More than 250 disaster relief volunteers had responded to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., as of Sept. 17. Volunteers had prepared nearly 44,000 meals for search and rescue workers. Sixteen volunteer chaplains had also arrived in New York to provide grief counseling in various locations, including area morgues.
All five mobile kitchen units activated thus far are now operational, preparing meals for distribution by the American Red Cross. Four are in the New York area, while a North Carolina unit has been preparing meals on the south parking lot of the Pentagon in Washington since the morning of Sept. 12.
Baptist efforts followed closely on the heels of the Salvation Army, which served more than 100,000 meals to emergency workers and victims at the sites of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11.
Alabama Baptists prepared to send four men to New York Sept. 15 to help with cleanup efforts at “ground zero,” the area where the towers stood. The group was put on hold at the last minute, according to Tommy Puckett, director of men’s ministries for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
“We were put on hold for security reasons,” Puckett said, noting a need for better screening of the teams before they arrive. “We currently have another team on alert and ready to go next week (Sept. 24–30) if they are approved,” he added.
SBOM Executive Director Rick Lance reported that Alabama Baptists sent an initial contribution of $30,000 to support ongoing disaster relief efforts. “$20,000 (was) forwarded to the New York State Convention to be used in the Manhattan area and $10,000 (was) sent to the D.C. Convention for relief ministries in the nation’s capitol,” Lance said. “These monies (were) allocated from the Impact Northeast portion of the missions partnerships account because the (state’s) disaster relief fund is at an unprecedented low point.”
Lance said funds coming in will continue to be forwarded to the New York Convention and if needed to the D.C. Convention.
Southern Baptist crews will be the major supplier of American Red Cross meals for rescue and recovery workers in New York, according to Joel Phillips. Phillips is based at the North American Missions Board’s (NAMB) Volunteer Mobilization Action Center, located at the agency’s offices in Alpharetta, Ga.
A total of eight disaster relief units have been dispatched to New York, with an additional three units on standby or alert status. Two teams of volunteer chaplains from South Carolina and Oklahoma were to begin working in Manhattan Sept. 15, meeting needs for counseling and pastoral care. Alabama chaplains were also alerted to possible standby status as of Sept. 17.
The South Carolina team consists of 11 chaplains. Bob Vickers, director of chaplaincy for NAMB, said the Oklahoma team of chaplains will be especially helpful because of experience gained in crisis counseling following the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“My hope is that we’re going to be able to take them, with their expertise, down closer to the site,” Vickers said.
“We would like to be able to establish kind of a presence … and hopefully these chaplains will be just instantly aware of what the greater needs down there may be and how they could most effectively interface with the people.”
Mickey Caison, national coordinator for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, said by telephone from Manhattan that the scene was unlike any he had experienced before.
“The leadership teams that I am used to working with are very sedate, very concerned about how to accomplish the job in the environment we are in right now,” Caison said. “We are having to scramble to put together a plan and strategy to accomplish our mission in the absence of the resources that we normally have. It will be quite a challenge to make that happen.”
Additional ministry efforts by Southern Baptists include an attempt by the Baptist Convention of New York to locate a linguist to work with the American Red Cross in communicating with other nationalities, according to J.B. Graham, executive director of the convention.
Graham said a prayer ministry team in Oklahoma also is preparing handwritten notes of encouragement for the relief workers, which would be distributed through the chaplains.
“We also have had e-mails and condolences from foreign Baptist conventions such as Austria, New South Wales and Singapore, all assuring us of their prayers,” Graham added.
Both Caison and Vickers described a population that still wanders around largely in shock, with what Vickers called a “1,000-mile stare.”
“There is an aimlessness, a listlessness about how to approach everything,” Vickers said. “A lot of heads shaking in disbelief. You get the idea that they are trying to continue on with life, yet realizing a real impossibility of putting this behind them right now.” (BP, Jennifer Rash contributed)
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