Sheed and Julia Tarnue- Marriage

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 are so glad that you've come back to join us this week. In December of 2018, we launched a series on marriage with Salvation Army officers Rob and Amy Reardon. Throughout this series, Rob and Amy were very honest and vulnerable about their journey as a couple. Now I have some funny stories about Rob and Amy, but suffice it to say, I am grateful for their work as Salvation Army officers because they brought my brother-in-law back to the Lord while they were living in Virginia.

What a great testimony. In this particular episode, Rob and Amy focused on compromise, and we were joined by Sheed and Julia Tarnu. I know Sheed and Julia very well. Sheed was our assistant officer in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Julia was my ICO, which stands for International College of Officers in London, England.

She was my session mate there. Wow. And you and your husband actually performed their marriage ceremony. We did.

We went all the way to Newfoundland. Amazing. I don't want to spoil it for you, but in this episode, Sheed's testimony is going to be shared, and it is incredible. It is. This was a beautiful episode, and we pray it's an extra special blessing to the newlywed couples who might be listening.

Thanks guys. I'm Captain Sheed Tarnoo, originally from Liberia, a West African state. I'm in my 10 years of officership. My name is Major Julia Tarnoo and I have been an officer for 15 years.

Eleven of those years were in my home territory of Canada and after my husband and I married, I moved to the southern territory and were officers in Sanford, Florida for our second year now. Well, I was introduced to the Salvation Army through a Salvation Army officer in Liberia, in my home country. We were in the midst of 14 years of civil war and we also had basically no food and so this day we're a Salvation Army officer and I didn't know what Salvation Army was about. I never heard about it.

Being a Muslim, of course, I had no clue what the uniform he was wearing was about. He came to our house, this abandoned building we were living in and he offered us some nutritional food and he came back the next day and invited my mother to be part of this women's ministry group in a call and so my mother accepted his invitation, went to the call. She visited a few times and she liked it so she encouraged me to visit the call. Now I didn't know it was a Christian organization but eventually I knew that this is where God was calling me to be transformed into a knowing Christ that I have for years refused. I became a Christian, converted from Islam to Christianity and ultimately became a soldier in the Salvation Army. I was introduced to the Salvation Army basically by being born into it and so from the time I was a young child I attended the Corps with my parents and many of our family attended the Corps.

I was fortunate to have a good Christian upbringing and I'm so thankful for it. Sheet and I first met by being a part of a Facebook group, a Salvation Army officers Facebook group and so we would correspond through that site just enough to see each other's names and that was about it. But eventually we did realize that we had some mutual friends and at the time I was serving as an officer in Canada and many of my Corps family are snowbirds so they would come to the south for winter months and at the time Sheet was appointed to the downtown Corps in St. Petersburg and so they had opportunity to meet him during the winter months and then they came back and told me about this officer that they met and so the dots kind of connected in that way. I was drawn to her by her love for God and things that she wrote on her Facebook page. In general compassionate and loving and caring and inclusive. I saw a lot of things in her that I thought well you know this would be a great opportunity to know someone who shared my values as well.

Sheet and I first met in person in December of 2012 and from that time on we spent time of course getting to know each other better and because we lived in different countries that's all we were able to do was to talk and to get to know each other better through Skype through FaceTime through phone calls and so those two years that we dated each other really allowed us good time to be able to understand and appreciate who the other person was, their backgrounds. When you think about the culture I came from growing up in this little village in Africa where everyone knew each other. If I do something wrong the next little neighbor would discipline me without my mother's authorization.

If I'm hungry I can walk in any of those houses and eat. That's basically the culture I grew up in I mean at least when I was younger. Same thing with our culture they're very inclusive in their culture. The way I have been accepted in many ways I haven't been accepted this way even in the U.S. and I can admit to that. I was received well and so that sort of equates our culture there are obviously some differences but as far as I refer to as a human culture where God's instruction where it says reach out to one another and be inclusive. When we started to plan for marriage we did have discussion about how we would bring together our cultures and I think with the two years leading up to our marriage just having all of those conversations it kind of felt very natural at that point and we just knew and accepted you know who the other person was and so it did come very naturally. She's right about the blending of culture even just in January around our home she proudly wears African clothing which my sister gave her as a gift. Growing up in Newfoundland in Canada it's a very inclusive culture although there was not a great deal of diversity in my heart there was always that acceptance and I knew nothing different but it was only I think until she and I married and I moved to Florida to be with him here that I had a real awareness of racism and I remember even in my first week living here and just you know tuning into to the news and just seeing these horrific things that were happening and I remember asking him is this real and he said to me yes it's absolutely real and of course I had heard you know from him through our conversations about his experiences but now I was kind of in it myself and saw it first hand and it's been been such a burden on my heart just to see how how things happen and even to see sometimes the way that that she is treated as opposed to the way that I'm treated I almost felt that I was naive before.

Well I've become numb to racism really I mean I've been exposed to that many times the truth is even in my in my officership even in the call you know I've there are times where I go in in the evening to do some work and a law enforcement officer they came and asked me we saw you coming in the building you know do you work here and try to tell them I am you know the officer there but they will follow me to prove that I am the officer there by giving them some sort of maybe my business card or taking in my office or sign on a computer just to prove something whereas it won't happen if she's there so that's the kind of struggle we go through you know and it's a sad story but it exists unfortunately. There are also a good side of this because when I first came in this country the first person the first officer that I really met was I mean he's a white officer he accepted me in his home I lived with him for a few weeks he took me to be his child one of his children he prepared me for training and he still called me his son today. The lesson that I've learned and it's the the approach that I've had all of my life is is to to love others the way that God loves me and you know we make it so complicated when it's really so simple if we can love our neighbor as ourself I mean what a beautiful world it would be and so in our personal lives in our ministry we love people period I mean just by basis of our marriage we celebrate the diversity but we're all God's children. For any young couples that might be listening I think going back to how our relationship started by talking and listening I think if I could give any advice it's to to listen maybe twice as much as you talk because in listening even before we were married I just was able to my worldview became so much bigger you know even being a part of Sheed's family and if I could allude to that his family he has many family members who are still practicing Muslims and being accepted by his family it just opened my eyes to the way that sometimes we can view things we so much look at our differences and and you know the things that could potentially divide but in our family there's no division we're we're one and it makes us who we are as a family. 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 Salvation Army USA dot org to offer your support and we'd love to hear from you email us at radio at uss dot Salvation Army dot org call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O. Box 29972 Atlanta Georgia 30359 tell us how we can help share prayer requests or share your testimony we would love to use your story on the air you can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating just search for the Salvation Army's words of life follow us on social media for the latest episodes extended interviews and more and if you don't have a church home we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center they'll be glad to see you this is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's words of life as all creation in the dark