Posted on 09/16/2008 6:56:46 PM PDT by comps4spice
HOUSTON (BP)--About 1,500 Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers are setting up units in Texas and were expected to be operational by the end of the day Tuesday to serve victims of Hurricane Ike. The primary focus of the efforts currently is food preparation, with 39 kitchen units on site in the state.
The American Red Cross has asked Southern Baptists to be ready to prepare up to 375,000 hot meals a day, while the Salvation Army has requested 125,000 meals a day, bringing the total to 500,000.
In addition to the 39 feeding units, more than 40 other types of Southern Baptist disaster relief units are arriving in the devastated areas as well. These include shower, laundry, communications and chainsaw units.
"Right now with so many people without power, priority is preparing hot meals for the victims," said Mickey Caison, operations director at the North American Mission Board's disaster operations center in Alpharetta, Ga. "As the days and weeks unfold and the power returns, we will shift to a focus on recovery." Those efforts will include tree removal, tarping damaged roofs and removing mud and other debris from flooded homes.
Communities pounded by Hurricane Ike last weekend continue to experience a major infrastructure crisis of water, sewage, electricity and fuel supplies. Even gas stations that have fuel are unable to sell it without power. Residents, unable to heat or cool food, are limited to canned items and what they obtain from charitable groups.
"These kinds of issues are the reason we have trained our units to go into an area and be self-sustaining," Caison said. "We have our own fuel. We bring in large tanks of water and have the ability to purify water. We bring generators."
Caison said many of the kitchen units will serve members of the community as individuals drive up in their cars to get meals. Other meals will be distributed by the American Red Cross as they transport them to serving sites or take them into individual neighborhoods.
Five Southern Baptist units remain stationed at evacuation shelters throughout Texas. Caison said the number of evacuees has remained steady as some return to their homes but others show up after running out of money for hotels. Plans to require additional evacuations from Galveston may soon add to the numbers at evacuation centers.
"In the midst of all of this we have the continued ministry of our chaplains," Caison said. "We need to continue to pray that they will have opportunity to meet spiritual needs while our volunteers minister to physical needs."
Baptist relief efforts continue in Louisiana as well, with 81 units still serving there. Caison said feeding operations are scaling back in that state, but chainsaw and flood recovery activities remain a high priority.
The “radical fundamental” Baptists also have hundreds of chainsaw gangs to clear downed trees and multiple 18 wheel shower trailers for disaster relief. They seek no credit and the media takes little note of their service. These are not only good people, they are God’s people!
As a Baptist, I can inform you that good, wholesome food in generous quantities is a Sacrament in our Faith.
Well, not really....but you’d think so :)
BTTT
Thank you for pinging me to this. It makes me want to jump up and run.
The other trained volunteer in my church was able to go and called me last night to get the name of the guy he was supposed to call to sign up. I felt productive just because I had the information right there at my fingertips to give him.
Made me feel a bit better about not getting to go.
Y’all are up way too late.
bump
This is exactly right. Every single penny designated as “Disaster Relief” goes to disaster relief. We have people who coordinate the disaster relief that are paid, however their paycheck comes from our Cooperative Program. In other words, Southern Baptist churches all pitch in and pay their salaries.
Without the incredible outpouring of love and support from dozens of church groups many people would not have survived the initial months after Hurricane Katrina.
GOD BLESS THIS GOOD PEOPLE, PLEASE!
Welcome to FRee Republic.
I have a niece in North Huston. She’s gonna be without power for at least 2 weeks. Hope everything works out well for you.
I went through Katrina. Not fun.
I saw one of these trailers parked here in Iowa City during the flood. The Baptists came in to feed the flood victims and workers. I had no idea they did such things, especially on such a grand scale. Good people doing good work.
There’s nothing like the Wednesday night Fellowship Dinner at a Southern Baptist church. Mmmmm....
When there is any kind of natural disaster, I donate to the Southern Baptists and/or the Salvation Army. They don’t waste anything.
I’ll tell you how it started...it’s a really cool story! Back in the late sixties, when Hurricane Beulah came through, I think...some Texas Southern Baptist men took some buddy burners and started cooking for the folks. The Buddy Burners are little cookers made from coffee cans that our Royal Ambassadors make and one of the Texas men worked at an RA camp and had a bunch of them. (Royal Ambassadors is kinda set up like boy scouts, except it’s focus is Southern Baptist Missions).
That was the very first effort.
Both my boys have made buddy burners and I am looking at them now. They mean a lot to me because of this story.
Anyway, this is the report for 2007...
In 2007, 17,989 trained Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers from 42 state conventions prepared 1,039,989 meals, repaired 1,238 homes/buildings, completed 1,357 mud-outs of flood debris, removed storm debris from 8,565 yards, purified 206,511 gallons of water, cared for 823 children, provided 64,587 showers, and washed and dried 4,547 loads of laundry.
* More than 9,493 new Disaster Relief volunteers were trained in 2007 to 70,410 the number of trained volunteers listed on state rosters.
* 157 new mobile units were added to the DR fleet in 2007.
* 6,257 gospel presentations with 508 professions of faith and 124 other decisions were reported.
* There are currently 2,377 trained DR chaplains on the state rosters. In 2007, are reported 9,186 chaplain interventions took place.
That’s some record of service. You should be proud!
It feels good to do what you feel the Lord is leading you to do. I helped a while back when NE Oklahoma flooded. (Due to my kids being still rather young, I don’t go out of the state.) I was part of an assembly line of meal preparation. My job was to put utensils in a meal “to go” box and shut down the lid, then slide it over to another volunteer, who then stacked it in a box for Red Cross workers to take out into the community to distribute.
I did that as fast as I could and was the happiest person on Earth.
They have this routine down pat- they don’t need a commumnity organizer.
I was up watching South Pacific...
I was at work (new schedule).
How’s your head?
Still attached, apparently. ;-)
I go back to the doc tomorrow morning.
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