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A major calling

| October 27, 2018 1:00 AM

By DEVIN WEEKS

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — After the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001, the Salvation Army was on the front lines.

"We fed people and we offered help to people in the middle of the street," Salvation Army Maj. Don Gilger said Thursday, seated at a table in his Coeur d'Alene Kroc Center office with his wife, Maj. Ronda Gilger.

Don recounted when they worked in a blow-up tent surrounded by rubble in the devastation of Ground Zero less than a month after the attack.

"We were feeding all the people out there and washing their feet," he said. "That’s the difference that we're all about."

Don and Ronda, married 40 years, were dedicated to each other not long before they dedicated their lives to the mission of the Salvation Army.

They were in Spokane, where Don was raised, when they found each other — and their calling.

"Being Christians helped us in a lot of ways. We already had a foundation and we knew that we were getting married forever and that we’d found the right person,” Don said. "We were very lucky early on."

Ronda said it was like stepping into a different culture when they discovered the Salvation Army during a church service.

“There was a band; it was like the circus,” she recalled. “People were tapping their feet, similar to what you’d hear at a New Year’s Rose Parade or something. There they are, 'Onward Christian Soldiers.'"

They fell in love with the mission, Ronda said, "the mission of Jesus telling us in practical ways to love one another, to help our neighbor, not just to say the words and come together in the four walls.

"And that just really appealed to us, this idea of giving people a hand," she said. "It seemed to be our vision."

The Gilgers, who have four daughters, started their Salvation Army journey in Spokane and followed their vision across the United States and to more than 30 countries around the world.

They arrived in North Idaho just a few weeks ago to take over for Majs. Ben and JoAnn Markham, who retired earlier this year after coming to Coeur d’Alene in 2011. The Gilgers are now serving as the senior pastors at the Kroc Center following three years on the ground in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova in eastern Europe.

The Gilgers have 35 years of mission experience and a worldview augmented by their many travels abroad. In Moldova they provided humanitarian and spiritual aid, helped women find their voices and worked to improve the lives of Moldovan citizens while learning lessons from those they helped.

"You sit together with your employees in the morning and you just talk about teamwork and what we’re doing together and how important that is, and let’s all have coffee,” Ronda said. "I think Americans miss that relationship a little bit. For me coming back (to the U.S.), I want to bring forward what they have to teach us about relationships and about family and passion. They have such a passion for the mission."

Don said their goal in North Idaho is to do something different with their leadership at the Kroc Center.

“I love being creative, I love being inspired by others. I love weaving my faith into everything that I do,” Ronda said. “I’m always looking for inspiration from others. Right now I’m at a part of being here that I’m doing a lot of listening and a lot of learning. I want to look and measure what’s going on with what has gone on.”

They intend to collaborate with other nonprofits to fill the needs in the community when they most need to be filled, like holding food drives when food bank cupboards are bare in March. They want to “find ways to save lives in a unique and totally different way,” Don said.

"Really, what is the vision of the Kroc Center that has been here for 10 years?" he asked. "We just want to stand on the shoulders of those officers who have been here before us and just make it better, a little bit better, every day."