A mass-care feeding team from South Carolina has been dispatched to Talca, Chile, to serve meals in an area with a population of 30,000 to 50,000. Talca was at the epicenter of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile on Feb. 27, which destroyed southern areas of the country and rendered unstable many city structures. Other cities being served by disaster relief teams include Molina, Pen Chue, and Temuca.
Cliff Satterwhite, director, disaster relief group, SCBC, said the feeding team includes six South Carolina Baptists and is led by Steve Wise, minister of missions, First Baptist Church, Spartanburg.
“The goal of our feeding teams is to go in and teach the people there how to provide mass feeding in times of crisis like this,” Satterwhite said. “Many of the towns are not currently receiving government or military aid, and we need to teach them how to care for themselves.”
Satterwhite said the kitchen equipment will be purchased for the mass feeding and then left there for use after disaster relief teams leave.
South Carolina is the lead state convention in providing disaster relief to Chile following the earthquake. Satterwhite said state conventions work through Baptist Global Response of the International Mission Board. State conventions with disaster relief ministries are on a cycle, serving on-call as a lead convention one month and a backup another month.
“We were originally the lead state in December 2009 and a backup to California in February,” Satterwhite said. “California asked if we could take February because that state has its hands full with the mudslides out there. With two days left in February, we got the call about the earthquake in Chile.” The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention is the backup to South Carolina and is sending teams of four people to two different locations.
Satterwhite said the convention also has an assessment team in Chile, reporting daily about conditions and needs, and helping stateside leaders know which teams to send.
“Our people will be staying in churches and going with church pastors as they minister to people,” Satterwhite said. “Our second team will also be a feeding team with incident command people on that team as well.” – SCBC