Yuppies Shed Secure Life--for Army Blue

Kenneth and Jolene Hodder had tried hard to evade their destiny.

He had gone to Harvard Law School and landed a job with a Los Angeles law firm putting real estate deals together. She had gone into housewares and was about to become a buyer for the Broadway.

They had just made an offer on a starter house.

Together, they had shaken a powerful tradition. Both were Salvation Army brats with exceptionally strong ties. His family went back six generations with the corps. Hers went four. He had lived in 20 cities by the time he was 21. She had moved less often, about every three years.

Their meeting seemed predestined. It happened in a Salvation Army camp. She was a counselor. He was building counselors’ dormitories.

“Normally, cabins are an absolute disaster area,” Ken Hodder recalled. “I walked into one cabin and everything was absolutely spotless. All the shoes were lined up. I said, ‘Gosh, I’ve got to meet this person.’ ”

Marriage came three years later, and with it a pact. They would dedicate their lives to career and material success.

Their resolve lasted three more years.

“It was challenging. It was interesting,” Kenneth Hodder said of his practice. “And yet one morning I woke up and I felt that somehow it wasn’t what God had in mind for my life. He wanted me to change lives.”

Didn’t Want to Hear News

When he shared the good news with Jolene, she didn’t want to hear. A promotion was in the works. She was looking forward to a life style of high fashion and travel around the world. But, three weeks later, on their morning commute, as she recalled it, she reached over and turned off the radio and said:

“Darling, last night I too felt the call to be a Salvation Army officer.”

And thus a blossoming yuppie couple retraced their steps to the ministry founded in 1865 by William Booth, a Methodist who decided to carry the word, along with blankets and food, to London’s poorest districts in the belief that while hungry, sick and homeless, men cannot truly receive the teaching of Christ.

The Hodders enrolled in the Salvation Army’s two-year cadet training school in Rancho Palos Verdes. This past June, along with about 200 other graduates of the corps’ four U.S. cadet schools, they went through a ritual that severed their worldly ties.

“You pack your bag completely, with an empty mailing label,” Jolene said. “You walk across a stage in front of thousands of people. You salute and a gentleman--one of the officers--will give you your orders. You have no idea where you are going within the world at that point. You go back and write it on all your boxes. Two days later, you’re gone.”

Their destination turned out to be Glendale, where, as lieutenants, they have assumed command of a community center, day school, social services programs and chapel. They lead a small paid staff and about 50 Salvation Army soldiers, church members who wear the navy blue uniform to carry the army’s Wesleyan music, message and service to the public.

Like the roughly 25,000 other Salvation Army officers in the world, they have adopted a life that is basic but secure. The Salvation Army provides them a house in Burbank, a vehicle, medical insurance and an allowance of $185 a week.

Both Ordained Ministers

Both are ordained ministers. They marry, bury and preach the gospel. They oversee the Lord’s Kitchen, a lunch program for the homeless. They counsel. They attend the Rotary Club. They and their soldiers do “open airs” in the parks and street corners, playing music, reading the Scriptures and taking testimony.

Unusual as their story is, the Hodders are in some ways the model of a modern Salvation Army command.

“There’s a decreasing number of single Salvation Army officers,” army spokesman Russell Prince said. Most of the 200 officers now serving the army in the Los Angeles division are married, he said.

By regulation, one partner in a marriage cannot join without the other.

Husband and wife command by a principle of “consultative leadership.” In Glendale, Kenneth Hodder is the commanding officer, Jolene is the corps officer, at his right hand. It could be the other way around.

“The Salvation Army is egalitarian in its approach to women,” Kenneth said. “The Salvation Army believes in the ministry of women.”

Its current general, in fact, is a woman, Eva Burrows.

In the quasi-military hierarchy, the new officers will rise in steps to captain and major. If appointed to a command, they can become lieutenant colonel, colonel and then, a rank taken from British colonial days, commissioner. There is only one general.

Today, Kenneth’s parents are colonels, commanding the army’s Southern Territory in Australia. Jolene’s are majors, commanding the Denver/West Adams center in Colorado.

Prince said he expects the Hodders’ professional training and irrepressibly upbeat spirit to carry them far. But it is rare, he said, for Salvation Army officers to plan their careers in terms of status.

“You don’t become a Salvation Army officer because you’ve got ambition to be a general,” Prince said. “Some are promoted and given more important assignments, but there are many who soldier on and do wonderful work in the community.”

In that spirit, the Hodders have abandoned most plans for personal attainment.

“We will be happy to serve exactly where we are for the next 40 years,” Kenneth said. “On the other hand, we are prepared, if the Salvation Army so desires, to leave tomorrow and go anywhere it chooses to send us. Our home at this point is the Salvation Army.”

The average stay in any assignment is three to four years, Prince said.

Next for the Hodders could be a community center in another city, an adult rehabilitation center, a homeless shelter, a home for teen-age mothers or a missionary service in one of the 89 countries where the army keeps a presence.

They retain one personal ambition, however. They intend to have children, an event that will inevitably change their form of consultative command as Jolene tends to a mother’s duty.

The children will attend Salvation Army day school, but they’ll never be latchkey kids.

“As school-age children, they will never go home to an empty home,” Jolene said. “I will always be there. They will always have a mother.”

Children Will Share

And yet, her children would have to share her--with the worshipers at Bible class, the old folks in nursing homes on visitation day, and all the needy children.

“Monday evenings we serve about 60 children dinner,” Jolene said. “When you have one of those children come up and hug your knees and say, ‘I love you,’ it makes your whole day.”

And, of course, they’ll go on “open airs.”

“We will not ever require them to become Salvationists,” Kenneth said. “We will always ask for excellence, as our parents asked of us.”

And, when the time comes, they’ll retire.

“Officers retire at age 65,” Prince said. “Then they’re on their own. Salvation Army gives them an allowance that allows them, perhaps, to put a deposit on a mobile home. After a life of service, they don’t have a lot of dollars to spare.”

But Kenneth and Jolene Hodder are counting their blessings in other denominations.

“If we go through an entire career and change one life, we’ll consider ourselves a success,” Kenneth said.

“No matter where we go in the world, the Salvation Army is there to greet us, with open arms,” she said. “It’s a great comfort.”