Day 70: Thanking God for the gift of hospitality (1943)

Join with Salvationists of the Wales Division for day 70 of 150 days of prayer.

• ‘God, may those who want to know you be very happy. Everyone who loves you because you have saved them should never stop saying, “Praise God”’ (Psalm 70:4, EasyEnglish Bible). 

1943

‘Born in Pontypridd, Eva Maud Walkley [née Newcombe] was but two weeks old when her father was attracted to a Salvation Army open-air meeting… What he saw and heard – from William Booth – intrigued him sufficiently to go indoors to the succeeding meeting… He was soundly converted… The difference in her husband’s behaviour so impressed Mrs Newcombe … [that] the two became great workers in the local corps.

‘Moving to Gloucester [with her parents] … Maud met and married. The new couple, … Brother and Sister Walkley, made their own home a centre of faith and fellowship to be shared and enjoyed by many. The visitor’s book contains over six hundred names – and every name tells a story! Gathered principally during the dark days of the Second World War, these entries represent service personnel of all kinds. Here and there can be seen unusual names – including a few prisoners of war who were drawn into the warm circle of Christian fellowship with the Walkleys. 

‘It was such work for the military personnel which commended Home League Secretary Mrs Walkley to the Army’s leaders, and in 1963 she received from the hands of General Wilfred Kitching the Order of the Founder’ (Albert Kenyon, In High Esteem).

Maud was not the first Welsh woman to receive the Army’s highest honour. In 1927 Sister Bessie Davies was admitted to the Order of the Founder ‘for voluntarily commencing and successfully leading for more than 30 years, Salvation Army corps operations in the village of Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales’ (The Salvation Army Year Book 1966).

Prayer

• Pray for the people you know who show hospitality to others, who open their homes to strangers and who glorify God in all they do and say.
• Give thanks to God for them.