English
Korean
Spanish
BROWNSVILLE On July 23, Hurricane Dolly brought little of the destruction to Texas that other hurricanes had brought, but for the residents of northern Mexico, devastating flooding occurred. In the aftermath, south Texas churches did not hesitate to help their Mexican neighbors.
“There was a group of churches that were planning to go down [to Mexico] the week of July 28, but the week before they went, Hurricane Dolly hit the coast,” said Steve Dorman, pastor of First Baptist
Church of Brownsville.
Instead, through First Baptist Brownsville, SBTC disaster relief, Operation GO Mexico, and Baptist Global Response, the people of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, were fed rice and beans and some of them responded to the gospel.
First Baptist Brownsville is a strategy coordinator church with the International Mission Board and a partner with the SBTC’s Operation GO Mexico ministry. Strategy coordinator churches adopt a region of the world where the IMB does not have a missionary stationed. These churches assume the responsibility for evangelizing and planting churches in that area.
“Our strategy area that we work with is in northern Mexico and includes the city of Matamoros, Mexico,” Dorman said. “We have been working in Matamoros, partnering with Mexican churches to help plant churches there.”
Typically, FBC Brownsville works with other Texas churches to venture into Matamoros and reach out to the residents there. Operation GO Mexico, the ministry assisting with this trip, involves Texas churches in Scripture distribution and evangelistic surveys. The surveys include questions concerning religion aimed at finding people who are willing to learn more about Jesus Christ. From the people who participate in the surveys, a person is found who will open his home for a Bible study in concert with a local church. But this trip was different.
Dolly was not a high-category hurricane, but she brought torrents of rain to the Brownsville area. Texas was hit hard; Matamoros was struck harder.
“They don’t have the infrastructure in Mexico to deal with that much rain and there was massive flooding in the city,” Dorman said. “Many of the roads in Matamoros were turned completely into mud and many of the people in Matamoros were not able to go to work and lost income because of the flooding.”
FBC Brownsville worked with two Texas churches?Calvary Baptist Church of Nacogdoches and Trinity Baptist Church of Port Arthur?after Dolly flooded Matamoros. The two Texas churches partnered with three Mexican churches, Monte Horeb, Casa Blanca, and Veida Nueva, in Matamoros the week after Dolly struck the coast. These five churches were able to offer assistance to the residents of Matamoros. Casa Blanca is a mission church started by FBC Brownsville.
On this trip, First Baptist did the facilitating for the Nacogdoches and Port Arthur churches.
“We had 15 people who went with these churches and served as translators,” Dorman said. “They translated between the U.S. churches and the Mexican churches as well as translating for the surveys and this project.”
“After Hurricane Dolly hit, I received a call from Jim Richardson, head of the SBTC disaster relief. He asked me what the needs were in Mexico.” Dorman said. “I told him about what we knew and he put me in touch with Baptist Global Response.”
Through the help of BGR and the SBTC, FBC Brownsville obtained $4,000 worth of rice, beans and oil to hand out to the afflicted residents of Matamoros.
“The churches that were planning on going down and doing Gospel distribution and surveying had a change of plans,” Dorman said. “Instead they went door to door distributing bags of food and the gospel.”
While the two Texas churches were in Matamoros, they visited over 4,000 homes during their stay.
They also distributed food to the members of the Mexican churches as well as the pastors of those churches, Dorman said.
“By the time the churches arrived, the peoples’ homes were no longer flooded,” Dorman said. “But the people missed work so we provided them food.”
Overall, the teams handed out 2,500 bags of beans and 670 packages of food throughout Matamoros.
“The Texas churches were really excited about the hospitality of the Mexican churches that they worked alongside,” Dorman said.
On the first day the team was delayed in doing Gospel distribution and were only able to visit 455 homes.
“Normally, the groups would be able to do twice as many homes,” Dorman said. “But then they realized that about half the homes that they were visiting were interested in hosting or attending a Bible study. That was really exciting, that at the end of the miserable delay they had 50 percent openness with the people they encountered.”
God’s protection was seen another time that week as one of the men from FBC Brownsville and his two sons were walking down the street. They saw a young man covered in tattoos heading toward them.
“It was the kind of time when you think that there is probably going to be trouble,” Dorman said. “But the man asked them in Spanish what they were doing and they told him they were handing out food and Gospels. He looked them and said, ‘Well, that is a good thing to do,’ and walked away.”
“This outreach saw 38 decisions to follow Christ,” Dorman said.
These new believers are being followed up on and enrolled in Bible studies led by local churches.
“[Food distribution] is a great way to go door to door and to help open doors to the gospel too.” Dorman said.
Meanwhile, the outreach in Matamoros shows the growing need for Southern Baptist international disaster relief volunteers, said the SBTC’s Richardson.
“The relief work across the border in Matamoros after Hurricane Dolly is a shining example of the good works of Southern Baptists in international disaster relief,” Richardson said. “The SBTC is in the process of building a database of volunteers?physicians, physician’s assistants, nurses, EMTs, pharmacists, dental professionals?to work through Baptist Global Response in the wake of international disasters. These medical professionals are on the front lines of loving people in Jesus’ name after a catastrophe, and we need more and more of them.”
Richardson said any active Southern Baptist in the medical professions may e-mail him, jrichardson@sbtexas.com, if interested in being added the database of available volunteers.
