Since our state’s first winter storm two weeks ago, SC Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers have participated in about 200 clean up projects in 12 different cities. 

Within a week, 31 teams—24 of those from South Carolina—were deployed to help victims of the ice storm.  Two teams each from North Carolina and Florida and three from Georgia were also sent out by the North American Mission Board to assist with the massive clean up efforts in South Carolina.

“I talked with NAMB early on and they asked if we needed help.  I knew at the start that we may need help, so they sent in teams from other states,” Cliff Satterwhite, SC Baptist Convention disaster relief director, said.

All 31 teams deployed were chainsaw-recovery teams so their main job was to remove fallen limbs and trees from the victims’ yards.

Satterwhite reported that a 75-year-old woman from Columbia was literally in tears when he approached her to offer assistance.  She was in her front yard with a hand saw trying to cut a tree that had fallen in her yard so she could clean up by moving the smaller pieces.  Her husband recently died, and she told Satterwhite that this was “the first time she had to face a disaster like this without him.”

Debbie McDowell, Missions Mobilization director at the SC Baptist Convention, also experienced first hand the impact of Disaster Relief.  McDowell said that she felt helpless after the storm as she saw fallen trees and limbs surrounding her home. However, she remembered that there are chain saw units within the SC Disaster Relief system, and she phoned Satterwhite.  A team from the York Association volunteered to go to the Columbia area the Saturday after the storm, so Satterwhite sent them to McDowell’s neighborhood.

“Storms will come in our lives in many forms.  I am thankful that God sends Disaster Relief teams and others to walk with us in those storms,” McDowell said.  “Now when I hear ‘Disaster Relief,’ I see faces of men in my yard and community, impacting Kingdom Growth through this volunteer missions opportunity.”

Other units that volunteered during the ice storm were from the Pee Dee, Reedy River, Charleston, Chesterfield, Chester, Kershaw, Marion, Abbeville, York, Columbia Metro, Moriah, North Greenville, Pickens-Twelve Mile, Screven, Barnwell and Edgefield Associations.  Also, the Tommy Thompson Memorial team was deployed with units from Arrowwood Church in Chesnee and Sweetwater Church in North Augusta.

A major disaster relief training conference will be held at White Oak Conference Center March 5-6.

For more information about Disaster Relief, contact the SC Baptist Convention at (800) 723-7242, extension 5301, email brendalugmayer@scbaptist.org or visit online at www.scbaptist.org.