Salvation Army Appoints New San Bernardino Corps Leaders
PHOTO CAPTION: Majors Isaias (left) and Adelma Braga.
“We are delighted to have been given this posting and we are already working on making this Corps an even more effective provider of services here.”
REDLANDS, CALIF.—The Salvation Army has appointed new leaders, Majors Isaias and Adelma Braga, to manage the San Bernardino/Redlands Corps and tasked them with both consolidating and expanding services to the greater San Bernardino community.
“We are delighted to have been given this posting,” says Major Isaias Braga, “and we are working on making this Corps an even more effective provider of services.” They have already combined the formerly separate San Bernardino and Redlands administrations into a single unit, located at 838 Alta St., Redlands.
This dynamic husband and wife team are originally from Brazil and have been instrumental in making good things happen everywhere that the Salvation Army has sent them. They met in 1976 at a Bible study. “Isaias was my first date,” says Adelma, “and we got married in 1980.”
The couple has three grown children: Isaias, Jr., who is 40 and an economist in Colorado; Felipe, 39, who is a Property Project Coordinator for the Salvation Army’s Northwest Seattle Corps; and daughter Aline, 36, also a Salvation Army officer, whose husband served in the U.S. Army as staff sergeant for 13 years (including two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan and Korea), now on leave from the Salvation Army in order to care for her ill mother-in-law. Isaias and Aline each have two children and Felipe, one.
The Bragas moved to the USA in 1992, joined The Salvation Army in 1993 and spent 16 years with the organization, where from initial home meetings, they founded the first-ever Portuguese-speaking ministry, starting at the Torrance Corps, CA and now in operation at Redondo Beach Corps, CA.
The Salvation Army next invited them to take over a senior residential facility in Redondo Beach in 2005. That operation hosted 50 seniors and served 3,500 meals each week to residents and community members with a Meals on Wheels Program.
In 2012 the Bragas relocated to Colorado, first in Broomfield and then in Fort Collins for a total of seven years, followed by a two-year assignment to Renton, Washington. They then were appointed to their homeland, Brazil, where the Salvation Army gave Isaias the job of National Officer for Government Relations in Brasília, the Capital of Brazil.
PHOTO CAPTION: Majors Isaias (left) and Adelma Braga flank Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.
Having served in the Brazilian Army from 1977 to 1987, mustering out as a First Infantry Lieutenant, Isaias knew the Brazilian system and during his Salvation Army posting, established close relationships with the country’s President and other prominent Brazilian leaders.
Unfortunately, Adelma was diagnosed with breast cancer, so the couple had to return from overseas for her treatment on a short medical leave. Happily, Adelma is now in remission and working alongside Isaias as they confront the challenge of finding a way to combine the Corps’ operations in four different locations into one, while also expanding the capacities of all their social services programs in order to serve an ever-increasing demand for Salvation Army services.
Major Braga’s team has identified a five-acre site in San Bernardino that could meet the Corps’ needs and is now in negotiations to secure the land, as well as the necessary funding for a building to house the church and all its service units.
“We will be able to use the proceeds from selling our existing lands and buildings,” says Major Braga, “but we will need additional resources in order to be able to build a facility large enough to accommodate all our needs.”
The Salvation Army opened in San Bernardino in 1887 and has been helping people in need since then. Its programs have proven effective in dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, hunger and coping with life’s many challenges. To find out more about the Salvation Army’s many community services and how you can get assistance or contribute to its mission, visit their website at https://sanbernardino.salvationarmy.org/
About the Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is an evangelical part of the Universal Christian Church. One of the largest charitable and international service organizations in the world, The Salvation Army has been in existence since 1865 and in San Bernardino since 1887, supporting those in need without discrimination. To donate go to: www.salvationarmyusa.org
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