David Baines stands inside God’s Warehouse.
ELIZABETHTON — David Baines walked 50 yards from his home to Grace Baptist Church, driven by curiosity that changed his life.
Baines, a retired construction worker, faced a challenge after Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters devastated Elizabethton and surrounding areas. Unable to assist due to selling his equipment, he noticed skid steers and excavators at Grace Baptist Church and went to investigate.
“I had just sold all my stuff,” Baines said. “I couldn’t even go help my neighbor, which is what I would typically do. They’d call and I’d absolutely help. I just like helping people. But I didn’t know how to help anybody spiritually.”
Baines was saved and baptized at nine but strayed from faith for decades.
“My mama drug me to church every Sunday morning,” he said. “My daddy took me to beer joints and pool halls every Friday and Saturday night. That’s just the way it was. Just to be truthful, I had more fun going to beer joints and pool halls.
“Then life goes on. I get married, 50 years goes by, and my heart gets blacker and harder. I wasn’t a mean person to people. I just felt like bad things happened [in my life] and I blamed God. I blamed churches. I thought those are just hypocrite people.”
Prompted by what he believes was God’s call, Baines investigated the construction equipment.
“I went a 50-year span pretty much without church, without God, without anything in my life other than my wife trying to get me to go to church,” he said. “But they needed volunteers to help with disaster relief, and so I went.”
Pastor Travis Tyler of Grace Baptist asked Baines to recruit volunteers during a service. Soon, Baines joined a Sunday School class and became deeply involved in church, eventually managing God’s Warehouse, a ministry of the Nolachucky Baptist Association (NBA).
God’s Warehouse, based in Morristown, opened an additional 17,000-square-foot facility in Elizabethton to store and distribute building materials to disaster sites. Baines oversees this complex operation.
“David is the guy for the job,” said Don Owen, who oversees God’s Warehouse for the NBA and Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief (TBDR).
“He has a servant’s heart and he has the background. He’s been an important part of getting people back on their feet.”
Though initially overwhelmed, Baines, with his wife and volunteers, ensures TBDR teams have materials to rebuild homes.
“It’s unbelievable to me,” he said, “because when I started here, I wasn’t as close to God as [other folks]. I just didn’t know how much God could give and wondered how we are going to keep this rolling. But it does. He exponentially gives, and when people come in the door looking for help, we help them.
“It’s just amazing what God has done. My wife prayed for me for 30 years to get me into church. I wouldn’t go. But God used this. I’ve seen what God can do.
“I’ve experienced it,” Baines said. “And I just want to let these people who need help know that God loves them, that we love them, and we just want to get them through to the finish line.”
