Volunteers are shown packing dishes after a recent flooding incident. Photo submitted.
The Arkansas Baptist Disaster Relief (ABDR) box ministry based out of Baring Cross Baptist Church in Sherwood recently deployed to Morgan City, Louisiana, where the unit ministered to people impacted by Hurricane Francine.
The hurricane slammed into the Louisiana coast on Sept. 11 as a dangerous Category 2 storm, knocking out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people and threatening widespread flooding as it sent a storm surge rushing inland along the Gulf Coast.
ABDR partnered with Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief to aid efforts in Morgan City, about 30 miles northwest of where Francine crashed ashore in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
Charles Wilson, a volunteer with the box ministry unit, said they packed the trailer with a little more than 1,300 small and medium-sized boxes and other boxing essentials. On final report, they distributed 1,322 boxes over a five-day period. They assisted in boxing up three homes, made 58 ministry contacts, and prayed for the folks they were encountering. Out of the 58, Wilson said they were able to deliver the Gospel and plan of salvation tracts to two individuals and presented a Bible to owners of each of the three homes.
“The neat thing about a box ministry … we are going to be in and packing people’s homes and spending a lot of time with them. There’s a lot of interaction. And that is what makes the box ministry so special,” Wilson said. “We have chaplains with the unit and they’re easily praying and finding out about the spiritual health of those individuals. We do everything we can. When we weren’t in a house packing up, we were back at the (host) church with the unit opened up doing ministry there.”
The idea for the box ministry developed a little before the tornado hit Little Rock in March 2023. Wilson said ABDR Director Randy Garrett came to them and introduced the idea to the church to have a box ministry unit that operated out of central Arkansas.
“The first thing you have to think about is you’re going to have to have a trailer, how you’re going to have to modify the trailer. And then, how are we going to get boxes and how are we going to supply it and how the ministry was going to work,” Wilson said.
When the tornado hit Little Rock in March 2023, Wilson said a pastor in Starkville, Mississippi, reached out to their pastor to see how they could help. Turns out, the Starkville church had a barely used 2-year-old trailer. They were about to put it up for sale. The pastor instead offered it to Baring Cross.
“We were able to drive down, pick up their trailer and bring it back. The Lord provides,” Wilson said. That was followed by several box manufacturers in central Arkansas providing boxes for the ministry. “That energized us and there were just miracles happening left and right. … Slowly but surely, we amassed everything we need to stock the trailer.”
The Baring Cross box ministry unit is the fifth deployable box unit in the state.
“It’s a neat ministry and we hope it grows,” Wilson said. “A box ministry falls right in line with what all the other units that deploy do. We provide hope and healing and are the hands and feet of Jesus as we go into the community. We’re bringing needed supplies in, but our goal is to search out and to provide the Gospel to the lost and through God’s saving grace bring them into a relationship with Him.”
Wilson’s team spent Sept. 16-21 in Morgan City. He said they have already restocked the trailer with 1,200 boxes and are on alert for a potential deployment in response to Hurricane Helene, which made landfall last week in the Big Bend area of Florida just southwest of Perry as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds of 140 mph, life-threatening storm surge, and torrential rains.
The storm was a fast-moving storm that tracked northward rapidly with impacts in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia. It has caused historic rainfall flooding, wind damage, and generated some tornado activity.
ABDR is leading efforts in the Valdosta, Georgia, area with an Incident Management Team, chaplains, and assessors already on the ground. Additionally, ABDR has units in Vidalia, Georgia.
For more information about how you can be involved in and support ABDR, visit abscdisasterrelief.org.
