
Pastor Donnie Bannister, left, of New Beginning Baptist Church, Cumberland Gap, and members of the Cumberland Gap Baptist Association disaster relief team pray for homeowner Trevor Roberts in Talbott who the team assisted.
I joined the staff of the Baptist and Reflector in 1988. A year later, Hurricane Hugo struck the coast of South Carolina, causing billions of dollars of damage. It is one of the worst hurricanes in the history of the state and at the time was the most costly hurricane ever in the Atlantic Ocean, according to weather.com.
In November of 1989, I took my first trip to cover Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief teams who were helping South Carolinians recover from the massive hurricane.
It was in Macedonia, S.C., where I first gained an appreciation and love for disaster relief volunteers. I recently reviewed the story I wrote from that trip. I met Dave Tracy, a deacon at Providence Church in the small community approximately 50 miles north of Charleston.
He told me, “On the 21st day of September, God showed Dave Tracy His power. After that display of power came God’s grace, His love and His mercy in the form of Tennessee Baptists.” He later added, “The people who came over from Tennessee hold a special place in my heart. I was in the middle of something I didn’t know how to handle. They taught me how to cope.”
Hugo was my first hurricane and it appears Hurricane Helene will be my last. I find it ironic that both begin with the letter “H” and both were incredibly powerful storms, causing billions of dollars of damage and several hundred deaths. As we know, Helene not only impacted South Carolina but also North Carolina and East Tennessee.
One major thing that has not changed in 35 years of hurricane coverage from Hugo to Helene and everything in between is Tennessee Baptist DR volunteers are continuing to show God’s love, grace and mercy to those impacted by the storms.
The presence of Tennessee volunteers is much more than just the physical work done by volunteers. It goes much deeper. People who have lost everything they own are always amazed when volunteers show up and offer to provide help for free that local contractors are paid to do.
A week or so after Helene hit East Tennessee, I met Trevor Roberts, a bivocational pastor of a nondenominational church in Talbott. His home was damaged by a fallen tree. He was given an estimate of several thousand dollars to remove the tree. A disaster relief team from Cumberland Gap Baptist Association came and did the work at no cost.
“When a DR assessor called and told me they would do it, I was almost in tears,” Roberts said. “This has been an amazing blessing. I am so grateful and humbled.”
DR volunteers often serve in extreme conditions because they love Jesus and want to be His “hands and feet” to those who need help.
By doing so, they have opportunities to share Christ.
Just last week, William Burton, a staff member with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, led two Hispanic men to Christ in Mountain City because a member of Roan Creek Baptist Church saw them and several other men who needed to be shown the love of Jesus and they took steps to make it happen.
“They were ready to accept Christ because of the kindness that was shown to them by the church,” Burton said.
Many times volunteers encounter people who have left the church or have had little or no contact with a church. “We’ve been able to minister to people who very proudly proclaimed that they don’t know God,” said Karen Wilson, a DR volunteer from West Tennessee who was staffing a shower unit in Hartford, just south of Newport.
“And we’ve had the opportunity to minister to them several times because they came back four times over two days just to talk. A lot of seeds were planted. They didn’t accept Christ, but the seeds have been planted, and they’re thinking about it.”
Meeting needs, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. That is what I witnessed from disaster relief volunteers in 1989 and it is still going on 35 years later. To God be the glory! B&R — See stories of how Tennessee Baptists are meeting needs and sharing the gospel throughout the current print edition of the Baptist and Reflector and online at baptistandreflector.org.


