As Nicholas Ferreira walked the storm-damaged neighborhoods of Arcadia, Florida, after Hurricane Ian hit in September 2022, he wondered if he would have the right words.
“As it was my first deployment, I felt inadequate about not knowing what to say and how to relate to people who had lost everything they had,” he said.
But Ferreira, a new Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief chaplain, found out quickly that God was going before him. As he walked and prayed, he heard a man calling for help.
“As I got closer, I noticed the man was shaken and terrified at what had happened during the hurricane,” Ferreira said. “As he started opening his heart to what had happened to him, he soon noticed I had a Bible in my hands.”
The man asked Ferreira if he could have it — he even offered to pay for it.
‘The Lord provided’
“I freely gave him the Bible. That man was open to the Lord,” Ferreira said. “I had the opportunity to share the gospel with him, and he professed faith in Jesus. He also said he would like to come to church that Sunday.”
Before Ferreira left, they exchanged contact information, and he learned the man needed a tarp for his roof. A little while later, Ferreira realized his team had one in the truck, so he grabbed it and went back to the man’s house.
“When he opened the door, he screamed, ‘Jesus is fast!’ That man knew the Lord had already provided for his need. He was very thankful.”
Ferreira was too.
He was experiencing for the first time what other Alabama Baptists have learned from decades of disaster relief ministry.
In September 1979 — almost exactly 43 years before Arcadia’s disaster — Hurricane Frederic pummeled Mobile with 101-mile-per-hour winds, killing four and damaging the whole area.
Hundreds of volunteers from all over Alabama came in to help clean up, bringing with them tons of bagged ice and charcoal to cook meals for the community over open pits. They were joined by groups from Tennessee and Louisiana who brought Brotherhood vans from which they could prepare and serve even more hot meals.
The effort made an impact, and it planted an idea that would grow much bigger in the years to come. If a disaster struck again in Alabama, state Baptists wanted to be prepared, and they wanted to be able to help other states too, just as they had been helped.
In 1981, with H. Mack Johnson Jr. leading the effort, they rolled out their first feeding kitchen, which could serve up to 10,000 meals a day.
‘New level’ of ministry
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said ABDR was “in an embryonic stage” at that point. Then when Tommy Puckett joined the SBOM staff and began leading the effort in 1989, “he took the ministry to a new level of development,” Lance said.
“More equipment was purchased, and many more people were trained for service,” he said.
The ministry was expanded to include more feeding units, chainsaw and flood recovery teams, laundry and shower units, chaplaincy, radio communications for when cell service was interrupted and an administrative system to run it all.
By the time Puckett retired in 2009, disaster relief ministry in Alabama “was among the pacesetters in state convention life in the Southern Baptist family.” Lance said. “He raised the bar toward excellence in this vital area of compassion ministry. His 20 years of service among us set the stage for further growth in our disaster relief efforts.”
Mel Johnson, Puckett’s successor who served in the role from 2010 to 2016, agreed.
“Our international response capabilities and involvement have grown, but I think more importantly the disaster relief network in Alabama has matured, and it has expanded significantly,” he said. “It began as Tommy Puckett led the state through purchasing additional equipment, and that equipment has opened doors for us to respond in a huge way.”
ABDR now has a sizeable fleet stored at a dedicated facility in Prattville with a classroom named in Puckett’s honor after his death in 2018.
Mark Wakefield, the current disaster relief strategist who followed Johnson in 2016, said the state’s equipment includes two feeding units, three skid steers with trailers, two shower units, three pickup trucks, two box trucks and a range of other vehicles and trailers.
But not only that, the associational teams have grown and expanded their own equipment since his time leading ABDR. The state has 68 cleanup and recovery teams from the associations, four feeding units, three bucket trucks and other heavy equipment.
Lance said all three disaster relief leaders have helped the ministry expand.
“Mel Johnson, who succeeded Tommy, built on the foundation he laid and took the ministry to a new level, and Mark Wakefield has done the same,” he said. “Without the contributions of these three state missionaries, I am not sure where we would be in our striving toward excellence in disaster relief ministries.”
Through the years, ABDR volunteers have responded after tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms, terrorist attacks, fires, tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear disasters. They’ve been called out for crises close to home like the 62 tornadoes that killed at least 240 people in Alabama in April 2011, and they’ve been called out internationally, such as the long-term recovery effort after an earthquake crippled Haiti in January 2010.
Meeting needs
Wakefield said his first introduction to disaster relief work was in 2004 when he was a deputy sheriff. He was sent by his sheriff’s office to help relieve Escambia County sheriffs after Hurricane Ivan.
“I saw disaster relief folks working at a lot of houses, and I saw them feeding people,” he said. “I got to take a shower that night because Texas Baptists had a shower unit there, and the next morning, another team served us breakfast.”
He came home and signed up to get trained as a disaster relief volunteer. His first deployment was after Hurricane Katrina the following year, and he continued serving every time he could until coming on staff with the SBOM.
“One of the reasons disaster relief is such an important ministry is we find people at very bad times in their lives and are able to provide practical help and spiritual help,” Wakefield said. “People are so grateful. I’ve heard stories of people who were hopeless, who were literally on their knees praying, ‘God, I don’t know what to do,’ and a volunteer rang their doorbell.”
He said he’s heard countless stories of hope and many stories of people coming to Christ, like the man Ferreira met in Arcadia, Florida.
Showing love
“When you love on people, it breaks down some of the barriers,” Wakefield said. “They’re open to spiritual conversations.”
He said disaster relief work also makes an impact on the volunteers.
“I see a lot of them develop a passion for ministry after they find out they can serve the Lord in very practical ways,” Wakefield said.
In need of more volunteers
He said they’re constantly in need of more volunteers to help in all the different areas of disaster relief ministry from serving food to wielding a chainsaw.
“Everybody’s called to be on mission; I’d encourage you to see if this is where the Lord is calling you,” Wakefield said. “It’s hard work and not always fun or glamorous, but it has a track record of affecting the lives of volunteers and survivors. You’ll make lifelong friends and see how God can use you.”
Johnson, who now serves as ABDR’s district 12 coordinator in addition to his role as lead mission strategist of Autauga Baptist Association, said the whole purpose of disaster relief is to share the gospel.
“That’s all a chainsaw is — an opportunity to witness to a person, and when they see we care, they want to know why we care,” he said. “I believe we’re making an eternal difference, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of something bigger.”
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