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 The computer lab at the College for Officer Training Latin America North. Right: Clothing donations used to pack computer equipment were sorted and distributed to needy children around the training college. |
The College for Officer Training of the Latin America North Territory has recently received a donation of twelve refurbished computers and monitors for the cadets’ computer lab. Lt. Colonel Janice Buchanan, secretary of the missions department at Western THQ, arranged for the donation by putting Calvary Chapel’s Cynthia Sieloff in contact with Captain Doug Danielson, training principal of the college.
Officers and cadets had been praying for resources with which to expand the lab. The twenty-three cadets have been sharing two computers and printers. Now, there are fourteen computers available for their use in the computer class and in preparing homework and Field Training assignments.
Used computers are received by the Pangea Foundation where they are gone over, repaired, configured and loaded with basic software and then donated to non-governmental organizations for use in carrying out their respective missions.
Sieloff, of the Pura Vida Coffee organization, worked to pack the computers and monitors in large duffel bags. They were padded with used clothing, some of which she purchased from Army thrift stores and some of which was donated through the Anaheim A.R.C. She personally reconditioned some of the clothing by making sewing repairs, adding trim, lace, buttons, etc.
Sieloff also arranged the transport of the computers and monitors. A mission team from the Santa Inez Presbyterian Church, traveling to Costa Rica, received the computers from her at the airport in Los Angeles, carrying them as luggage, and delivered them to Danielson at the airport in San José, Costa Rica. After they were set up, the Pangea Foundation sent two of their technicians, who were in the country, to the College for Officer Training to check the computers and load additional software that was needed.
The bags were returned to Cynthia for her use in future computer shipments that may include additional computers for Salvation Army programs in the Costa Rica Division. The clothing was sorted and folded by cadets and staff officers and distributed to needy children in the area around the training college and in the Sagrada Familia area of San José, where the Army has a corps and children’s feeding program.
In December of this year, the Latin America North Territory will commission and appoint thirteen new captains of the “Embajadores de Gracia” (Ambassadors of Grace) Session and send out ten cadets of the “Portadores de la Cruz” (Crossbearers) Session to their summer assignments. Commissioners Siegfried and Inger Clausen, the International Secretary and the Zonal Secretary for Women’s Organizations for the Americas and the Caribbean, will be present at the events. The College is expecting to receive eleven cadets in the “Creyentes” (Believers) Session in March at the Territorial Congress “Easter 2002” with the visit of General John and Commissioner Gisèle Gowans.
Captains Doug and Rhode Danielson, Western Territorial officers, were appointed to the college in August 1999, along with their children Caleb and Hannah.
The Latin America North Territory has a relationship with the Southwest Division of the Western Territory through the “Heart Connections” Program. The territory has work in nine countries: Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Venezuela.