When Marika Wallis arrived in Gunnedah in September 2019, she was a single mother about to take on her first leadership role in the Salvation Army.
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Now, more than two years later, she is married to a Salvos major and packing her bags to move to Darwin.
Leftenant Haupt (nee Wallis) and her husband Major Zane Haupt received the news of their transfer in September and at first were "in shock" but quickly came to terms with it, saying "we signed up for this".
The officers will lead their last church service on January 9 and then farewell the community, leaving local soldiers Peter and Sally Hall to step into their place.
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Leftenant Haupt will be the core officer for Darwin and Palmerston, while Major Haupt will be learning on the run as the strategic emergency and disaster manager for the Northern Territory.
Major Haupt said it would be "a steep learning curve" after an "unsettling" year of change. In just 12 months, he has transferred from Inverell to Tamworth, then Tamworth to Gunnedah, and now he is preparing for a foreign role on the other side of Australia.
But he'll go where he is called.
"I needed to trust that this was the right move, and trust that God was going to work through this, and then peace came," Major Haupt said.
Major Haupt met Leftenant Haupt in Tamworth at a Salvos orientation event in January 2020 when he had not long taken up a position in Inverell.
Over the coming months, they struck up a friendship through Salvos events and tied the knot in March this year.
Leftenant Haupt said they shared "life experience" and were really good friends.
"We both believe people are the most important thing ... it's our compassion for people, people on the edge, because we've both been on the edge. We don't like injustice," she said.
"We've advocated for Gunnedah the whole time we've been here ... we put their needs before ours. We strive for that.
"It's practical faith for us."
When Leftenant Haupt first arrived, the shire was in drought, then Covid-19 kicked in, and in the past few weeks, the community has been drastically impacted by flooding.
"It's a hard gig. People don't see it; the job is 24/7," she said.
"We've been invested; I've been invested. I signed a covenant with God in the Salvation Army that I would commit my life to this, and that's what I do.
"If there's a need, I go. I just do it, and I don't question it. I just get on with the job I've been called to do."
The Covid-19 pandemic has made the past 18 months "a hard slog in a different way", but it hasn't changed the Haupts' core focus.
"The biggest thing - if I looked back at the two years - is the fact that we invest in people's lives beyond the circumstances, and that's what makes the difference. That's community to me," Leftenant Haupt said.
The officers said it had been "a privilege" to be part of the community and they had built good relationships.
"You journey with people ... you naturally integrate into people's lives," Leftenant Haupt said.
We invest in people's lives beyond the circumstances, and that's what makes the difference.
- Leftenant Marika Haupt
She said there was "a sense of sadness" and "mixed emotions" about leaving because locals had "become family".
But they believe their "season" has now come to an end.
"I just felt a sense of peace and I felt that my time here had finished. We just sensed it," Leftenant Haupt said.
"We've done what we've been called to do in this context, and now it's time for us to let it go and let the next people come along and do what needs to be done next."
