HITTING CLOSE TO HOME

God’s Warehouse responds to storm ‘in its backyard’

MORRISTOWN — Don Owen’s ministry work with Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief has sent him all over the map.

Last fall, however, the disaster came to him.

When Hurricane Helene tore through sections of the South last September, it ravaged large regions of East Tennessee.

This meant that Owen, the director of God’s Warehouse in Morristown, didn’t have to put much mileage on his truck to make an impact.

“We’ve done recovery work with dozens and dozens of storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, ice storms, everything, but this is the closest one of this magnitude that has ever reached us,” said Owen. “We’re not accustomed to having hurricanes here.”

Hurricane Helene started in Florida, roared across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and then “feathered out right over us in East Tennessee,” as Owen puts it.

Suddenly, the recovery process started to take on a different feel.

“This has been the busiest, or at least the most dramatic involvement, that we have ever had,” he said. “We were kind of sitting here, fat and happy. We’re thinking we’re going to ship supplies to Florida, to Georgia, and we’ll be all right. Well, then when it came here and did the devastation that it did, all of our plans changed.”

Owen said it was when he heard from TBDR specialist Wes Jones that he fully began to grasp the magnitude of the devastation in Tennessee.

“For several days, no one really understood the scope of the storm,” he said. “But once we did, it was just totally mind-blowing.”

God Warehouse immediately got involved,  taking supplies up to upper East Tennessee, including Elizabethton, Mountain City, and the areas around Jonesborough that were affected.

Branching out

A few days after the storm, Randy C. Davis, president and executive director for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, contacted Owen about a meeting with several DR leaders and church leaders from the area.

One of the biggest takeaways from the meeting, Owen said, was the immediate need for homes to be rebuilt.

“I recommended to Randy that we don’t try to start this thing from the ground up, but that we needed to hitch our horse to ASP (Appalachia Service Project), who already had an ongoing program and project,” said Owen.

God’s Warehouse had previously worked with ASP during the recovery efforts in Waverly following the flooding in 2021.

Owen’s friend, Walter Crouch, was the ASP president at the time, and the two of them quickly decided to join forces. After a short amount of time, the two men realized that, for the sake of efficiency, there needed to be a warehouse closer to the action.

Owen said trying to transport supplies from one place to the other essentially resulted in a full day wasted.

At the time, supplies and donations were coming in to God’s Warehouse at a record pace. “We’ve got 150,000 square feet here, but we quickly had no space,” said Owen. “We’d never seen anything like it.”

With the TBC’s financial support, a new warehouse was purchased in Elizabethton, and began operating in early January.

Since then, there have been 700 deliveries of supplies made to that warehouse — with no signs of tapering off.

“It’s not slowing down; actually, it keeps speeding up because the rebuilds are just phenomenal,” said Owen. “I’m talking about churches, houses, businesses, everything. And God has supplied every step of the way.”

David Baines has taken on the role of director of the warehouse in Elizabethton.

“He has done a phenomenal job in assembling a team, training them, and making sure that everything is done in a respectable, organized fashion,” said Owen.

God’s Warehouse in Morristown is serving as “the parent” for the Elizabethton location, Owen said.

“When they need supplies, they call us, they tell us what the needs are, and then I either find donated supplies that we can bring in, or, in many cases, especially right now, we are buying supplies,” he said.

“Wallace Hardware has been one of our biggest vendors, and also East Tennessee Forest products for building materials and pressure treated materials for decks and ramps and things like that.”

The warehouses have supplied more than $700,000 in purchased materials since Sept. 27.

Helping from afar

Owen was quick to note that Tennessee Baptist churches — as well as churches across the country — have “stepped up to the plate” by donating money and materials. Owen said some of the stories behind the donations have left him in awe.

One such story involved a man from Northwest Mississippi who reached out to Owen and told him that the Lord had laid it on his heart to donate some generators.

When the man asked Owen how many generators he could use, Owen told him, “If I had 100 generators today, they would last maybe three days before they’d all be gone. That’s how great the demand is.”

Owen said there was a long pause on the phone and he could tell the man was crying.  “He said me, ‘Don, that’s exactly the number the Lord laid on my heart.”

It was arranged that the generators would be delivered to the warehouse a few days later. But before that could even happen, Owen received a call from the man.

“He told me, ‘I don’t know how other people got my number, but my phone has not stopped ringing since the time I hung up the phone with you,” Owen said. “And all of the calls are from people who are wanting to give money or donate items. They are asking, ‘How many (generators) can I buy? And what size do you want?’”

When the man ultimately arrived at the warehouse, he brought 149 generators, along with extension cords, gas cans, oil cans and other items needed to operate the units.

“When he came, he had a fully loaded semi-trailer with supplies,” Owen said. “That’s how God works. He has touched hearts and moved mountains.”

Ready to help

On a typical day, God’s Warehouse will have roughly 20 volunteers at any given time.

After the hurricane, however, that number increased five times over.

“Cars and trucks started pulling in,” Owen said. “People were saying, ‘Hey, I can take some stuff to North Carolina. I can take some stuff to Erwin. Tell me what they need and load it up.’ … They’d just come in with carloads and truckloads and trailer-loads of supplies. And from September, October, November, and up to December we were running 100-plus volunteers a day.”

Each day, the place was buzzing with activity, and the volunteers didn’t even have to leave for lunch. God’s Warehouse has its own cafeteria, with two chefs who prepare meals every day. And yes, the Lord was in those details, too.

“We had these food service supply companies that would call and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got some food, can I bring it you or can you come get it?’ It was amazing,” said Owen.

“We fed 100-plus people every day,” he continued. “Up until that time, it was costing us anywhere from $9 to $11 per person per meal, because we’d have to go out to Chick-fil-A or Burger King, wherever, and get food and feed the people.

“But during that period of time (after the storm), the average cost of feeding 100 people a day was 99 cents per person. And we fed good meals. I’m talking about hot meals. I’m talking about a meat, a salad. I’m talking about you couldn’t go to the restaurant and buy anything better.”

Getting results

Although Owen has seen the devastation of the storm, he has also seen how the Lord is at work through the heartache.

“This storm did not happen without a reason: God is getting our attention,” said Owen. “And since this storm we’ve had, I don’t know, I’ve lost count of how many people have been saved in this hallway out here where people come in to pick up supplies, deliver supplies. The same is true up in the warehouse in Elizabethton.

“That’s how God works. When we are faithful, God is more faithful, and He’s provided every step of the way.”

During a trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., earlier this year, Owen couldn’t sleep one night, so he decided to crunch some numbers. After doing the math — and checking it twice — he calculated that $34,600,000 in supplies had come in during a four-month stretch from September to December.

“I sat up in my bed at two o’clock in the morning … and I laid there and just wept, because only the God of the universe can do such a thing.”

Owen noted that the seven ministries that operate from God’s Warehouse — Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief, Baptist Builders, God’s Warehouse Services, Harvest of Israel, Drone and Swift Water Rescue, Critical Medical, and K-Tom’s Corner — did not stop, or even pause, during the days after the storm.

God Warehouse also continued to minister to Israel during those hectic days.

“We’re shipping more containers to Israel now than we’ve ever shipped,” Owen said. “Some months during this period of time, we’ve shipped five containers in one month to Israel.”

God’s Warehouse also recently shipped its 19th container to Ukraine, loaded with over $6.5 million worth of medicines and medical equipment. Another container that had over $19 million in medicines went to Israel.

The reason for it all

Owen said the work can be hectic and exhausting. But worth it? Absolutely.

“The reason we do disaster relief is not to go in with our chainsaws, not to go in with our feeding units, not to go in with the flood recovery units,” he said. “Our reason for going and doing disaster relief work is that it’s an open door.

“I have been to people’s homes where a tree had fallen on the house and we’ve said, ‘We’re here to help; would you allow us to help you or do you need help?’ The first question out of their mouth is, ‘Well, how much is it going to cost?’”

Owen said he uses that question as segue to a gospel conversation.

“The door just swings wide open, because our response is, this, ‘Ma’am or sir, the price has already been paid. Somebody’s already paid for it,” he said.

He said the conversation that follows represents some of the sweetest moments that DR has to offer.

“The expression just fades away and they have a blank look and they say, ‘Who would pay for me?’ And that’s when we tell them, ‘Ma’am, sir, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ. He went to the cross and paid your debt and my debt, and we’re here to help because of the love that he demonstrated to us.’ And that’s when we have the opportunity to share the message of salvation.

“It’s a testimony and a picture of what God does for all of us.”