Teams of South Carolina Baptist volunteers will be heading to Peru over the course of the next eight weeks in response to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that reduced multiple villages into mounds of rubble Aug. 15.
Cliff Satterwhite of the South Carolina Baptist Convention (center, green shirt) distributes food in Los Olivos, Peru, where Southern Baptist relief workers estimate that all 1,200 residents are homeless because of the earthquake.“We are excited about volunteers multiplying efforts to distribute basic necessities with those who have lost their homes,” said International Mission Board missionary Katie Holder from Pickens. “Missionaries are ministering to thousands of displaced people, so people to help with that is a necessity.
“As volunteers work side by side with nationals in helping clean up the debris from their homes or rebuilding, relationships will be formed that will lead to opportunities to share the gospel,” said Holder. She and her husband Boots, a former McCall Royal Ambassador camper, currently serve in Lima and have been working with McCall Camp staff for the past six years.
In Ica, a community of about 50,000 people about five hours south of Lima, a very active Baptist church was destroyed. “Part of a school that was next door fell onto the one-story church building, knocking down the roof and walls,” reported Cliff Satterwhite, director of South Carolina Baptists’ Disaster Relief ministry.
“One of our goals will be to rebuild that church,” said Satterwhite, who served on an International Mission Board assessment team that recently returned from Peru.
Eddie Fulmer, a contractor from Bethel Baptist Church, Prosperity, led another team to Ica last week to size up building materials and volunteer skills that will be needed for the project. The four-member team also assisted missionaries and nationals in constructing 10 temporary homes.
Missionary Debbie Brinkley and a Peruvian national listen to children telling their story about the earthquake.“We can build temporary homes for people to live in for about $100 each,” Satterwhite explained. “It’s a thatched home that is put together, kind of like a shed that we might have in our backyard. It’s not big, but it provides shelter.”
South Carolina Baptists’ Disaster Relief ministry initially allocated $1,000 for 10 homes, “but that’s going to be a drop in the bucket compared with the 40,000 people who have been left homeless,” said Satterwhite. So more funds will be coming soon.
Medical personnel will be an important part of the volunteer efforts, as they minister to children with various illnesses, according to Holder. A nurse on the first team from South Carolina also reported an immediate need for prenatal vitamins for women “because there are so many people out in villages who are not eating right.”
Volunteers will also be distributing food and plastic tarps to cover roofs. Satterwhite helped unload about 32 tons of food to feed people in multiple villages. The food was supplied through Southern Baptists’ World Hunger Fund.
“Driving to the village, we passed 10 to 12 pockets of people, and children held up signs that said, ‘Help us! We’re hungry!’ ” Satterwhite recalled. “But you just can’t stop every place you go by, although you want to. They are so desperate.”
In the next few weeks, South Carolina Baptists may be asked to help sponsor family food boxes, similar to the ones they sent to Honduras. “We are going to let people know the cost for each of the items needed in each box. Then groups – like a Sunday school class or RAs or GAs – can send money for items directly to mission workers in Peru so they can purchase these items,” he explained.
Volunteers also will be doing evangelism, distributing Spanish gospel tracts and Bibles.
“The Ica area is an open harvest field,” noted Holder. “After a few weeks of ministry, there are six new Bible studies meeting, one in a soccer field.
“The caring just shows through the volunteers’ actions, so that people want to know how to have that peace and joy,” she added. “As more volunteers come, the opportunities for church planting will explode.
“It is great to have volunteers in ministry whose hearts are focused on people coming to Christ.”
Observing the graciousness and kindness of the people, Satterwhite agreed, “Other teams that have gone have returned saying the children love hearing Bible stories and adults love being given Bibles. It’s a country where we’ve had Southern Baptist missionaries working for a number of years. They have lots of believers, but still people are hungry for the Word.
“All we are, are just earthen vessels trying to get God’s word out to these hurting people in the way of love and response,” he said.
For more information about volunteering and food boxes, contact South Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief at 1-800-723-7242, ext. 5500.