Retired Officer Major Ella of Bethesda Aged Care Centre

For Bethesda Aged Care Centre (“Bethesda”) resident, Major Ella, her experience with The Salvation Army and the Centre itself certainly has come full circle. Major Ella is a retired Salvation Army Officer who was once the Centre Manager at Bethesda, the Centre she now resides in. Her experience with The Salvation Army, however, started at just 9 years of age. 

Major Ella first went to The Salvation Army upon losing her family home in a cyclone when she was 9, before her next-door neighbours took her family in for the week that followed. Whilst Major Ella was only a young child at the time, she is still struck by The Salvation Army’s kindness. “Well, they were always kind and nice to us,” she says of her first impression. 

In fact, Major Ella said her decision to become a Salvation Officer was because of the Officers at the Corps where she grew up and their kindness that she herself experienced. As well as this Major Ella notes she experienced a call from the Lord to become a Salvation Army Officer. “The most helpful thing was the Lord calling me at the Youth Councils,” she explains.   

Some of her fondest memories as a Salvation Army Officer include her two-year service in Papua New Guinea and her work with the local woman and in training them. “I was the nurse, and The Salvation Army ran a little hospital, and I was in charge of that. I loved that – I love nursing. We trained the local girls, and they did the government exams and they passed, and they were nurse aids and nursing in other little Centres like ours.” 

Major Ella’s experience in Aged Care extends to working at one of The Salvation Army’s other sites in Arncliffe, New South Wales, at Macquarie Lodge Aged Care Centre, where she worked as the Centre Manager. Major Ella says that Macquarie Lodge is a “beautiful place” and suited her well as she “always loved working with the elderly.”  

After her time at Macquarie Lodge, Major Ella was then the Centre Manager at Bethesda, where she has been living as a resident for the last three years. When reflecting on her favourite thing about living at Bethesda she cheekily tells that it is not having “to cook or do the washing” and that it feels like home because of “the people she knows” who she lives and resides with at the Centre.  

When considering her amazing life story, Major Ella was kind enough to share her advice to the next generations. “If God calls you to do something, you go ahead, and do it because he gives you grace and strength.”