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Lead Story
“Miss. Baptists on scene of Gustav”
RAINY BUT READY – Terry Jones (left), national communications coordinator for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and a
member of Blackshear Church in Flowery Branch, Ga., talks with Terry Henderson (center), national disaster relief director for the
North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Ga., and Tom Westerfield, communications coordinator for the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s
disaster relief unit and a member of First Church, Hopkinsville, Ky., on September 2 at Garaywa Camp and Conference Center in Clinton.
Disaster relief units from across the Southern Baptist Convention are utilizing Garaywa as a staging area for post-Hurricane Gustav
disaster relief along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. (Photo by William H. Perkins Jr.)
By William H. Perkins Jr.
Editor
A Mississippi Baptist disaster relief assessment team was on the Gulf Coast hours after Hurricane Gustav raked the state on Labor Day on its
way to landfall southwest of New Orleans.
Jim Didlake, director of men’s ministry for the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board (MBCB) in Jackson and Mississippi Baptists’ disaster
relief coordinator, and Barri Shirley, MBCB associate executive director for business services, are heading up the team.
Didlake reported on the morning of September 2 that many areas of the Gulf Coast he has inspected thus far have encountered considerable
flooding, downed trees, and electrical power outages.
“There’s going to be a need for some cleanup and ‘mud-out’ work,” Didlake said, referring to the procedure used when Baptist volunteers
remove materials such as wallboard and carpet from a home that has been flooded.
“There will also be a need for financial assistance, building materials, and repair work,” he said, adding that the MBCB Disaster Relief
Unit’s mass feeding operation may be dispatched to hard-hit areas of southwest Mississippi.
“The spirit of the people to whom we’ve talked is good,” Didlake said.
Relieved Mississippians expressed gratitude that Gustav delivered only a glancing blow to the state, unlike Hurricane Katrina three years
earlier that came ashore near Bay St. Louis and caused destruction not seen since Hurricane Camille in 1969.
The Sun-Herald newspaper in Biloxi reported September 2 that 92,571 homes statewide were without power, with more than half in the six
southernmost counties of Pearl River, Stone, George, Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson.
The only known fatality at publication deadline was reported to be the result of a weather-related traffic accident in Pike County.
SHELTERING EVACUEES – First Church, Jackson’s Madison campus on Yandell Road near Gluckstadt served as a shelter for
70 elderly residents evacuated from St. Margaret’s Daughters Home in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans, ahead of Hurricane Gustav’s
landfall on September 1 a few miles south of New Orleans. The Home’s administrators were awaiting word at publication deadline on
whether their base facility in New Orleans was damaged by Gustav. The St. Margaret’s Daughters Home was destroyed when levees failed
during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. (Photo by William H. Perkins Jr.).
Jim Futral, MBCB executive director-treasurer, appealed to Mississippi Baptists to find a place of service in the post-Gustav relief effort.
“People along the Gulf Coast held their breath for several days as Hurricane Gustav was making his arrival,” Futral said. “Already, Southern
Baptist Convention Disaster Relief feeding and recovery teams have been mobilized and deployed into areas damaged or destroyed by Gustav.
“No doubt, it could have been much worse but still there is destruction and loss all across the Coast. Please be in prayer for our brothers
and sisters in the affected areas. Lend your support at whatever opportunity you may have and, if you or your church desires, make financial contributions.”
Checks can be made payable to Mississippi Baptist Convention Board and designated to Hurricane Relief on the memo line. Contributions can be
mailed the MBCB Business Office, Hurricane Relief, P.O. Box 530, Jackson, MS 39205-0530.
“Your thoughtfulness and graciousness is a constant source of amazement for the people across the world. God bless you as we love and help
one another,” Futral said.
A number of churches affiliated with the Mississippi Baptist Convention have opened their doors to shelter large numbers of people involved
in what is being described as a record evacuation from south Mississippi and south Louisiana, as well as metro New Orleans. Officials estimated
the Louisiana evacuation alone at nearly two million people.
For the most up-to-date information on the developing Hurricane Gustav relief effort, check the MBCB web site at www.mbcb.org.
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