After seeing pictures of devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in media reports, a Lancaster physician knew he had to help. He began calling his colleagues and friends and put together a medical team to help the victims in a matter of a few hours.
The team, formed by Lee Thomas of Covenant Baptist Church, found itself last week in Biloxi, Miss., assisting with relief efforts stationed at First Baptist Church there.
“Southern Baptists should be extremely proud of the disaster relief volunteers who are working here,” he added. “They just say, ‘Do you need help? If you need it, we’ll do it.'”
Thomas’ team, which included three doctors, two physician’s assistants, two nurses, a school teacher and a counselor, joined with a Southern Baptist feeding unit, the Salvation Army, FEMA representatives, American Red Cross and other relief organizations headquartered at the Biloxi church.
The team of medical volunteers fanned out through the surrounding community to provide mobile medical clinics. On one day, they saw about 450 people, Thomas reported.
“We’re basically seeing routine medical problems. People needing refills of their blood pressure and diabetic medicines. They don’t have medicine because it was washed away. We’re seeing some bronchitis, some cuts and bruises, but no major infectious diseases, as some had feared,” said Thomas.
His pastor Bert Welch remarked that “some really neat ‘God stuff’ has been happening” in Biloxi. “Some very unusual needs have occurred, and all of a sudden the answer was right there with them,” he said.
“This whole thing is a complete work of faith,” Thomas nodded, sharing how God has provided time and again. For example, when a Vietnamese community in need of assistance was discovered, a doctor who spoke Vietnamese had arrived earlier that day, and when the generator for the RV the doctors were using failed, a volunteer who could repair it appeared.
“I couldn’t believe it!” Thomas exclaimed. “The Lord provided someone before we even knew there was a need. That has happened repeatedly,” he said.
Thomas’ home church, Covenant Baptist, is working through Samaritan’s Purse in Charlotte to provide hygiene products, towels, wash cloths and sheets for Katrina victims. In addition, the church will hold a barbecue fund-raiser for the North American Mission Board’s disaster relief efforts and has set a goal of $35,000, said Welch. The congregation has also registered with the NAMB’s “Houses of Hope” initiative to provide temporary homes for refugees, if needed.
The church is one of hundreds across the state that have opened their doors and hearts to persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, is among many churches across the state that have sent disaster relief crews to work in Mississippi or Louisiana.
“My heart was just completely broken by the fact that there were a lot of homes just completely obliterated. The town is in complete shambles. I got to see firsthand the desperateness for food, the desperateness for gas down here. – Just massive chaos down here,” a team member reported from Columbia, Miss.
“But there is a bunch of people who are teamed together and are sharing the fact that if we put our faith and trust in the Lord that he will supply all our needs,” the relief worker added. “And God’s glory is going to be shown here,” he affirmed.
The team of volunteers from Spartanburg First was assisting the feeding unit of North Spartan Association that set up in Columbia, Miss.
Back in Spartanburg, First Baptist is serving as the headquarters for agencies assisting hurricane evacuees who have arrived in the area, reported Steve Wise, minister of single adults and missions. “If someone needs help, they come here and the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Department of Social Services, the county’s housing authority and employment services, and Medicaid are all here at the church,” he explained. “We’ve averaged helping between 20 and 30 people a day,” he said.
Some of the evacuees have family in the area, Wise added, but some were family members of those needing medical attention who were evacuated to Spartanburg-area hospitals.
Wise was excited that volunteers were able to assist a Chinese family that couldn’t speak any English. They found lodging and furnished the family with clothes. The next day, they searched the internet and located a son in California, who had no idea if the family survived. The grateful son flew the family to California.
Wise was able to arrange for a Cambodian family to attend worship at Hayne Baptist Church, which has a Cambodian outreach ministry. A member who spoke Cantonese even drove them there.
Spartanburg First is responsible for providing food for the displaced persons. Church members have collected food and canned goods and set up a grocery store of sorts, where the displaced persons can “go down the aisles and pick out what they like,” Wise said. Volunteers from First Baptist Church, Inman, and other area churches are assisting, he noted.
In addition, Spartanburg First has “adopted” eight New Orleans Baptist Seminary students, hiring them to temporary staff positions and providing housing while their school is being repaired.
Meanwhile in Columbia, First Baptist Church is serving as a food services center for persons and families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who were being airlifted or bused into Columbia, according to Sylvia Rish, the church’s director of media ministries.
Southern Baptist disaster relief teams trained in food preparation and distribution were preparing meals for relief personnel and an estimated 2,000 evacuees that were expected to arrive. “The plan is to gear up over the next few days to feed 1,000 people three times a day,” Rish told The Baptist Courier Sept. 6. “We have been told that the other 1,000 are patients and families who will be moved as quickly as possible to hospitals and hotels.”
The meals are being prepared at First Baptist and then transported by van to temporary housing facilities throughout the city, she explained.
The list of other churches and associations involved in disaster relief efforts and offerings is voluminous, but a random sampling is representative of the overflowing compassion and caring of South Carolina Baptists:
* First Baptist Church, Mauldin, changed its staff planning retreat into a disaster relief trip to Biloxi, Miss. Pastor Gary Strickland, a member of the advisory board for the Salvation Army in Greenville, made arrangements for about 12 staff members and their spouses to help clean mud out of houses in Biloxi.
“We also will be scouting out other projects that are needed there because we have a lot of people in our church who would be willing to help with the recovery effort,” Strickland said.
While residents appreciated the team’s efforts to remove mud from homes where water had risen eight to 10 feet in some places, Strickland observed that “often what they most wanted was to be able to tell their stories, for someone to listen to them and care.”
Locally, the church was one of several Greenville area churches, including First Baptist Church, Taylors, that were providing volunteers to help with feeding evacuees at the Palmetto Expo Center in Greenville.
* Old Fort Baptist Church in Summerville is partnering with River of Life Worship Center, a Southern Baptist Church in Port Vincent, La., between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
A crew of about 25 from Old Fort took chain saws and some heavy equipment to Port Vincent last week. They also took several trailers filled with care packages, diapers, drinks, personal hygiene items, clothes and toys for kids.
“River of Life has inherited about 350 persons in a shelter around their church that they are feeding morning and night,” reported Cannon, “We’re going to help them with that shelter, and probably every day for four or five days, we’ll drive south for about an hour and cut trees, clean up debris, repair houses and minister to people.
* Fairview Baptist Church, Greer, organized a 24-member team of volunteers from Greer Association churches to serve with a feeding unit in Columbia Miss.
* Second Baptist Church, Lancaster, is planning to send a team to repair a church in New Orleans, according to pastor Jim Spencer.
* Hampton’s First Baptist Church is willing to open its doors to perhaps three to five evacuee families from New Orleans who have nothing to go back to and want to make a fresh start in South Carolina, said pastor Greg Clements.
* Twenty-one volunteers from 12 churches were part of the feeding unit from North Spartan Association that fed more than 28,135 meals over five days in Columbia, Miss., reported director of missions Ken Kirkley.
“Often our team cooks and then the Red Cross delivers the meals. On this trip we both cooked and served. We were able to see the despair on the faces of the people.
“But we were also able to see a smile and to hear the words ‘thank you’ when they received food. Just their smiles were payment enough,” said Kirkley.
* In Savannah River Association, Great Swamp and Pine Level Baptist churches offered housing to people from First Baptist Church, Pearlington, Miss.; First Baptist Church, Hilton Head Island, has offered residence to extended family members who live in disaster areas; St. Helen Baptist Church is providing housing for a Navy family from Mississippi; and The Baptist Church at Beaufort is housing some exchange students from the disaster area, according to director of missions Derris Davenport.
* Palmetto Baptist Association churches are involved in preparing care bags of toiletry items. Care bags for children include coloring books, crayons, small toys or stuffed animals, and a coupon to McDonald’s or Burger King. The association is also providing Bibles, director of missions James Ellenburg said.
* Convent Baptist Church is taking a tractor-trailer load of supplies to be distributed by a church in Baton Rouge, La.; First Calvary and Kittiwake Baptist churches were serving as drop points for churches wanting to send items, and Trinity Baptist Church offered to be a temporary housing facility for family members who were evacuated for medical attention, according to David Lee of Lexington Baptist Association.
* In Chesterfield Association, Chesterfield Baptist Church sent a truckload of supplies to St. Charles Parish in New Orleans, and the association’s disaster relief chain-saw team worked in Columbia, Miss., the week of Sept. 5, director of missions Robert Dickard reported. The association is creating a new team with a water tanker that will carry 6,500 gallons of clean water to the affected areas, and is forming a partnership with Northshore Baptist Association in Louisiana to provide assistance, Dickard noted.
* Churches in Carolina Association assisted with funding a disaster relief team from Waccamaw and Carolina associations that ministered in Columbia, Miss., according to director of missions Jim Wiley.
* In addition to sending a disaster relief crew to Columbia, Miss., Marion Baptist Association prepared 91 ministry health kits to send with the team that left Sept. 2, and planned to prepare another 100 kits to send with a team leaving Sept. 17. The association sent 400 Bibles for New Orleans Baptist Seminary students, reported Bobby and Sandra Byrd.
* In Greenville, East North Street and Lee Road Baptist churches cooperated to send a truck filled with hygiene products to the Gulf coast; Piedmont Park Baptist Church sent bottled water; and Brushy Creek Baptist Church has formed a partnership with First Baptist Church, Lacombe, La. The association’s mud-out team is working in Columbia, Miss., noted Ron Davis, director of missions.
* Laurens Baptist Association has approved the use of its assembly on Lake Greenwood as a temporary shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina for a period of three to six months. The facility can be used to house up to eight families at any given time. In addition to shelter and food these families will be provided help with connecting to the school system, health care, and job services, director of missions Shannon Long reported.