ATLANTA (ABP) — Baptist churches aren't leaving disaster relief to the professionals. Many congregations and church members are opening their homes, wallets and buildings to evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.
First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., found the Gulf Coast's diaspora had spread to their own backyard Sept. 3, when the church became an American Red Cross shelter, capable of housing up to 130 evacuees.
“I'm so proud of my church,” said pastor Bill Shiell. “All of us were just hungry to do something. We just had no idea it would be our privilege to house these [evacuees].”
Other churches, from Texas to Virginia, are doing the same. But more sites are needed, officials say.
The Knoxville congregation has been supplying meals to evacuees and Red Cross workers, with plans to help supply meals for more evacuees at the nearby Knoxville Civic Coliseum, which is opening as a shelter.
Supply donations have been pouring into First Baptist, according to church member Sandy Wisener, who is coordinating the congregation's relief efforts. “We just think about it, and someone will donate it,” she said.
On Sept. 7, the church sent a shipment of supplies — ranging from 200 pillows to 24,000 pounds of bottled water — to University Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. “It was a 50-foot trailer packed to the brim,” Wisener said. “The people in our church have just come alive and are doing everything.”
In Huntsville — in southeast Texas — about 250 evacuees from New Orleans are packed into the facilities of First Baptist Church, but they declined to leave for another newly opened shelter because they felt safe and secure, said Pastor David Valentine. “We've opened another shelter in town, but they won't budge,” he said. They want to stay because “they got burned so badly at the Superdome.”
A total of 340 evacuees arrived at the church at 1:30 a.m. Friday, after a 16-hour ride from New Orleans to Houston — where they were turned away from the Astrodome — then to Huntsville. The church had 30 minutes advance notice.
Valentine boarded each bus and gave them a simple message. “I know you've been in hell; welcome to heaven,” he remembers telling them. “I can't imagine what you've been through, but there's a warm cot, hot meal and hot shower waiting for you here. You're in the safest place in the United States.”
Elsewhere, the Baptist General Association of Virginia is challenging its churches to house at least 500 long-term evacuees from Katrina. Virginia Baptists have the option of housing the evacuees through churches, church and denominational camps, and volunteer homes, said John Upton, BGAV executive director.
Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas plans to adopt at least 10 long-term evacuee families, working with an interfaith housing group and Buckner Baptist Benevolences. They will be housed in donated apartments stocked with furniture and household items.
Wilshire already collected more than $50,000 for relief efforts, much of which has been used to purchase supplies. The congregation has sent at least three shipments of supplies to University Church in Baton Rouge, including 2,500 pairs of shoes donated by Buckner and more than 10,500 diapers.
Donations haven't come from Wilshire members alone. Others in the Dallas area have donated anywhere from $200 to $1,000 since Wilshire began collecting funds, said Mark Wingfield, the church's associate pastor.
One woman got a list of needed supplies and returned later that day in her vehicle, packed with those priority items. “We gave her that opportunity to give feet to what she wanted to do to help,” Wingfield said.
Wilshire members also have assembled approximately 8,000 personal hygiene kits, Wingfield noted. Those were distributed to evacuees in both Baton Rouge and the Dallas area. “We've turned them out like a factory,” he said.
“The response has been absolutely overwhelming. People desperately want to help, but they want to help in more ways than just giving their money. People want to get in and do something tangible,” Wingfield said.
Other churches around the country have sent relief supplies and volunteers, and more are expected to join the push for evacuee housing.
In Houston, Copperfield Baptist Church began accepted families fleeing Louisiana the same day the storm struck New Orleans.
The church is committed to sheltering people for 90 to180 days, providing meals and clothes.
“We're not Red Cross. We're not FEMA,” said Larry Womack, Copperfield lead pastor. “One of their representatives asked us, ‘So what are you doing?' We said ‘We're a church. That's what churches do.'”
— Compiled by ABP with reporting by Carla Wynn, John Hall and Ferrell Foster.