When David Dunham found God, he saw two shafts of light shooting skyward through a haze.
He quickly adds that he was intoxicated and sitting in an old Volkswagen Beetle that he wrecked into the bottom of a stream.
That was his first step on a journey to becoming part of the team heading the Salvation Army in Akron. It’s his second stint here with his wife, Tina.
But first he had to travel a road to sobriety and faith, an experience that helped him understand the problems that people bring to the Salvation Army every day.
“God gave me a set of spiritual eyes,” he said. “He didn’t knock me off a horse but he did throw my Volkswagen Beetle down a cliff and into a stream at 2 o’clock in the morning and I was alone and desperate. I couldn’t get out and I was so drunk and high so much, I was paralyzed and blind and God reached down and said, ‘Dave open your eyes.’ ”
He had already experienced a drunk and largely absent father, poverty and a mother who moved from home to home in Jamestown, N.Y., ahead of bill collectors.
Sometimes he shares his story with clients coming in for a free lunch or asking for help finding a job, but mostly he uses the experience of learning patience and understanding.
“I would say that my story in life continues to support that concept of making it out and that’s why the calling that I have as an officer fits me,” he said.
Part of it is about vulnerability.
“I experienced serious poverty and neglect and abuse, but I still have those mental pictures in my mind, and I acknowledge daily even though I have been successful in going forward and servicing the Lord for 30 years, I could fall anytime,” he said. “I know I could and but for God’s grace and his spirit, I would not be able to continue on the path that I’ve been on.”
Part of his story is about understanding weaknesses and learning the nuances of forgiveness.
Difficulty with alcohol
His first task had to do with alcoholism, his own and his father’s.
“Alcoholism is not something that a person really chooses,” he said. “And as much as one might think from the outside observing that an alcoholic can stop any time they want to, it’s not that easy, it’s not that simple.”
In his father’s case, it was about a veteran trying to forget the horror of the attack on Pearl Harbor. For Dunham, it was about dealing with a troubled and poor youth and succumbing to the drug and alcohol temptations of the 1970s.
He willingly shares his story, but keeps reminding himself that the issue is not about him; it’s about the people in need.
He concedes it can be depressing and sad.
“Oh, yeah, a lot of depression,” he explained. “I get depressed. I sit with the folks and I talk with them and I think to myself, ‘I know where they are at because I’ve been there,’ and I wish I could just jettison them out into a better state. But I couldn’t do it with myself in my time and couldn’t do it for them in their time.”
Big problems
So he offers what help he can.
“It is a Band-Aid,” he said. “If you pay a person’s rent for three months but you haven’t been able to secure them a job in three months, they will be facing rent again that they can’t pay, plus all the bills that have added up and all the stress and all the drama and all the heartaches that have added up in that time. … So we hope that in the period of time that we help them that it sustains them and they find their way out, but we can’t guarantee that. And we have sustained some people for a long time with a Band-Aid, and that is every time they come back for food and they say, ‘We are out again,’ and we say, ‘Well, come on again and we will give you what we have.’ ”
Sometimes he senses he is being used for a free meal or whatever and is not hesitant to say so.
“I just tell them right straight out, you’re not telling the truth. I’ve been where you are at and I know the game you are playing now. Are you willing and able to face the truth, and when I am able to get a person to face the truth and take off all the masks, I stand a chance of moving them forward.”
But he can do only so much.
“When I first started this work, I thought that my testimony, my experience would result in other people hearing it and going the same way,” he said. “But I was rudely made aware that that was not the case because I can’t help anyone, it has to be them. I can lead them, guide them, urge them and pray for them, but I can’t do it for them.”
This is his second time in Akron. The first was in the late 1970s. Salvation Army leaders move every few years, so he knows he won’t see all the results of his work.
“I’ve had a lot more failures than success,” he said. “I think people’s path to recovery is long, and because I am here for an assigned period of time, I don’t see the results of a lot of my efforts.”
Spouses form team
He and his wife form a team. He’s the “people person” with a story to tell. She has some of those qualities, too, but is known more as a “detail person.”
Both hold the rank of major.
“I get teased about being obsessive compulsive,” Tina Dunham said. “That’s really not quite true. But I tend to follow up on details and I give oversight to programming and staff support and that kind of thing. Dave is the big picture kind of guy. … I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone who doesn’t like him and I can be just a tad more firm. So it’s based on strengths and preferences.”
Above all else, they teach faith.
“I lead them to the Scriptures and encourage them to not lose faith,” he explained. “God knows every person’s state, every person’s position in life, every person’s pain and every person’s hope. And God intends to walk with his people through the valleys as he does on the mountaintops, and although God may not be able to give 50,000 people a job because human nature is as it is and the world functions as it does, but God is constant, but one thing a person can count on without question is God’s love and God’s tender care to their soul. Their body may perish and indeed it will perish by some means. … But their soul is an important part of their being.”
Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com.