English
Korean
Spanish
Southern Baptist Texan correspondent Tim McKeown worked with SBTC Disaster Relief in Baton Rouge Sept. 4-11. The following are some of the many stories of how God worked through the SBTC “yellow shirts.”
Based in Baton Rouge, I had been ready to go to New Orleans all week. So on the last day of deployment, Saturday, we were scheduled to go. That day, however, the food preparation was delayed and we were one of the last food canteen trucks to leave. On the way out, our canteen broke down and we had to return to the distribution site. One other canteen was available, but we had to wait on the food and by then the traffic to New Orleans was horrible.
I had been on mission trips enough to see that when things are going the worst, that’s usually when God acts the greatest. I got on the phone and called a Wal-Mart Supercenter and told them we had food to distribute–it was obvious we weren’t going to make it to New Orleans. The manager gave us permission to set up a site there, right off of Highway 10, where a lot of the people who were leaving New Orleans were stopping.
With me were three Salvation Army volunteers, including one man who set up a sound system, brought out his trumpet and played New Orleans-style gospel music. “We are here to not just tell you Jesus loves you, we want to show you Jesus loves you,” he repeatedly said.
When we couldn’t get to New Orleans, God brought New Orleans to us.
I asked two college-aged men who stopped for hot dogs and water a little about themselves and then asked them if they had a personal relationship with Jesus. Both said no, but wanted to hear more. One of them was a son of an Episcopal priest and I told him that God doesn’t have grandchildren, only children and that he couldn’t go to heaven on his father’s coattails. Both of them prayed aloud to receive Christ. I was able to give them a tract explaining the way of salvation and what they had done.
Then just a few minutes later, a woman who could barely walk and who apparently had received some recent medical care, and her son, walked up and asked if we could drive her to a downtown Baton Rouge shelter, where she was supposed to catch the last bus out at 6:30. After two bystanders turned down our requests to help the woman, I did something I’ve never done: I told the lady for us to pray for an angel to come.
That’s what I said and what I prayed. As soon as I said “Amen” and opened my eyes (no exaggeration), there was a taxi pulling right up to where we were. She hadn’t called him and I hadn’t. God did. He was the only cabbie I saw during the entire day at Wal-Mart. I told her, “He’s your angel, but I want to help,” and paid her $11 cab fare. When she and her son got in the cab, I gave her a tract and for the first time, her son smiled.
–Tim McKeown
I gave a lady a cold Dr. Pepper and she just praised God she had a cold Dr. Pepper. She had not had anything cold since the storm went through. There are people down there who are not going to leave (downtown New Orleans). Some of them act like they didn’t know there was a hurricane.
I’m a pretty new grandfather and it was the kids that got me—and there are children down there. When we went in and brought food, we brightened their days. The law enforcement people are not sleeping at all and if they do, it’s on the floor in the Sheraton hotel. They just got air-conditioning last night. When we gave soldiers cold water or food, their demeanor would improve dramatically.
We went in right behind John Walsh (of the “America’s Most Wanted” television show). We were in St. Bernard’s parish and the soldiers and officers were getting pictures made with John Walsh—a hero of most law enforcement officers. A few minutes later, we’re passing out food and John Walsh walks over and said he wanted to have his picture made with us.
–George Yarger
A waitress we met a Applebee’s told us she was from Metairie (near New Orleans) and had lost everything. She had contacted and Applebee’s in Atlanta that was going to give her a job.
She said, “I’ve got five children and need to be in Atlanta and don’t have any gas money.” I told her, “Ma’am I don’t know where you could get that, but let me think about this for a second.” I said, “Can we pray for you at least, so that this can be taken care of.” We stood at the table and prayed and this was while she was still trying to wait on other tables.
There were these two women—Mary Kay reps who have their meeting every week at Applebee’s –who saw us praying and told us they were touched. They helped out, and then I noticed another family praying over their food. I went over and said, “Let me tell you a story about your server.” They were able to help out too.
By the end of our meal, she had all of her needs met. She went through Applebee’s almost shouting, saying, “Praise the Lord, I’ve got my help. God is good!”
The other thing is that she has a 3-year old child who lived in a special home because he has spina bifida and she doesn’t know where he’s at, but she said she is trusting in the Lord that he is safe.
–Monica Collier
So many of the people are just so traumatized, they don’t know how to do what they normally would do. I had a lady come up to me with a baby in the stroller whose legs were getting red and sunburned. I said something to her about her little girl getting so warm, and she said, “Yes, I’m going to get her out of the.” She stood there I don’t know how much longer. I had gotten busy serving food and went back there and she was still in the sun. It was as if she couldn’t function.
–Sonia
There were several lines that came together at the canteen, and when two of the lines came together, two of the families looked at each other and they were old friends who had thought the other family was probably dead because of the storm and flooding. There were hugging and laughing and crying and screaming and carrying on because they had found their friends.
—Darryl Cason
We went to Algiers, La., where there was 500 firefighters. They people there told us, “We don’t know where they are, so go find them and feed them.” It was humorous. God had his hand in it. We went down there, turned a corner and found the base camp for firefighters. Three hundred of them were in from New York and 500 from Chicago—without a kitchen. We ended at 11:30 p.m. and thought our day was over. We stopped and got gas and saw a guy who was homeless from the storm but who hadn’t gone to a shelter. We got to share Christ and pray with him. It was a good day. We found four sandwiches we didn’t know we had; we thought we had been cleaned out by the firefighters, but we had stashed them back in the refrigerator.
–Robert Modesett and Glenn Young
There are tow different attitudes. There are some who are thankful for their lives and families and our help. Others are not happy, asking for not just food, but mayonnaise with it. They blame God. They probably weren’t happy before the storm and aren’t happy now.
–Glenn Young
We were at a state welfare center and got a call on the radio: “We have 400 people here who don’t have food. Can you come help us?” We were already helping there and saw 800-1,000 people around this building who had been there since six o’clock in the morning. It was now supper time. For the next hour (after serving all the food), we just picked up trash and had an opportunity to help. Whenever you ae down so low, you don’t know where else to go and we were able to help those people. We said, “We can’t leave them like this.”
—Norman Flowers
