When you think about Christmas, what picture comes to mind? The Christ child? What else, a Christmas tree? One more. The big family dinner?

Is it ever a man or woman, standing by a hanging, outdoor cooking pot, ringing a bell?

The Christ child story is 2,008 years old although never celebrated until 200 years after his birth, then in the Middle East. Saint Nicholas was born in Myra, on the coast of Turkey in the 4th century. After some of the old priest’s relics were stolen from Turkey and enshrined in Bari, Italy, the story picked up momentum.

“Christ Mass,” began being celebrated in Holland, then England and Germany.

The Salvation Army is not that old, but does go back to 1865 when the Rev. William Booth and his wife, Kathryn, went out into the slums of London seeking food, clothing and shelter for the needy.

This fostered the bell ringing, a custom now promoted in more than 100 countries. In Orangeburg, more than 50 volunteers stand by cooking pots, ringing bells and collecting money.

Tomeker Williams, captain of the Orangeburg Salvation Army Corps, organizes the event. She comes from a background somewhat similar to the Booth’s London: New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, a section destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

n A ghetto life

Williams describes her father as a here-today-gone-tomorrow man, her mother as a drug dealer.

“My earliest memories are of moving from one house to another, frequently, and hating it. I yearned to escape ghetto life and live decently. Many days when I reached home from school, mother would be in the kitchen with friends, packaging marijuana.

“My grandmother, a kind woman, often let me spend a few nights with her, but she had little income. Reaching 15, I began going to the local Salvation Army Sunday School with a friend, then attending church services. This was the beginning of my new life.”

The couple who ran the mission were SA Captain Joe and Joann Mure’, who counseled and guided Tomeker and other teenagers lacking good parental raising. She loved her new “different world,” and eventually went to live with the Mure’ family. That summer they arranged for her to work at a Salvation Army Camp. The next year they oversaw her registration at Dillard University, New Orleans. They also helped her obtain a two-year student loan.

Two years later, Jefferson State College in Birmingham kindled a strong interest in teaching kindergarten, but more opportunities came. In August 2000, she accepted an offer for officer training at the Evangeline Booth School in Atlanta. Her first ministry was in tiny McComb, Miss., which offered the opportunity to run all its teaching and charities.

n Realizing a mistake

“Although I appreciated all these chances, my unfortunate past still demoralized me,” she says. “I had stayed in the background for so long trying to hide family humiliations that living up to such challenges became overwhelming.

“Some solace came with a friendship with a local man and while we never married, I eventually bore his child. In time, his non-commitment to God and Christianity caused us to separate. For two years I left my work.

“Gradually, I realized this mistake, reassuring myself that God had called me to be a minister. I went to the Charlotte Corps to work until reinstated into the ministry in 2007. Last year I came to Orangeburg as captain.”

“It’s quite a job,” she says. “General Booth lived until 1912, witnessing SA’s widespread growth but never seeing anything like the Army of today with its 2,000 missions and mass distributions of vouchers for food and clothes at discount stores.

“Incidentally, we require that recipients register for these vouchers in order to keep records of services. We still have a few people we don’t feel are completely honest about their welfare eligibility. In the past two decades, federal funds and United Way grants have enabled us to offer more services. We still help people burned out of their homes with rent funds and furnishings.

“Now into our busiest season of the year, we sponsor, among others, programs at the Church on Nottingham Street, the Stuff-A-Bus toy collections from the public and the Angel Tree Christmas campaign gifts for children.”

Today, a happy and motivated young woman, Tomeker speaks with genuine enthusiasm about her work.

“Some of the many people we help stay with us and take part. Others, move into other local churches or to other towns. Occasionally, some will come back, visit the mission and express their undying appreciation for what we provided.

“It’s wonderful. I absolutely love what I’m doing.”

n Retired editor and public relations executive Thomas Langford’s column is titled “Some Edisto stories.” Let him know if you have stories to share: 803-534-2097.

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