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How do you say the word envoy?
 ENVOYS CESAR and Yolonda Miani (center) enroll Junior Soldiers the the Redwood City Temple Corps in California. Also pictured are Lt. Colonel Betty Love (second from left and Lt. Colonel Richard Love (right) Golden State divisional leaders. |
“The Golden State Division is fortunate to have envoys serving as corps officers in 12 corps,” said Divisional Commander Lt. Colonel Richard Love. “There is ethnic diversity within this group which includes Hispanic, Laotian and Hmong and even wider diversity within the division with the addition of Chinese, Korean, Asian-American, Afro-American and anglo congregations While most of the envoys have not had the benefit of the College for Officer Training, all bring great enthusiasm enhanced by their own individual gifting for service. They are a great asset.”
According to Love, Envoys Cesar and Yolanda Miani, in-charge of the Redwood City, Calif., Temple Corps, are a good example of the valuable service envoys provide.
The Miani’s became acquainted with The Salvation Army when Cesar was the pastor of an Hispanic congregation that was looking for a location to rent for their church services. Upon discovering The Salvation Army, the Miani’s not only became soldiers themselves, but brought most of his congregation, who also became soldiers.
This corps has enrolled some 50 senior soldiers, and 40 junior soldiers over the past three years and have commissioned local officers serving in key leadership capacities.
Cesar Miani, is originally from Peru. Yolanda is from Mexico. The Miani’s have two children.
The Temple Corps is actively implementing their corps vision, and the Lord is obviously blessing their efforts. The corps has a sustained growth over the past several years. In addition to their evangelistic outreach, Envoy Miani has an active discipleship and teaching ministry to equip his people for ministry and service. Their social service outreach into their community is made possible by the stewardship of their soldiers who are encouraged to bring canned food and other food items for distribution to those in need. The corps ranks in the top five corps in the division in the amount of total cartridges.
An emerging program has recently been initiated by a donation of several computers. The corps has established a computer center where youth may come and complete homework and/or learn computer usage. The center is also providing computer instruction and training for adults needing retraining for employment. Grants from the Soroptimist Club of Redwood City as well as other donations were crucial in developing this program.
They now provide a second Sunday worship service because the morning worship service is full to capacity. The 5:00 p.m. service is well attended by those who cannot attend on Sunday morning and also accommodates visitors.
The music program is an essential part of the worship services and there is a children’s music group providing instruction and group activity.
A discipleship training program is held each Saturday night–one result of this is there are now four soldiers who are trained to preach and lead worship services.