The national 2003 Disaster Relief Roundtable was held in Ridgecrest, North Carolina from April 22-24. Hosted by the North American Mission Board, approximately 250 people attended for a time of fellowship, workshops, business meetings, testimony, and awards.

The awards banquet on April 22 honored eight outstanding individuals who exhibited exemplary service during 2002.

Cliff Satterwhite of South Carolina was one of five people who received the Distinguished Service Award. The criteria for this award includes a person who has demonstrated distinguished service to the Kingdom of God through Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

For 13 years, Cliff Satterwhite has served with South Carolina Disaster Relief.  He is largely responsible for the development of the state’s ministry.  In 1989, at the time of Hurricane Hugo, South Carolina had no viable disaster response mechanism.  The emphasis was on rebuilding following disasters.

Following Hurricane Hugo’s landfall on the coast of South Carolina, Cliff was assigned the responsibility of managing South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Operation Center in Columbia. For more than six weeks, Cliff managed the response while serving more than 12 hours a day in the center. When he did leave the Columbia area, it was to check on those serving on the coast and elsewhere.

In 1992, three days before Hurricane Andrew came ashore in South Florida, Cliff was again assigned responsibility for disaster relief in South Carolina. This was in addition to his other major responsibilities in mission education and the McCall Royal Ambassador Camp.

Today, South Carolina Disaster Relief has grown to 39 disaster relief units including the following: three feeding, 27 recovery, one command/communication, two childcare, one shower, one water purification, and four other units.  In addition, there exists a well-developed and organized capability to respond with trained chaplains.

During 9/11 Cliff organized and led a crisis intervention team to Ground Zero and worked with Port Authority police to provide much needed Christian-based intervention and service. 

The demonstration of leadership, ability, accomplishment, and Christ-likeness has made him a distinguished and invaluable player in Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

Cliff leads by example. His personal vision to serve Christ is obvious. He does not allow ego to be an issue as he empowers volunteers. He continually challenges volunteers to fulfill their call of God and live out their faith as they serve Christ and others who are in need. He has developed disaster relief in South Carolina by using volunteers at all levels of the ministry, entrusting them with responsibility, faith, and support and holding them accountable to serve Christ by helping others.

He is always willing to try new ways of doing ministry and has led South Carolina Disaster Relief to be on the cutting edge by using different tools in providing ministry.

His long, stable leadership for South Carolina in Royal Ambassadors is another example of the kind of leadership that he provides in disaster relief.

Lloyd Jackson, disaster relief leader in Virginia, puts it this way: “Cliff shows compassion, love, forgiveness, and help as he works with a variety of persons, not only in disaster situations but in all areas. He reaches out to others in the name of Christ and fulfills, in the most significant way, Christ’s command to ‘do unto others’.”