Salvation Story

The Name’s Bond…Alton Bond

“I’m shaken, but not stirred!” by Major Frank Duracher

He is a hero in every sense of the word. Not for saving the world, but for his tireless efforts to save one soul at a time. Bent on a mission to evangelize, it can certainly be said that he has a “license to save.”

But not always so. Because of the terrible racism he faced growing up, Alton’s heart was burdened with deep resentment against white people. However, he found victory in Jesus and now serves as corps sergeant-major for the Aurora Corps in Colorado.

“When I was a kid, I saw a cross burned by the Ku Klux Klan in the front yard of my grandmother’s home in Tennessee. I was convinced that God didn’t love black people, and for years I was blinded with an intense hatred for whites,” he admits.

A few years later, the family moved to Saginaw, Michigan, where Alton reasoned the racial tension would lessen the further north they lived.

“But it was even worse there,” Alton says, adding that his animus grew accordingly.

The football coach at Alton’s high school, noticing his large size, approached him about joining the football team.

“I told him I wasn’t interested in playing alongside all those white boys, but the coach then told me I could tackle them with abandon. That idea appealed to me, and I became very aggressive in tackling anyone white on the field. I got pretty good, too!”

After a stint in the U.S. Army, first as a combat soldier and then as a cook, he took a job in Colorado Springs after his discharge.

That was when a seismic shift in his attitude towards God and his fellow man took place.

“A guy was working there who kept inviting me to his church. He was white but seemed nice enough. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested in going to his white church worshipping a God who loved only whites.”

During that time, this fellow slowly became “the only white I came to trust. In fact, at one point, I asked him to loan me money. He said, ‘How much do you need?’ and I said, ‘about $5,000.’ To my surprise, he loaned me the money and I promised him to pay him back $100 a week, which I did until I got it down to about $3500.”

But the insistent invitations to church kept coming.

“One day he said to me, ‘If you come to my church this Sunday, you don’t have to pay me back any more of the money!’”

Alton thought that might be a good deal but agreed to go “just to shut him up.” The only condition Alton told his coworker was, “Just don’t let anyone call me ‘brother’—I won’t stand for that!”

That Sunday, Alton made every excuse as to why he should not go but finally went ahead… “I thought I’d just sit on the back row and get out as soon as I could.”

God was at work, Alton now realizes: “The guest speaker that morning was a former Grand Wizard of the KKK! He preached about how Christ delivered him from an overwhelming hatred of black people. Everything he said seemed to be a mirror image of my life attitude!”

Alton realized that, if God could save this former KKK member, “He could forgive me as well, and take all this hatred and bitterness from me. I knew I had to go down to the altar, but I was frozen in place. For the first time, I spoke to God and told Him that if He were real, He could show it by helping me go down that aisle!”

Moments later, Alton knelt at the Mercy Seat and wept bitter tears. The fellow that invited him was now kneeling next to him in prayer. Years of hatred melted away.

“I became convinced that the all-encompassing love of God included everyone.”

That was March 22, 1981—the date Alton Bond was born again. Days later, his newfound brother in Christ gifted him with a “Thompson Chain-Reference Bible.” His love of God’s Word led to his ordination as a minister of the Gospel.

Eventually, he unexpectedly met the lady who would become his wife: Elizabeth, a woman of God whose evangelical drive to recruit souls for Jesus is just as strong as Alton’s.

“As a matter of fact,” Alton muses, “most of our dates together only concerned soul-winning.” They have been married now for over 40 years. The number of souls they have won into the Kingdom cannot be numbered.

A job opportunity brought the family to Aurora, Colorado. Alton’s encounter with The Salvation Army came when his grandchildren were enrolled in the daycare center program run by the Aurora Corps. The corps officer, learning Alton’s experience as a cook, approached him about providing meals for the program and other corps ministries.

“The captain offered to pay me, but I offered to do it on a volunteer basis if the fees for my grandkids to be in the daycare could be paid, instead,” Alton says.

Alton and his family began attending corps activities and outreach. He was enrolled as a soldier in 2012 and later that year was installed as CSM by (then) Intermountain Divisional Commander Lt. Colonel Daniel Starrett. As a fitting example of the evangelical outreach of the Aurora Corps, Alton co-directed a gigantic open-air event in the parking lot of a former supermarket that shut its doors. Prayers, evangelism and food giveaways saw 109 neighbors prayed with and —more importantly—12 individuals came to Christ.

In 2023, Major Richard Pease (then Denver Metro coordinator) made Alton the chaplain for Salvation Army Social Services in the Mile-High City.

CSM/Chaplain Alton Bond is a far cry from the hate-filled man he used to be. It is all due to the redemptive and atoning work of Christ.

He smiles when confronted by the similarity of his last name with that of the cinema secret agent. Sure, he has been through a lot, but because of his rebirth in Christ, he tells them, “I’m shaken, but not stirred!” 

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