By Mark H. Hunter, Special to the Message
BATON ROUGE – After Katrina, Jefferson Baptist Church hosted the Tennessee Disaster Response Team, who brought all their own supplies, tents, trailers, generators, temp. showers, etc.
The church also provided 50,000 meals for the Red Cross who delivered them to the downtown Civic Center shelter, according to Jefferson’s Emeritus Pastor Tommy French, Jr.
Jefferson Baton Rouge also turned its 7,000 square-foot gym into a free food and clothing distribution center for at least 16,000 families.
What did that do for the congregation?
“It literally set us on fire,” French said. “It brought revival to the congregation because they were able to do what Jesus said – to give a cup of cold water in his name. We didn’t just provide food and clothing we provided the Gospel. We were able to witness to them.
“Some would say ‘why are you doing this?’ and we’d say ‘because we want to tell you the other story – God can not only provide for you now; He can provide for you eternally.’
“A lot of our people had the occasion to witness to people that prior to that occasion had not had that experience,” French said.
New members? “Yes, of a number of people forced into the Baton Rouge area, about 10 or 11 became members of Jefferson,” French said.
Do it again? “In a heartbeat. They [congregation] had great compassion. They had to deal with a lot of people in an emergency situation, calm them down, assure them that God would take care of them and we provided for their needs. And we worked with other sister churches in the Baton Rouge area, especially Istrouma and Woodlawn.”
French said a trucker from Oklahoma stopped with 50, five-gallon cans of gasoline. They took 25 of the cans to a little country church near Poplarville, Miss., where people were cooking on camping stoves.
“You couldn’t believe how grateful those people were. They couldn’t even buy gasoline there,” French said.
Istrouma
Ron Lambe, administrative pastor for Istrouma Baptist church, said they provided the church gym as a Red Cross shelter: 1,600 people for 36 days, maximum 600 at one time.
The church built six showers, and the two-story Sunday School classroom Hope Building was packed with several semi-truckloads of clothing, which was sorted by dozens of volunteers, before being distributed to other shelters.
The gym building had to be completely renovated afterwards, a project that took several months and cost more than $100,000, later paid for by donations and some government funding.
In spite of all the damage the evacuees caused, would Istrouma do it again? “I definitely think so,” Lambe said.
Florida Boulevard
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was “a defining moment” for Florida Boulevard Baptist Church, said the church’s administrator, Gerald Wheeler, and business administrator Dottie Gore.
Florida Boulevard Baptist Church served after Katrina as a shelter for nursing home evacuees, a feeding station and a clothing distribution center. Baptists from dozens of states stayed in the church as volunteers.
Lessons learned by congregation? “We had church members volunteering to help who in the past had not done anything,” Wheeler said. “They just said ‘here am I.’ They just jumped in and helped.”
Wheeler’s wife Hazel had just had her right leg amputated below the knee and served from her wheelchair and met another amputee from North Carolina who came here to help.
The church also served as a financial center for donations, and Rev. Rick Warren from Saddleback Church in California came and brought some of his volunteers, Dottie Gore said. “We were here until 11:00 o’clock at night answering phones hearing stories from people who were as far away as Mississippi that just needed somebody to talk to,” Gore said. “It was just an amazing time seeing people serve in whatever way.
“We had one gentleman who could not stand but he wanted to serve so he sat at the back door of the gymnasium with a rope on the door and closed it each time – he was the door closer,” Gore said.
“We would definitely do the same thing again,” Gore said. “None of us knew what we were doing – we were just reacting. God used it in a mighty, mighty way. The church was actually being the church – doing what God want’s us to do.”