Katrina destroys; Baptists respond: Florida Baptists providing aid in Miss.

FBC Photo

Governor Jeb Bush greets Florida Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola before they were deployed to assist with recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

HATTIESBURG, MISS (FBC)—Florida Baptist relief volunteers have been on-site in Hattiesburg since Aug. 31, two days after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf coast.

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“It is a blessed miracle that they are here,” said Steve Stubblefield, 32, son of Main Street Baptist Church pastor Jon Stubblefield, where Florida Baptist volunteers have been stationed. “The Florida people were the first ones here on site. To think that they could be cleaning up their own state, but came to help us instead is nothing short of a miracle.”

“I have asked them, ‘why are you here,’” Stubblefield recalled. “They said that last year our Mississippi Baptists were the first people that came to help in Florida.”

Since Aug. 31, the 250 volunteers on site prepared and fed 35,000 meals to community residents and persons displaced by the storm. Included in that number are 200 meals being sent each day to a 24-hour medical facility with no electricity or running water, said volunteer Kathy Farabee of Sarasota.

According to news reports, 65 percent of the town is without power and water.

The volunteers also purified 3,000 thousand gallons of water for use by the relief workers.

The clean up and recovery teams have completed 150 jobs on Thursday. One family they helped had been trapped in their home since the storm hit on Monday. The team had to use chainsaws to clear trees on the road leading to the house. Additional trees blocking the doors also were cut away.

The family arrived at the church in tears from their experience, reported Farabee. Volunteers at the church quickly fed, ministered to them and provided them a place to stay.

“The people of Hattiesburg are so, so thankful we are here,” Farabee said. And the Main Street Church could not be any more cooperative.”

Volunteers Julia and Herschel Jackson would have spent Sept. 2 celebrating their 49th anniversary at home in Avon Park. Instead, the members of Avon Park Lakes Baptist Church are among the Florida Baptist volunteers stationed in Hattiesburg feeding and cleaning up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina is Chester Gunn’s seventh hurricane response. This time, the 69-year-old retiree from Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon is serving as a mechanic, maintaining generators and keeping the showers flowing.

On Monday, Gunn was fixing a local woman’s car, repairing the thermostat when the two started talking.

FBC Photo

Governor Jeb Bush applauds the arrival of Florida Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers at Pensacola's Olive Baptist Church. The teams have been deployed to assist with recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

“I told her I was here because Jesus says it is more blessed to give than receive,” he recalled. When the woman asked for more information about Christianity, Gunn asked one of the chaplains on site to share with her. By the time the car was fixed, the woman “came out hugging my neck and saying she had just accepted Christ. Now that is hallelujah ground.”

Fritz Wilson, director of the Florida Baptist Convention’s Baptist Men’s Department responsible for overseeing the on-site relief effort, said many Florida Baptist churches have brought supplies and commodities to the area. The disaster relief team then directed them to “towns that are without outside aid of any kind.”