South Carolina Baptists are sending more than 2,700 food boxes to war-torn Iraqi families.  The South Carolina Baptist Convention Building, First Church North Spartanburg, and the Charleston Baptist Association hosted collection sites Monday, May 19.  Churches, associations, and individuals from across the state donated boxes. 

From the three South Carolina collection sites, the boxes will go to port in Norfolk, VA.  Then the boxes will be shipped to Kuwait, and volunteers will take them into Iraq. 

Each box contains enough food to feed an Iraqi family of five for about a month.  The contents include navy beans, lentils, rice, flour, salt, loose tea, and powdered milk.  A sticker on the outside of the each box reads “A gift of love from the Southern Baptist churches in America,” and also includes John 1:17 in Arabic. 

“These boxes will be delivered directly to families who need them so volunteers will have personal contact with them,” Cliff Satterwhite, SCBC Disaster Relief director, said. 

“I think this gets a lot of people involved with missions that normally wouldn’t be involved,” Tim Brown, volunteer from Riverland Hills Church, Columbia, said.  Brown directed traffic Monday at the convention building.

Other volunteers, such as Harriet Gatch from Bethel Church in Prosperity, and Jim Murphy, SCBC WMU associate, packaged loose food items that people donated.  Mike McCormick, SCBC accounting assistant and certified fork lift operator, spent Monday loading pallets into 18-wheelers.