By Major Lesa Davis
9,379 days and counting
As a young person thinking about what I might do with my life, I had two vague ideas. I wanted to do something for God and something for people. Fortunately, I had good leaders and corps officers who helped me understand officership was the perfect combination of these two things. As I’ve lived it out, my calling to do something for God most often has been confirmed by doing something for people.
If I had to choose one moment to capture what officership is to me I think it would be on a hot summer day in our first appointment. As a member of a service club, I was working with other club members in a concession stand at the county fair. The other members were active and retired community leaders. Most of them had been in that community for many years and were well-known and respected. Since we had only been stationed there for about a year, I expected to have a pretty quiet day selling snacks to unknown fair-goers. Almost as soon as the stand opened though, I started to hear, “Hi, Captain Lesa!” over and over again from passersby.
As I had conversations with one person after another, my fellow club members started to notice, too. They saw me talking to the bank teller who handled our kettle bags, a retired nun who volunteered for fundraising events, a homeless guy who occasionally came in for food but mostly just wanted to talk to someone, bellringers who were working for the carnival in the “offseason,” and so on, all day long. It became a joke inside the concession stand, something like, “Who was that? Oh, that must be one of Lesa’s people.” And it was true. They—and hundreds of others—are the people
God has given me.
Centuries ago, Catherine of Siena wrote that God has placed us in the midst of our neighbors so we can do for them what we cannot do for Him. I can’t think of a better description of what officership is to me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
