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Crabson Strives to Turn Lives Around; Lt. Col. William Crabson has made it is his life''s work to bring spiritual hope and practical help to the poor and addicted through outreach with the Salvation Army.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

Few sights at Christmas are more familiar to Americans young and old than the Salvation Army bell-ringer and kettle, spreading holiday cheer and calling on shoppers for charity at the time of year when giving should be a byword. Founded in industrial England in 1878 by William Booth, better known as "General Booth," few, if any, organizations can rival the Salvation Army's work among the poor and hopeless. Booth, who lived from 1829-1912, spoke of "the submerged tenth," which he defined as "men, women and children, a vast despairing multitude in a condition nominally free, but really enslaved." Its founder saw the duty of this organization as "a permanent mission to the poor."

The Salvation Army's commander in the National Capital area is Lt. Col. William Crabson, 61, who began visiting a Salvation Army neighborhood center in his native Baltimore more than 40 years ago and has made the Salvation Army his life's work.

Crabson met his wife, LaVerne, likewise a Salvation Army careerist, at a weekend retreat for people considering the Salvation Army as a career. Among many other shared experiences, they later served together on the faculty of the Salvation College for Officer Training in Atlanta, a school he describes as "a combination of Bible college and business school." In fact he likes to call Salvation Army activists "sanctified entrepreneurs," emphasizing the blend of intense practicality and serious spirituality that makes the Salvation Army unique. As a commander, he has overseen such projects as Turning Point Center and Harbor Lights in Washington that bring hope to the very poor and the addicted.

Insight interviewed Crabson at his Washington office where he emphasizes the practical side of his work, explaining: "Part of what I have to do is create the future for the Salvation Army, and I surround myself with people who believe in that future and who believe that it is going to happen." His rich Christian faith manifests itself as he continues, "When I look at a young person who may come from a single-parent home, who may have dropped out of school and gotten into trouble with the law and who, with God's grace, is turned around, then I feel very privileged."

Insight: How did you come to devote your life to work in the Salvation Army?

Lt. Col. William Crabson: I was raised in Baltimore, but for a brief time my family thought they could find a better life in California. I was 15 when the whole family - my four sisters, my mother and father, grandmother and grandfather and their one remaining daughter - went to California. My mother and sisters went by...