creation of a Salvation Army halfway house for released prisoners.

Mr. Ming, who received a heart transplant last year, said he has now devoted his life to serving God as the Salvation Army's divisional coordinator for Social Services.

The former executive officer for the National Alcohol and Drug Administration (NADA) is looking now at reorganising, expanding and adding to Salvation Army services, including the planned halfway house.

"I'm feeling in a lot more direct contact with persons who are disadvantaged, whose life experiences have treated them a little more harshly than others,'' said Mr. Ming of his new job. "It's a greater fulfilment working with them, a great spiritual fulfilment.

"There is an enormous amount of need in Bermuda,'' Mr. Ming warned. Need exists in families, among young people, the homeless and the disadvantaged. He said these groups needed help to develop spiritually and emotionally.

Mr. Ming took the job last September after a heart transplant operation forced him to retire from his job at NADA.

"It was a health decision,'' he said,. But he added that he has been out almost every night before Christmas, leading a Salvation Army band in carolling with his children.

Having been involved in the Salvation Army and the church for years he said he was already inclining in that direction before he was offered this job.

His big project is soon to be cooperating with Government and other parts of the Christian community over a half-way house for prisoners.

The Salvation Army will also be working with the Community Services Committee of St. Brendan's more closely, providing more counselling services, life skills training and spiritual counselling to those in the Salvation Army's emergency shelter.

Government has not lost him altogether, he said.

"Mansfield Brock (chairman of the National Drugs Commission) has already twisted my arm to do something,'' he said.

Next year, he will help make a survey of the Island's church organisations to gauge the drug-fighting potential there.

Mr. Ming thanked people in Bermuda for their enormous support and practical help during his illness. Even today, he said, people come up to him in the street to tell him they are still praying for him.

Although reluctant to comment on Government drug policy, Mr. Ming said the drugs problem was a crisis.

"We don't have a whole lot of time to waste on this Island,'' he said.

"We've got to put our shoulders to the wheel and get together. We all have our parts to do.''