Within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington,
Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers were rolling – ready to cook
meals for victims and recovery workers, care for children and do the jobs they
had done on so many other occasions.
By the time those emergency efforts finally concluded in late
July, the response had shaped the entire Southern Baptist disaster relief network
more than any single response since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington,
Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers were rolling – ready to cook
meals for victims and recovery workers, care for children and do the jobs they
had done on so many other occasions.
By the time those emergency efforts finally concluded in late
July, the response had shaped the entire Southern Baptist disaster relief network
more than any single response since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
There were new areas of ministry that demonstrated the importance
of flexibility – including an expanded chaplaincy response, opportunities
for cleaning up apartments and even the impromptu distribution of Teddy Bears
that flooded the city as expressions of love and support.
But the biggest long-term impact has come from the new awareness
of disaster relief efforts among both Southern Baptists and the nation at large.
“There has been a significant increase in the number of
people volunteering for training,” said Mickey Caison, national coordinator
of Southern Baptist disaster relief and adult volunteer mobilization coordinator
for the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. “We usually have
about 2,500 volunteers participating in training in a year, and this past year
we saw about 5,000.”
The 319-day response was the longest sustained emergency relief
effort in the disaster relief networks history.
Mobile kitchen units operated by state conventions and associations
provided the bulk of the response force in New York and Washington, along with
support structures such as communications units, shower units, even a laundry
unit to keep volunteers supplied with clean clothes.
Childcare units also set up stations in relief centers. Chaplains
were mobilized to care for the stressed recovery workers and also just to mingle
with grieving crowds gathered at impromptu memorials. Some of the largest public
response came when Southern Baptists cleaned out homes in the immediate area,
with 643 apartments cleaned.
All in all, volunteers from 32 states participated, contributing
20,842 “volunteer days” – defined as one volunteer working one
day. A total of nearly 1.29 million meals were prepared, and 842 children were
served in childcare centers.
The public exposure of the disaster relief efforts will make
future ministry even more effective, Caison said.
“In New York, people on the street would stop volunteers
with yellow shirts and just thank them for coming,” he said.
“It shows Southern Baptists as caring people, and that
we do have a servants heart. We are willing to get dirty to help people.
You had churches and associations that were doing these things, but there was
an opportunity with Washington and New York to be seen as more than just the
little church on the corner,” Caison emphasized.
The level of national exposure also has opened doors with many
agencies and partners that had not existed previously, Caison added. In the
past, the Southern Baptist network has worked primarily to provide feeding.
“(Now) Increasingly, with state and local governments,
were going to be taking responsibility in other areas, such as cleanup,
recovery and spiritual care responses,” Caison said.
Relationships with the Salvation Army also have been strengthened,
the Southern Baptist leader said.
“What happened is that Salvation Army leadership from
all over the country and Southern Baptists from all over the country wound up
working together in New York City. So, those two entities have gotten to know
each other and begun to formulate how we would respond together.”
The role of chaplaincy in the organization also has evolved
significantly. There continues to be a two-pronged approach of both assigning
chaplains to specific disaster relief units to minister both to the volunteers
and others at feeding sites. However, New York also demonstrated the importance
of allowing chaplains to simply wander through crowds, ministering to the public
at large, Caison said.
The nature of the response also has shaped the training for
disaster relief volunteers, he added. Where hurricanes and floods were once
the primary threat, emergency response training now includes safeguards for
terrorist scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction.
Generally, Sept. 11 has further solidified Southern Baptists
reputation as one of the top providers of volunteer disaster relief services
in the country – opening doors for the message of Christ those volunteers
bear, Caison said.
“Sept. 11 provided validity for the type of ministry we
do, that the ministry of serving Christ in the crisis was very real,” he
said. “And the physical things that we did gave us the opportunity to share
the spiritual interests that we have.
“To quote one of the government officials we worked with
– we gave hope,” Caison said. “And that brought us back to the
very foundation of who we are – that we cant get caught up in the
mechanisms of giving help and forget about the hope that we have to give.
“And that hope, of course, is Jesus Christ.” (BP)