When Hurricane Michael made landfall at Mexico Beach,
Florida it packed 155 mph sustained winds. People who have seen the devastation
in Panama City and other places along the Gulf are at a loss to describe what
they have witnessed. The death toll eventually reached 45 and the agricultural
losses in Florida alone totaled $158 million. The AJC reported agricultural losses
exceeding $3 billion in Georgia. Insured property losses in Georgia are
estimated at $250 million.
A great witness to
our culture. The common question when tragedy strikes is typically, “Where was
God?” If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He intervene and prevent human
suffering? The reality I have come to accept is that God has given to us a gift
of freedom that is full of “glory and danger.” God is not aloof or indifferent
to human suffering. I believe He identifies with us in our suffering, which was
never more obvious than in Jesus’ incarnation. In 1 John 4:12 we read, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one
another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” When we respond
to tragedy by showing up and serving people, we become the manifest love of
God. In a post-Christian society which is deeply mistrustful of our traditional
institutions, servanthood carries an undeniable mark of authenticity.
An aging
volunteer base. I attended Disaster Relief training last year at an event we
arranged with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board at Elam Egypt Baptist Church.
One thing that was immediately obvious to me was that at 55 I was one of the
youngest people in the room. Even though organized DR in the SBC is only about
a quarter century old as I understand it, it is already facing a crisis
regarding the age of volunteers. The average age of trained SBC DR volunteers
responding to recent crises was 76. This is partly understandable, because
retirees are more easily able to drop what they are doing and respond quickly
when unexpected tragedy hits. On the other hand, without an interjection of
youth, one wonders about the sustainability of this remarkable ministry.
I met a trained DR volunteer from the Atlanta area while serving in
Bainbridge who was younger than me. She worked for a company which valued
volunteerism and gave her paid leave to go and serve. She had been to GBC DR chainsaw
school and went out with a clean up and recovery crew every day. I met another
man younger than me from Murray County who took vacation time to serve. He had
deployed in about 10 natural disasters with GBC DR teams. I met some very
dedicated people who stretched my understanding of missionary commitment.
A cooperative,
coordinated response. A statewide Disaster Relief (DR) call out mobilized assistance to people in places like Bainbridge, Donalsonville
and Blakely that were particularly hard hit. Samaritan’s Purse, The Red Cross,
the Salvation Army and Send Relief are serving along with many volunteers from
churches who have mobilized outside of the institutional DR channels, and this
is a very good thing. I know people from many MBA churches (Wades, Elam Millen,
Millen, Double Heads, Douglas Branch, North Newington, Elam Egypt, FBC
Springfield) who went to South Georgia to work, take relief items, and help
with clean up. Many of them took advantage of fall break from school and took
students to serve these stunned communities. The pictures and reports are
heartening.
A nuanced SBC issue.
While I was in Bainbridge I learned something I really didn’t know. Send Relief
(NAMB) is not the same thing as SBC Disaster Relief. This article does a good
job of helping the reader understand the finer points of this: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-southern-baptists-trained-more-disaster-relief-volunteers-than-the-red-cross/.
I worked with a trained GBC DR team which put tarp on roofs with material
provided by Send Relief. That kind of told me all I needed to know. Many people
from a variety of churches and ministry organizations show up to be the hands
and feet of Christ when disaster strikes. Showing up this way helps give
visible evidence to the reality that God does not abandon us at our most trying
moments.
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