Submitted by philip on
By Karen L. Willoughbym, Managing Editor
DES MOINES, Iowa – For the first time in the award’s five-year history, the Joel Phillips Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to a Louisiana Southern Baptist.
James Carson, director of missions in Caldwell, Deer Creek and Richland Baptist Associations, and coordinator of Disaster Relief Chaplaincy for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, received the national award Aug. 14 in Des Moines, at the annual Disaster Relief Summer Roundtable.
“I’m elated about the fact he’s been selected,” said Gibbie McMillan, LBC’s director of men’s ministries and Disaster Relief. “He’s been faithful and has done a tremendous work. We have more than 300 chaplains trained in stress management for Disaster Relief in our state, and James has trained them all.”
Carson, in his 48th year of ministry, has been DOM for 10 years. A DR chaplain since 2003, he began training others to join with him in that ministry in 2005, as a result of the need he and others saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.
Carson was trained in Disaster Relief by Joel Phillips, whose work was so exemplary in the early years of Southern Baptists’ disaster relief ministry that an award for “Most Valuable Player” was established in Phillip’s name.
“He meant a lot to us in Disaster Relief ministry and because of my own personal experience with him I am honored and humbled at this,” Carson said. “Joel made my first credential tag for Disaster Relief.”
One of Carson’s earliest chaplaincy high points was a young woman displaced from her home after Katrina. He connected her with a local pastor, whose congregation was able to help her find lodging.
A more recent story: A distraught woman with three trees on her house. While a chainsaw unit was taking care of that, Carson talked in his usual gentle way with her.
“She asked why we do this. I told her it was because we love the Lord Jesus and want to share His love with her,” Carson said. “She cried … so very grateful for what we were doing.”
He trained a DR chaplain who, in Thibodaux, led a 90-year-old man to the Lord when the man was in line for food. That man returned the next day and asked the chaplain to his home, so his bedridden wife could also become a Christian.
“We want to be a part of offering to people the spiritual hope they need as victims of disasters,” Carson said. “I’ve personally talked with at least 500 people suffering from disasters, and I’ve trained 350 men and women in Disaster Relief chaplaincy.”
Some have moved out of state, and “There’s always a need for more,” Carson continued.
Training for churches and people interested in being a part of an international DR team is set for Sept. 28-29 at First Baptist Church of Lafayette. The next training for DR chaplains (and other DR tasks) is set for February in the southern and central parts of the state, and in April in the northern part of the state.
Joe Arnold, Director of Missions in the Bayou Baptist Association in southern Louisiana, and a longtime DR Chaplaincy volunteer, has joined Carson as a trainer of volunteers for DR chaplaincy.
More about Louisiana Disaster Relief:
• Louisiana Baptist Men’s Ministry has one mass feeding unit, a 32 ft. food service trailer capable of preparing over 25,000 meals a day. There are also 2 regional feeding units in Louisiana.
• One in Northshore Baptist Association, capable of preparing 12,000 meals a day, and one in the Ruston area ministry of Rolling Hills Baptist Resort Ministry which is capable of preparing 25,000 meals per day.
• The most important aspect of Disaster Relief is helping to rebuild lives. Disaster victims experience shock, sorrow, anger, grief, and many other emotions. Disaster Relief volunteers demonstrate the love of Christ. When people see that God’s people really care for them, they come to understand that God cares for them also.
• Our newest addition is the Medical Professional Team, which responds nationally as well as internationally.
More about Southern Baptist Disaster Relief:
From its disaster operations center in Alpharetta, Ga., NAMB coordinates and manages Southern Baptist response to major disasters in partnership with the 42 SBC-affiliated state/regional conventions.
• Southern Baptist Disaster Relief assets include 82,000 trained volunteers, including chaplains, and some 1,550 mobile units for feeding, chainsaw, mud-out, command, communication,, c hildcare, showers,s laundry, water purification, repair/rebuild and power generation.
• Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is the third-largest mobilizer of trained, credentialed DR volunteers in the United States.
“First is Red Cross, and second, the Salvation Army,” McMillan said. “We prepare 93 percent of all the food for the Red Cross. They could not do their job if we did not have our job. They are very dependent on us. They purchase the food. We prepare it and package it the way they want it, and put it on the ERVs [Emergency Response Vehicles] for them to deliver.”