By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist
Johnny Tucker gets choked up when he thinks about Pastor Tomas, or Pastor Max, or any of the other church leaders he’s known over the years in Guatemala.
When Volcan del Fuego — or Volcano of Fire — erupted in Escuintla, Guatemala, June 3, it killed at least 75 people, with the death toll still rising.
Twenty-three of those were Pastor Max’s family members.
“It breaks my heart,” said Tucker, a longtime Alabama Baptist pastor and evangelist who founded International Missions Association 42 years ago. “The thing that makes it so bad is that they’ve lost their church buildings, their homes, their family members and the ability to even provide for their families.”
If they go back home to the base of the volcano, farmland is covered in concrete-like lava. “And how do you even go back when you’ve lost 23 family members?” Tucker asked.
When Fuego erupted, Tucker was 14 miles away preaching at a Sunday church service on a different mountain. When he and his missions team stepped outside, they thought it was drizzling. Then they noticed the black dots all over their clothes.
“The ash had gone 37,000 feet in the air and was dropping all over us,” he said.
They had gone there originally to build houses at the base of that mountain — a job they finished well. But they scrambled to help as much as they could at the base of Fuego too. Tucker collected money through Facebook and was able to assist the pastors he knew, like Pastor Max and Pastor Tomas.
Sitting in the aftermath
He gets emotional when he thinks about sitting with Pastor Tomas and his three children and the rest of his family — a precious group of believers who had no idea what to do next.
“They were safe — we rented a facility for them and gave them plenty of money to survive on,” Tucker said. “But he doesn’t know how to go back, when to go back or what their next step should be.”
Thanks to the generosity of friends and ministry partners, Tucker was able to leave funds in the hands of trusted, established ministries such as Grace Ministries, an organization run from Grand Bay.
And Southern Baptist partner Baptist Global Response is assessing damage and providing relief to victims.
But even with that in mind, Tucker is still overwhelmed with the vast destruction and human need.
“We gave everything we had and did everything we could,” he said. “And we still look back and say, ‘Lord, we had nothing to offer in the face of such great need.’”
To donate to victims of the Volcan del Fuego in Guatemala, visit www.gobgr.org/donate.
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