For several weeks now, dozens of Alabama Baptists have been dreaming of nothing but green beans, mashed potatoes, rolls, meat — and cooking it all over again.
And again.
State Baptist volunteers prepared thousands of meals for evacuees from Hurricane Gustav in early September, and now they’re back on the road in the wake of Hurricane Ike cooking tens of thousands more.
“They’re tired, but they’ve got a good attitude and they want to serve,” said Tommy Puckett, state disaster relief director.
As soon as they hit the ground in Texas City, Texas, Sept. 16, Alabamians — along with a Baptist team from Florida and the Salvation Army — served 18,000 meals the first day.
An Alabama Baptist shower unit and communications unit also set up there with the feeding teams, and a chain-saw team from Baldwin Baptist Association began cleanup and recovery efforts there as well.
They were all among about 1,500 Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers who set up units in Texas to serve victims of 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.
“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.
At press time, communities pounded by Ike Sept. 13 continued to experience a major infrastructure crisis of water, sewage, electricity and fuel supplies. Even gas stations that had fuel were unable to sell it without power.
Residents, unable to heat or cool food, were being 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 served members of the community as individuals drove up in their cars to get meals. Other meals were distributed by the American Red Cross as they transported them to serving sites or take them into individual neighborhoods.
“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.”
Other Baptist groups were also helping in Texas, such as Baptist Child and Family Services, a Baptist General Convention of Texas-related agency, which entered the strike zone as part of the state’s 500-vehicle convoy making up Texas Task Force Ike. The institution will lead medical and health services for the strike zone of Hurricane Ike.
Baptist relief efforts continue in Louisiana as well, with 81 units serving there. Caison said feeding operations are scaling back in that state, but chain-saw and flood recovery activities remain a high priority.
At press time, Puckett said two Alabama Baptist assessment teams had gone to Sulphur, La., in preparation to send two mudout teams there. Two other mudout teams and a shower unit were also preparing to head to First Baptist Church, Houma, La., to set up at the church and work in the area south of town.
They were set to leave by Sept. 20 at the earliest, he said.
“Everyone is facing the challenge of being tired, but we always have reasons to say ‘glory’ and the whole camp can shout,” Puckett said.
The Baldwin Association chain-saw team, for example, had seen three people saved in the first two days they were on site working, Puckett said.
While Americans continue to help areas in the country hurting from Hurricane Ike, Baptist agencies also are responding to massive devastation across the Caribbean islands, battered by three successive tropical cyclones since Aug. 26.
Currently most are sending monetary donations to hard-hit islands devastated by flooding. Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), has designated an initial $10,000.
American Baptist International Ministries, the overseas missionary arm of the American Baptist Churches USA, has provided almost $15,000 in emergency grants to its Caribbean partners. The agency has sent a $3,000 grant to Jamaica, $3,500 to the Dominican Republic and $5,000 to Haiti. At least another $3,000 in emergency aid is planned for the region.
According to BWA reports, hurricane-caused damage is estimated at $20 billion in the area.
Ike was particularly destructive in Cuba, where it made two landfalls as a strong hurricane.
“The destruction of houses is really terrible, some houses have fallen, and a great quantity has lost roofs totally or partially,” said Manuel Delgado, vice president of the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba.
Caribbean nations weathered Hurricane Gustav Aug. 26, Hurricane Hanna Sept. 1 and Hurricane Ike Sept. 5.
Gustav affected Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Cuba and the United States. Hanna struck Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos Islands and the United States.
Hurricane Ike caused further damage in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos. All told, the three storms have caused hundreds of deaths and left tens of thousands homeless.
According to news reports, Gustav killed at least 94 people in the Caribbean, with Hanna killing at least 26 in Haiti.
At least four died in Cuba as a result of Ike.
Haiti has been among the hardest hit, suffering four storms within three weeks, with more than 550 reported dead — many due to flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains. News sources indicate 80 percent of homes in the Turks and Caicos Islands have been destroyed.
Looking eastward across the Atlantic, Baptists also are still serving meals to refugees in Georgia in the wake of fighting between Georgians and Russian troops.
As Russian tanks pulled back from a ridge just three miles away, a team of Texas Baptist volunteers moved into Gori, a key city in the Black Sea country of Georgia, and set up a feeding operation in late August for thousands of families displaced from their homes by fighting.
Now those volunteers have turned the operation over to teams from Kentucky and Oklahoma after serving almost 14,000 hot meals to people who had nothing else to eat.
Southern Baptists are also working to provide food and necessary articles to Christians in India’s Orissa state who have been suffering persecution during the past weeks.
Thousands of houses have been burned, hundreds of believers have been beaten and Christian leaders in the area say more than 100 lives have been lost as a result of a spate of violence at the hands of Hindu extremists.
In all, nearly 50,000 believers in Orissa are homeless, having lost most, if not all, of their positions, according to Baptist Global Response (BGR), a Southern Baptist international relief and development organization.
“Southern Baptist hunger and relief funds are providing food and necessary articles to as many of these believers as possible,” said Francis Horton, BGR area director for South Asia. “At the moment, however, it is very difficult to get into the area where the need is greatest. Field partners are working through local believers to get supplies into those areas as best they can.”
Southern Baptist funds are also going to help victims of flooding in India’s Bihar state.
Horton said floods hit the state every year, but this year part of the Koshi River’s bank blew out, diverting the entire river down a 200-year-old channel.
Because the water came in so fast, it caught area residents by surprise. As a result, millions of people have been cut off from supplies, Horton explained.
The Indian government and military are on the scene and providing some relief in the form of rice and shelter. So far, $45,510 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund and $16,449 from the General Relief Fund has been appropriated to meet some of these needs, according to BGR. (Compiled from wire services)
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