Major Anne Westmoreland: Following the Lord’s Leading
The USA Southern Territory has become home for Major Anne Westmoreland —as much a home even as her native Denmark & Greenland Territory. A fourth-generation Salvationist, her parents remain faithful soldiers of the Copenhagen Temple Corps, and her grandparents and great-grandparents spent their lives in service to the Lord as Salvation Army officers.
But America and Denmark are not the only countries where this godly woman has left her indelible mark on His children. Beginning in Bangladesh, where she gave two years of ministry as a single young adult, Major Anne has since served as an officer in four countries (USA, Denmark, Republic of Georgia, and Ukraine), picking up a few languages along the way in which she is now either fluent (as in her native Danish and in the English she learned in grade school) or semi-fluent.
Her college years were spent attending N. Zahles Seminarium (now a part of University College Capital) in Copenhagen, where she earned the equivalent of a Bachelor of Education degree, with a double focus on mathematics and music. She then put that knowledge into practice teaching school for grades one through ten. While in Bangladesh, one of her many duties was to come alongside teachers at the school for girls and blind boys at the Army’s Children’s Home, as well as teaching English Second Language classes for female Salvation Army officers. She was also heavily involved in the Sally Ann Project, which is today known as “Others.”
“Lt. Colonels Bo and Birgitte Brekke began Sally Ann in the mid-1990s while they were Bangladesh Command leaders,” Major Anne explains. “The program teaches women to make hand-crafted items, creating trade experience among women in poverty and commercial sexual exploitation. This also provides jobs to support a family. The Salvation Army there helps women learn a trade and guarantees that the artisans are paid for the products that they made.”
The Colonels Brekke saw in young Anne, then still a soldier and volunteer, the potential for an ideal Salvation Army officer. But Anne had already placed restrictions on this idea, among them her desire to be married someday while in that officership scenario.
“I knew my life would be spent for Jesus, but I just didn’t know how,” she says. Then a spiritual milepost was passed while attending the 1997 International Youth Congress in South Africa. The theme scripture was drawn from Revelation 3:8: "I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept My word and have not denied My name.” That verse left a powerful impression upon young Anne.
But even as the Holy Spirit gently removed all but one of the restrictions she placed on entering officership over the late 1990s, she finally surrendered the final obstacle during the Millennial Congress held in Atlanta in 2000.
“At one of the invitations following a sermon, the chorus ‘All That I Am’ was being sung,” Major Anne recalls. She responded and fully surrendered her all, every last reservation, at the altar there in the Georgia World Congress Center. “The next day, a young man came up to me introducing himself as Lieutenant Bobby Westmoreland.”
Bobby later confessed to Anne that he had noticed her while she was parading with the Bangladesh Command delegation in the March of Witness parade through downtown Atlanta. Being rather tall (her word), and looking smart in her Bangladeshi Salvationist uniform, Anne cut quite a statuesque figure and obviously made an impression on young Westmoreland.
The couple fell in love and eventually married, with Anne receiving training at the William Booth College in London as a member of the Believers session of cadets (2001-2003).
The Westmorelands’ dual career spanned several corps, divisional, and territorial appointments as well as overseas service (Anne’s longheld desire) in Great Britain, Denmark, the Republic of Georgia, and Ukraine.
During a near three-year territorial appointment in Denmark, Major Anne was blessed with the rare opportunity for any officer to soldier alongside her parents at their home corps of Copenhagen Temple. She was even able to sing in the Temple Songsters with her parents in her native Danish!
Her present appointment is in the Southern Territory (now her second home) as territorial ministries to women secretary. Under Territorial President of Women’s Ministries Commissioner Donna Igleheart’s leadership, Major Anne loves ministering to the women of the Southland.
Talking with Major Anne, one comes away impressed by her humility. She is a servant leader, focusing like a laser on whatever her present appointment may be and the immense responsibilities that come with each one. She gives little thought to her next appointment but wants to continue as “a life-long learner,” so that she can spend her life extending God’s Kingdom in any way He sees fit.
“I never dreamed my life would take the turns it has, nor that I would serve Jesus and His people in such faraway places,” she admits.
She is also blessed by a double portion of gratitude for her two homes (Denmark and the USA South).
“So much was invested in me at the Copenhagen Temple when I was a girl by my parents, my grandparents, officers, and leaders—leaving me with a profound depth of gratitude for my people there,” she shares.
“But when we came back to the [USA] South—to my new home—I have a peace and [another] depth of gratitude with a desire to pour into the people of this territory the same investment that was given to me.”
