LIBERTY, Texas — Less than 72 hours after Hurricane Ike made landfall, a convoy of Virginia Baptist disaster relief units pulled into the parking lot of First Baptist Church, Liberty, Texas. By the next afternoon, Sept. 16, almost 100 Virginia Baptist volunteers had also arrived on site, two Virginia Baptist mass feeding units and two shower units were set up for operation, and crews were cooking an evening meal to serve to the community.
“We're still trying to figure out how y'all and us got together, other than that God did it,” said Ron Davis, associate pastor at First Baptist in Liberty. What God did was to bring together a group of partners whose shared ministry made a lasting impact on the community, the disaster relief volunteers, and the church.
Michael Rackett
The sun rises over Virginia Baptists' feeding kitchens set up at First Baptist Church in Liberty, Texas.
Disaster relief ministry involves Baptist kitchens and volunteers, who cook the meals; the American Red Cross, which pays for the food products and assists with distribution of meals; and often a local host church, which provides a place to set up the feeding unit and offers facilities to house volunteers.
Working in concert with Red Cross and Baptist disaster relief leaders in Texas, the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board's disaster operations center had assigned the Virginia Baptist mass feeding units to operate at First Baptist, Liberty.
Although the church and its pastor, Steve Bean, had requested help with feeding from Texas Baptist Men, no one had contacted the church until a member of a Virginia Baptist disaster relief advance logistics team called the pastor to say that the feeding units were on the way.
In the aftermath of the storm, Bean and his congregation had been praying for opportunities to minister to their community. “We certainly didn't know [Virginia Baptists] were coming. And when you guys showed up, that was the answer to our prayer,” Bean said. “And because of that, people in Liberty didn't have to go to bed hungry.”
Following the storm, the church had been feeding about 250 to 300 people in its activity building, using food donated by the local school system and fast-food restaurants. Virginia Baptist disaster relief's feeding units provided the capability to prepare a much larger quantity of meals and to distribute them to the community through a drive-thru feeding line and via Red Cross vehicles.
A few days later, sunburned arms and faces testified to the hours that Steve Bean, his wife, Christie, and other church members had spent standing in the street, conversing with people in the drive-thru feeding line.
Michael Rackett
Virginia Baptist disaster relief volunteers cooking spaghetti sauce.
“It's almost without fail that they notice that you're a long way from home,” said Bean. “They want to know why you're here, which of course opens the door to tell them: ‘Because God loves you, and these folks love you, and First Baptist Church Liberty loves you.' ”
“It's amazing just how grateful — I mean really, gut-level grateful — people are that you're here and feeding them. … They ate Spam and cold beanie weanies for two days, and so when you guys cooked the first meal, it was the first hot meal they'd had in three days.”
The local radio station that had been publicizing the feeding lines asked listeners who passed by the church to honk their horns as an expression of thanks. Over the next several days, a chorus of horns sounded frequently from vehicles of all types.
“The hurricane was a great equalizer among people,” observed Davis. “In those lines of people you would have a rickety old car … followed by a Cadillac Escalade, because everybody needed a hot meal. It didn't matter if they were up-and-overs or down-and-outers, they were hungry.” One man drove through the line in a badly damaged pick-up truck, its front windshield smashed and its roof crumpled by a falling tree.
The broad scope of Ike's impact and various bureaucratic issues with the Red Cross and FEMA made it difficult to establish consistent delivery of food supplies. Consequently, Virginia Baptists had to procure much of their food from other sources.
“Our volunteers were talking about living out the loaves and fishes story, with a small amount of food being miraculously multiplied to feed large numbers of people,” said Terry Raines, disaster relief coordinator for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. “Through [Sept. 23], we've probably done about 60,000 meals with about 20,000 meals worth of food delivered by the Red Cross's procurement system.”
The remaining two thirds of the meals were cobbled together with food purchased from Sam's Club, donated by the school system and area businesses, or obtained from other Baptist kitchens that had excess supply.
Michael Rackett
Virginia Baptist and Red Cross volunteers serve food in the drive-thru feeding line.
A week into the operation, Virginia Baptist feeding units were serving almost 9,500 meals per day and had the capability to prepare more than twice that number, if adequate food had been available.
As Virginia Baptist volunteers were serving the community, members of First Baptist were taking care of the volunteers. The church cooked breakfast and supper for them each day and allowed them to take up residence in Sunday school classrooms throughout the building. As the meal count rose, church members manned the drive-thru line so that the volunteers could concentrate on food preparation. “FBC Liberty has been an amazing host church, and we're grateful for their gracious hospitality,” said Raines.
Likewise, both Davis and Bean expressed their sincere gratitude for Virginia Baptist disaster relief's ministry in Liberty.
“Literally, we couldn't have done it without you guys,” said Bean. “Probably the biggest impact that your ministry is going to have on our church is to help our church family to understand what it really means to be Christ in people's lives around here.”
Michael Rackett
Vehicles of all types came through the drive-thru feeding line.
Knowing that they live in a hurricane-prone area, church members are already considering how they can prepare for the future. “I see us being more open, willing, and anxious to help people in need, whatever that need is, whenever it arises, and however it comes about,” he said.
“Our folks are really beginning to understand that this is what we need to be doing, this is the kind of church that we want to be. But in order to do that, we need to be equipped.” According to Bean, some ideas that have already been mentioned for improving the activity building, include expanding the kitchen facilities and installing showers and a permanent back-up generator.
A week after the storm, Raines told the congregation gathered for worship, “In the weeks and months and years to come, I hope that people in this town will remember that that street corner is the place where feeding took place after Hurricane Ike. Any sense of remembrance and connection, our hope is that it will be reflective of you.”
“It's been a very positive thing for the image of our church in the community,” Davis acknowledged.
Bean agreed. “The mayor and the city manager were out here [the other day], and they were just marveling. And that may be the reaction that you see from most people. They're marveling at the operation, at the fact that somebody is here, and that somebody cares.”
“It was just an incredible thing to be part of what God was doing.”