Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers Howard Edwards and Jeff Peters responding to survivors of 2011 Alabama tornadoes.

Believers often ask in Disaster Relief, “Why do I have to go through training to serve as a disaster relief volunteer?  Why can’t I just go help people?”

Preparation is important in any area of ministry as it enables us to be more effective as we seek to be used by God to reach or minister to others.  The wisdom writer in Ecclesiastes 10:10 declared, “If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength, but wisdom brings success.”  Preparing the edge by sharpening the blade will enable the tool to be more effective, just as training helps believers to serve more effectively in response to the survivors of disasters.  Through your gifts to the Cooperative Program, the Kentucky Baptist Convention is able to provide training in disaster relief that prepares Kentucky Baptists to be ready to serve in positive and effective ways during times of disaster.

Top Ten Reasons to Be Trained:

1. Training prepares us in our understanding of disasters and the needs that arise in times of disaster.
2. Training enables us  to respond in appropriate and effective ways in times of disaster.
3. Training prepares us to understand our role as part of a disaster team.
4. Training enables us to sharpen our abilities to be most effective as we serve, in order to be an asset not a hindrance in the response.
5. Training helps us to understand hazards and safety concerns in disaster areas.
6. Training prepares us to understand in a deeper way some of the trauma of disaster victims that we might be able to offer appropriate compassion.
7. Training prepares the heart for ministry by increasing awareness of the need and different opportunities to minister.
8. Training prepares the hands to be ready to serve effectively.
9. Training prepares the head by giving knowledge to increase effectiveness.
10. But the greatest reason to train is that God deserves our very best in all that we do and to achieve the best requires discipline, effort, and knowledge. Trainings are an opportunity to grow as Believers so that when God calls we are ready.

Several years ago, there was a popular commercial that showed a man preparing to do surgery when all begin to realize that perhaps he is not up to the task.  The man’s response to their concern was “I may not be a doctor, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”  I cannot answer for you, but I really do not want that man doing surgery on me.  And yet, sometimes we are that way when it comes to ministry.  Hey, I am not really prepared to minister to you, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Disasters will come.  So let me encourage, be prepared to serve by being trained.  Victims deserve that.  Other disaster workers deserve that.  But most of all, our God deserves that!

Click here for upcoming Disaster Relief Training Events

A Haitian brother and sister ministered to by a Kentucky Baptist medical missions team after the quake.

Thursday, January 12 marks the second anniversary of the earthquake that rocked the tiny island home of Haiti. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake left over a million people homeless and 230,000 dead as the violent vibrations crumbled a nation. Southern Baptist volunteers rushed to Haiti to provide medical care, clean water, food, and spiritual hope. Homes were assessed and Chaplains shared the love of Christ. Demolition teams cleared away rubble and construction volunteers began building homes that continues even today.

Kentucky Baptists were a significant part of this response to the people of Haiti. Kentucky Baptists gave over $641,000 for relief aid, almost 10,000 Buckets of Hope filled with much needed food, and sent over 28 disaster relief, medical, and rebuild teams as we rushed to the aid of a hurting people. The lasting legacy of this effort is that 2800 new homes were built by Baptists and Haitians through the “Rebuild Haiti” project, an orphanage is being constructed, over 150, 000 professions of faith were recorded by Haitian pastors and disaster relief volunteers, over 71 new churches were planted in areas where Kentucky Baptists served, and the light of Christ was ignited in a land that had long been covered in darkness.

This effort would not have been possible without Kentucky Baptists commitment to the Great Commission that is demonstrated through their gifts to the Cooperative Program and our special mission offerings. This commitment that supports ministries like Disaster Relief through our Kentucky Baptist Convention was the springboard for this Kingdom effort and enables us to be ready to respond when disasters strike.

There is approaching a day when we will stand before our Lord and we as Kentucky Baptists will give an account of what we did in Haiti. On that great day, I believe we will hear:

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?’

“And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)

Kentucky Baptists answering the call to “Go” for His sake.

Here’s a great testimony from, Bill Johnson, one of our Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers about his return trip from serving flood victims in Minot, North Dakota, recently. It’s well worth the read:

GOD Answers Prayers

When we were getting ready to leave Minot North Dakota on that Saturday morning after a 2 week stint ministering to the people flooded out of their homes, we were concerned about the trip home for a few reasons.  First off, it is a 1380 mile trip and we had tire problems on the trip up and while we were there, and still had a couple of tire issues.  Mostly though we were concerned because the turbocharger on my truck was about to go out, the truck was smoking excessively, and fluid from a leak in the transfer case was blowing from under the truck onto the trailer and back of the truck.  So when we had prayer that morning, we asked specifically for God to keep these issues from being a thorn to us.

After a few hours into the road trip I heard a “POP” but didn’t feel anything different in the driving.  I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the interstate and sure enough we had a flat.  But not just a flat, the entire side wall had blown out!  After the four people in the truck got out and the van with eight others caught up with us and pulled over, we changed the tire and continued on to Fargo, ND.  After 12 hours on the road we stopped for the night in Black River Falls WI. without any further problems.

My truck and trailer with the four of us left out that morning (after a circle of prayer) about a half hour before the van, and took a different route to avoid the Chicago traffic.  Things were going good—not much traffic, no vehicle problems, and after  9 hours on the road we were just west of Indianapolis and felt like we were on the home stretch(only 300+ miles to go)!   At 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon on interstate 74 forty miles from a major city my dashboard computer said “BATTERY NOT CHARGING”.  OK,  I thought maybe the alternator quit working, but I’ll pull over and check.  Well, I could barely pull the steering wheel to the right to pull off…ut oh, this is not good!  When Lew(Cook) and I raised the hood to look, the fan belt was gone.  We looked down in the engine compartment and sure enough, there is was, wrapped very tightly around…everything!

We were about 300 yards from an exit marked Jamestown which was about ½ mile off the exit.  We struggled to pull in behind the only building with signs of life, a one pump service station/convenient store on one corner of a crossroad with a two way..not a four way.. stop.  Without a specialized serpentine belt to run the fan, power steering, AC, alternator, and a few other integral components , AND an idler pulley, we weren’t moving!  Lew and I fanned out to canvas the “town” to see if we could find  someone to help.  I was told about a gentleman who might be able to help, but they didn’t know how to reach him, but his name was Rock.  We found  a small Baptist Church ½ block away which was open, with a car in the lot with the door open.  Good sign!  After several trips around and through the church calling out for someone to answer, a small friendly lady emerged from somewhere and asked what we needed.  After we explained our predicament to her, she said we should find Rock; he could help.  She said “he may scare you a little at first with his strange look, long hair, and rough demeanor, but he was a good guy and a good mechanic”, and she told us where he lived.  Great!  Now we’re getting somewhere.

WRONG!  When I went to Rock’s house, which was right next to where we were parked, and knocked, a young teenage boy answered and informed me that Rock could indeed help us, but he wasn’t home right now, nor did he know when he would return and he didn’t have a cell phone and couldn’t be reached.  Back to square one.    So the four of us were standing around commiserating about our miss-fortune  and  thinking about spending  the night in Jamestown…NO MOTELS!

LETS PRAY!  We formed a circle behind the trailer next to the street and Prayed, “ Lord, You know where we are and You know what we need.   You know why we are here now and what You want us to do.  We trust You and have Faith that You will take care of us.  Amen.”   We stood there for about 3-4 minutes, then Lew and I started to the street corner to knock on doors when a man(Bruce) pulled up and asked if we needed some help. “ Yes we do,”  and as we started to list the problems he said “you need (you guessed it)…Rock!”   After explaining that situation , Bruce told us he needed to go home first, but after taking the needed information he went to the next nearest town about 20 mile away to get the parts.

When Bruce returned with the right pully and a belt that was not quite the right size, but close, we proceeded to try to put the parts on.  The pulley went on without a hitch, but the belt, with Bruce under the truck and Lew and me under the hood, just wouldn’t quite fit.  Along comes Adam with his family and asks if we need any help.  Now Lew and I are “senior citizens” and Bruce is flat on his back under the truck and Adam is 20 something and looks like a college football linebacker, so naturally I said “not really…BUT if you want to”.  Bruce bumped his head gettin out from under the truck and Lew fell off the fender getting to Adam to tell him I wasn’t quite right sometimes and we really could use some more help.

About this time Donna decided she couldn’t help under the hood and God put it on her heart to walk around town and pray for the houses and the people in them.  This is how she met George.  George is an elderly man living by himself who had been having a yard sale and was just covering up his table when Donna walked up.  He reminded her of her dad who had passed away a couple of years earlier.  The two talked ( mostly George), and struck up an immediate friendship.   As Bruce, Adam, Lew, Bonnie, and myself strained to try to make the belt fit, Donna and George walked over to the truck.  George said that if he knew how to get in touch with David(he owns the parts store on the other corner) we could probably get the right belt from him; but he didn’t know how to reach him.  Well, George and I started talking and walking…around the corner of the convenience store when a car pulls up to park in front of the only restaurant in town and George says rather matter of factly, “That’s David”.

After talking to David and explaining our plight, he graciously opened his store even though his family is waiting to have dinner with him.  He checks the inventory of belts and sadly says he doesn’t have that particular belt…but he could take another that is wider and trim it down to make it work!   When he is finished trimming the belt and I ask him what I owe, a voice(Bruce) from behind me says “to put it on his tab”.  I told him I really didn’t expect him to do that, but  he reiterated that “it is already taken care of.”  (He has already bought one belt and the pully after making a 40 mile round trip to 3 different parts stores).

Bruce, Lew, George, and me take the new belt back over to the truck where Adam is still struggling to force the other  belt to fit(not working).  Bruce and Adam quickly get the right belt threaded on and in place while David who has walked over with his family checks it out to make sure the belt fit.  Adam’s family has also walked back down with the baby in the stroller to join us along with a deacon of the New Hope Baptist Church, who offered to put us up for the night in the church.  Bruce had also been in touch with his church which offered us their church for the night as well.  Isn’t GOD great!

Now it gets really GOOD!  We thanked everybody for everything they had done, offered to pay and was denied.  They stated that after all we had been doing for the past two weeks to help others, this was something that they could do to be a part of that.  Adam had confided to Donna while we were over at David’s store that he didn’t think anyone ever helped each other or thought of others anymore and this was such a great example to him.  Once again we circled up for prayer, but instead of four(have you kept count), we had, Bruce, Adam with daughter and mother, George, David  with wife and daughter,  the Pastor plus our four…13 total!  We gave out Bibles, planted seeds, and rejoiced in the Lord that Sunday evening in a small out of the way town in rural Indiana!  We didn’t know why we were there…..But GOD did!  We all found the ROCK we can count on….to get in touch with Him, Pray…… He’s always there!

Bill Johnson

Blue Hat

Unit Leader KY RC 004 C/M

Check out this Kentucky Baptist Convention podcast featuring Ian Sterling, a disaster relief volunteer, who came to Christ through the ministry of a KBC disaster relief team seven years ago. Sterling, of Las Vegas, Nev., was working with the American Red Cross during its response to Hurricane Ivan in Bay Minette, Ala., when he came into contact with the Kentucky team. He said he knew these folks were not just providing a “response” but a “ministry.” He realized that the volunteers had something he was missing and his conversations with these Christians led to his own decision to accept Christ as his Savior.

Ever since then, he has served as a Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer himself. It’s a great example of how God multiplies our gifts. Kentucky Baptists gave through the Cooperative Program to make possible the disaster relief ministry. Ian was reached with the gospel and now reaches others through his own testimony, his home church’s ministry and through disaster relief ministry.

What goes around really does come around!

–Robert Reeves

Larry & Elaine Koch on American Samoa

Kentuckians Larry and Elaine Koch are now on their way back home after serving for the past three months as coordinators for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams working in American Samoa to help the people there recover from a devastating earthquake-generated tsunami that swept the island last September. Larry is retired as disaster relief associate for the KBC and Elaine, a nurse, is a seasoned disaster relief volunteer. The couple coordinated volunteer teams from Southern Baptist state conventions for the North American Mission Board.

Even though the Kochs are coming home, the work goes on. They turn over the coordinating role to Clara and Russell Hohmann of the Utah/Idaho Baptist Convention. Here’s what Elaine had to say about their departure in a recent e-mail:

“Our time is short now, less than a week and we are facing our departure with mixed feelings. Sure, we are anxious to get home to family, friends, and church but it will be hard to say goodbye (“fa” or “fa fa” in Samoan) to so many who have endeared themselves to us. The heat and humidity have been real tests and that is one thing we will not miss, but God has made it possible for us to endure. We go home to new challenges and to serve through Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief, Kentucky Changers, our church and other opportunities as well. Our prayer is that somehow we have touched some life in such a way that God will be honored, some soul saved, or some believer challenged to walk closer to Him.”

As of March 31, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers have contributed 1,526 volunteer days to American Samoa and have seen 19 professions of faith on the small island.

Thank you, Larry and Elaine, for a job well done!

To see a photo album of the Kochs’ time on American Samoa, visit the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/kybaptist.

– Robert Reeves

I mentioned in the last post that I would be sharing video from the current Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief mission to Haiti. Take a look at this powerful testimony from one of our Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief chaplains who has been in Haiti this week as he shares about ministering to Haitian pastors.

The chaplain in the video is Alan Dodson, the pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Lexington. The Kentucky medical and chaplaincy/assessment teams are scheduled to arrive home tonight.

Click here if the device on which you’re reading this post doesn’t show the embedded video or if you want to download it to use in your church.

– Robert Reeves

It’s looking like Kentucky Baptists will send more than 12,000 Buckets of Hope to Haiti as part of the SBC-wide effort to provide practical aid to the people devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake. The goal here in Kentucky was to collect 10,000 buckets so our people have been especially generous.

The video on this page shows students at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville preparing thousands of the buckets for transport to Miami where they will go by ship to Haiti. (Click here if the device you’re using doesn’t embed the video into the post.)

Just getting the buckets to Haiti has been quite a testimony of cooperation. In most cases, the buckets went originally to one of our Baptist churches, then on to an association office serving as a cluster point and then finally to Louisville. In Louisville, the students here are putting the buckets on wooden pallets, shrinkwrapping the pallets and then loading those pallets onto trucks for the long ride south. Handling the buckets is hard physical work and much appreciation is due to Bob Perkins and the entire team at Southern that has been coordinating this labor. Kentucky Baptist disaster relief workers are also helping with this part of the project.

Once the buckets arrive in Haiti, they will still have to be transported to secure locations from which distribution can be managed. My understanding is that the actual distribution will primarily be accomplished through the Haitian Baptist churches which already have the experience in handling this kind of distribution in a controlled, fair and compassionate way.

The Buckets of Hope will be extremely valuable when they arrive in Haiti. Kentucky currently has had both medical and chaplain/assessment teams in Haiti this week (working in Port-au-Prince and Mirabalais) and the stories that are coming back continue to be heartbreaking. The needs of the country before the quake were already desperate but are even more difficult now.

I just watched video footage earlier today (that I’ll have up in the next couple of days) of one of our pastors describing the physical and emotional exhaustion of some of the Haitian pastors who are almost literally serving as shepherds as they go out seeking food and water to meet the physical needs of their flock. Almost all are dealing with deep personal grief after having lost loved ones and most are still living under makeshift tents. The approach of the rainy season has our doctors worried about the public health impact from unrecovered bodies still buried in rubble from the quake.

Yet, our God is at work! People are coming to Christ by the thousands and even voodoo priests are coming to the Lord during this difficult time. And our disaster relief teams continue to talk about the resiliency of the Haitian people and the admiration they have for them.

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and for those who are ministering there. Be praying now as well for each family that the Buckets of Hope will be helping. May the Lord use these staples to provide physical and spiritual sustenance!

– Robert Reeves

Disaster Relief Team Member Billy Hobbs of Arizona drives rebar into concrete to strengthen walls at a house in Fagasa, American Samoa.

With all of the focus on Haiti since the tragic earthquake that struck there on Jan. 12, it’s easy to forget that Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is also working right now in American Samoa to help the people there recover from a devastating earthquake-generated tsunami that swept the island last September. The needs in American Samoa are great, however, and Baptists have a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel there by being there for the people during this difficult time when they are feeling a bit forgotten by the world.

Kentucky Baptists have sent two of our very best disaster relief volunteers — Larry and Elaine Koch — to the island to serve as coordinators for all Southern Baptist work through April. Larry is retired as disaster relief associate for the KBC and Elaine, a nurse, is a seasoned disaster relief volunteer. The couple is coordinating volunteer teams from Southern Baptist state conventions for the North American Mission Board and assessing the remaining needs of the area.

Click on the map to enlarge.

Thus far, the work in American Samoa has been relatively slow. The American Samoan government limits the actual number of volunteers that are allowed to go to the island at a given time and financial resources are lacking as well. The people of American Samoa are generally very poor.

“It is possible that people (in the United States) consider this as an island paradise and may think the people here are rich which is definitely not so,” Elaine reported in a recent e-mail. “Fortunately bananas, coconut, avocados and papayas grow in the yards so that, along with rice, makes up most of the food.  They do also eat a lot of taro.  They seem to just roll with the punches.”

Please be in prayer for the people of American Samoa, for Elaine and Larry Koch, and for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams that will go to the island. With the current difficulty in getting traditional disaster relief teams into Haiti, it might be that some disaster relief teams could consider plans to work in American Samoa until access in Haiti becomes greater.

Because of the distance, teams probably need to plan for at least a two week trip. A team from Kentucky is set to arrive on Feb. 28.

Gifts directed to the work in American Samoa are also needed at this time and can be made through either the North American Mission Board or the Kentucky Baptist Convention.