In two parts of the world where a “storm” has passed, Baptists are digging in to deal with needs left in the wake.
In the Black Sea country of Georgia, Baptists are working to help an estimated 50,000 people driven from their homes by fighting. And in Florida, disaster relief volunteers are cleaning up damage from Tropical Storm Fay and a tornado spawned by the storm.
In Georgia, Russian troops have pulled back from the city of Gori and a Southern Baptist overseas relief team has entered the city to assess the need for humanitarian assistance.
“The city of Gori is in overall pretty decent condition,” reported one member of the team. “The destruction was mostly to army bases and government buildings. It seems like most homes were spared, although there were entire blocks of apartments bombed. You can see where all of the glass was gone and fires burned on the top floors.”
The refugee crisis was created by fighting in South Ossetia between Georgian and Russian troops and allied militias in the region over. South Ossetia is a breakaway region of Georgia with close ties to Russia.
Russian troops and regional paramilitaries took control of Gori, a strategic city in central Georgia, despite the announcement of a truce that should have sent those forces back to their earlier positions. News reports indicated the city was bombed and looted before those forces moved toward Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, and dug into positions 30 miles from the capital.
The team was able to get to the church building that will be its command center for relief operations and saw that a building 100 yards away had been destroyed when the city was bombed. Team members were told several people died in the explosion.
They were able to hold an impromptu meeting with the regional governor of Gori on the street in the city center, the team member reported.
“We were asked to meet needs that are not being met by major humanitarian organizations,” he said. “We are going to buy and deliver things such as body soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, toothbrushes and other toiletries for several thousand people.”
The team has begun remodeling a building shell made available to it by a local Baptist partner. The building, which is strategically located, will be able to feed 400 people inside and more outside, the team reported. It also will serve as housing for volunteers and eventually will provide classrooms and work space for community development projects.
“The refugees from surrounding villages whose houses were destroyed will need to be fed from this center,” the team member said. “They are expecting as many as 20,000 long-term refugees here. People from the surrounding villages — Georgian nationals living in South Ossetia — have been burned out and banished from their homes. It is doubtful they will ever be able to return to their villages.”
A seven-member team of disaster relief specialists from Texas Baptist Men was scheduled to leave for Georgia Aug. 27, according to Jim Brown, U.S. director of Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist international relief and development organization. A similar team from the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma was set to follow soon after.
Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of Baptist World Alliance, also sent 40,000 euros (about $58,920) to support the relief efforts of Baptists in Georgia.
Meanwhile in Florida, Baptist disaster relief volunteers from throughout central Florida descended into Barefoot Bay Aug. 21, the site of a tornado spawned by Fay Aug. 19.
Rain was still falling and debris from 50 damaged mobile homes and tree limbs lay strewn across the Brevard County community, which was one of the areas where Fay dumped up to 30 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, prompting President Bush to declare a state of emergency for Florida.
Terry Ryan, a coordinator for the Florida Baptist Convention’s disaster relief operation, reported that 29 certified volunteers from four Baptist associations assisted at nine of the damaged mobile homes.
The volunteers, dressed in disaster relief yellow and blue windbreakers, worked in the wind and rain to place tarps on roofs, remove aluminum debris and cut up and remove trees and limbs felled by Fay’s strong winds. (BP, BGR, BWA)
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