanted them to be able to expand and do whatever they wanted to do. They wanted to play sports, play sports. They were with us wherever we went. They've dealt with lifestyles that are definitely not what... They were raised to be.

In those times, not that it's any easier for him, but I think he handles it a lot better than I do. Well, I'm a little different because my mother made us go to church, and my father was not a believer. And so we were going to the Baptist church until we were 12, and then we're allowed to make our own decision. And all of us boys said, now, that's history.

That's history. Who's going to church? I'm not going to church. And so that's when I took on the hippie lifestyle, and I ran from God. I remember the Lord speaking to me in my mother's 57 Chevrolet one Sunday after Jack Van Eppy was a guest speaker at the church and saying, I want you in the ministry. And so for all those years running away from the Lord, and then at the age of 22 just submitting myself to that calling of ministry, I guess if you bring up a child in the way that they should go, when they're mature, they'll not depart from it. So we dedicated our children, and we poured our lives into them. And even for the few that are still wandering out there and prodigaling out there, you know, Daddy, will you pray?

So you know it's there, but we gave them to Jesus many years ago, and we believe that they're coming around. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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