Episode 3: Ice Storms and Atheists - Hope and Healing Through Disaster Relief

Meet Cookie Baker, a longtime Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer (with a really cool name!), and hear her stories of changed lives from a recent Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief deployment in Greenville, Mississippi. Interested in being trained as a volunteer? Visit sbdr.org and click on Events to find out how. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello, I'm Doug Rogers. And I am Jay Stewart. Welcome to another edition of Better Together: Stories of Alabama Cooperative Program. Right, Jay?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Yes, it is good to be back with you, Doug.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

It's been a little while now. Um as we take this, it's April. In the sports world, what does April mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Um, I think of the Masters. Um we're still uh, you know, of course, um as we uh come out of March Madness, you know, you've actually the championship games are in April. Um baseball kicks off and uh spring training ends and baseball kicks off, and so I guess really baseball is the number one thing in the springtime. What about you? What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Yeah, I think of the opening day of baseball, certainly, and all the things you mentioned as well. Um you mentioned baseball, um, you know, spring, you know, spring training and then the season and everything. When I was growing up, I was the first baseman uh in little league and played uh and I was a pitcher a little bit. But dude, um not much to speak about. That was little league. Did you play baseball against?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

I did. Baseball was absolutely my favorite sport uh growing up. Um dabbled a little bit in in the three that most most boys in Alabama do basketball, baseball, and football. And uh I make a joke because I I can spin a basketball on my finger. Uh not great, but I can do it. I can juggle the baseball uh or uh three baseballs, and and I always tell folks you learn a lot when you sit the bench. You know, you sit over there and uh not about necessarily playing, but about uh just kind of uh having fun with it. But no, I definitely loved baseball. Um and I don't know about you, Doug, but growing up, um, you know, we didn't have SportsCenter when I was very, very young. It it came on the scene a little bit as I was in my uh early um, I would say teenage years, maybe a little before that. But back then, my one of my favorite things I looked forward to after I got out of cartoons a little bit was uh on Saturdays, it was this week in baseball. I don't know if you remember. Do you remember watching for sure? Yeah. Yeah. And uh definitely enjoyed uh watching that. They had all the highlights and the blooper reels and everything.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Do you remember um Rolades had a sponsorship going on?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Do you remember what that was? I do, I do. It's so funny because you know, those little commercials and things stick in your mind, they stick in your mind, and I don't know that I would I would uh win a spelling be, but I could know that how do you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S. And uh they had a Rolades Relief Man of the Year award. Yeah, I collected baseball cards, and at one point I was a Kansas City Royals fan. I really liked George Brett, and they had a pitcher. Now, this is going to go into the Wayback Machine for some of you, but maybe you'll recognize the name. His name was Dan Quisenberry. That was a weird name. And uh he had this really underhanded uh sidearm kind of delivery, submarine kind of deal. He was a great relief pitcher. Actually, Gene Garber was a similar um uh delivery, but he won the Roleids Relief Man of the Year Award, him and Bruce Souter. And I just I don't know. I think about those two things connecting, and it was always um something they brought up on this week in baseball. They had like a point standing somehow. I don't know how that works.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, it is amazing. Um, those memories uh of the generation of kids that spelled uh relief wrong, it spelled spelled um baloney wrong because it was OSC AR. Yes, right. All those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

It's the first name.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Well, I know this is a long way to get here, but uh we've gotten to the topic of relief. You know how important a relief pitcher is to a ball game can save the game coming in. And um in an Alabama Baptist life, uh every month can be uh a big disaster relief month. But April really kind of has a special month. It's a it's a training month for our disaster relief efforts in in addition to March. But gosh, it's hard to believe. 15 years ago, um the high water mark in a bad way of uh disasters in Alabama was when all the uh tornadoes came through our state in 2011, April of 2011. And at that point, um we began collecting a little bit of extra offering money uh for disaster relief, and we would do that in April because of the significance of April 28th and the surrounding days. Now it's not the only year that something like that has happened, but that was kind of a signal point. And uh those those disaster relief funds then were folded into our Myers-Mallory State Missions offering, which has now been around 10 years. But April is an important month, and we wanted to focus a little bit on disaster relief as we have our podcast, and we have a special guest to help us do that. Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yes, today we have with us uh Cookie Baker, who is a member at uh Cross uh Cross Creek Community Church. And uh we're out here in Hulk's Bluff today, actually, in the beautiful We're on location. We are on location uh out here at the church, and um we we had learned um really through some uh you know uh other means where we see some things getting posted on social media and stuff of of some of the work that their team here in in the Edawal Association and there were possibly, in fact, there are definitely some other teams there in uh Greenville, uh Mississippi here recently. So um I guess we want to introduce you to uh Cookie. Cookie, it's so good to have you with us. Uh say hello to our folks and and if you would just tell us uh a little bit about yourself. It doesn't necessarily have to be specifically about disaster relief right now, but just uh introduce yourself to our folks.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Oh, hello. It's good to be here. Um I find it an honor to serve with Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief. It's uh over the years it has become my heart and my ministry. It's uh just something I really like to spend my time doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Amen. Well, you know, uh one of the things we talked about before we got on air was that uh we we always love to have our our guests share their own personal salvation testimony because that is at the heart of of all that we're um uh focusing on with uh the relationship with Jesus and and how you came to know Christ. So share that, share a little of that backstory and and maybe just um you know let folks see that part of your life.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Okay. Uh growing up, I I grew up in Alabama City, uh behind the cotton mill in what we call the mill village, and I was about eight or ten years old, and a preacher moved in next door. So if y'all know where I'm going with this, every Sunday morning then I started getting taken to uh Sunday school and church. Well, during that time, all my parents were not uh churchgoers, they were not Christian. So over the years I began to see something that the people in the church had that I did not have. They had a love, a joy, and a peace that I didn't see in my family. So uh one Sunday night I was graving the back of that bench as hard as I could, did not want to go down to that altar, but God says, Come on. And I did. And uh unfortunately as I got to be an older teenager and my parents didn't go to church, I got away from church and stayed away for many, many years. And then I got married. Um, my father-in-law and his family, they went to church all the time, invited us to uh revival, and I told my husband, I said, if I go, I know what's gonna happen. So we went, and yes, I rededicated my life and uh decided it it's time to get back where I need to be and serve the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

That's tremendous. We're gonna talk about your disaster relief ministry in a minute, but I can't let this go. You mentioned getting married, and of course, your name is Cookie. Uh your nickname, I assume you can tell us that. Last name. I assume you married into becoming a cookie baker. How did that all come about?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Well, I got the name of Cookie at six weeks old. My parents were called themselves Dadwood and Blondie from that old comic strip, and you gotta be old to remember that one. But they called themselves Dadwood and Blondie when I was born. They started calling me Cookie. My brother, uh, 13 months later, he was not Alexander. I don't know how they dropped the ball somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

So the joke ended there.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So the joke ended there. Uh, and then 51 years ago, I met and married Barry Baker and had no idea that putting the two names together was going to become such a story.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Well, that sounds like a whole nother podcast to talk about her life as cookie maker, but we probably better stay focused on that.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, and and she mentions about um Alabama City and Mill Village. And for those of our listeners that know anything about Northeast Alabama and where the old steel plant was and before that, the cotton mill, uh, I pastored over there in that area at Dwight Baptist Church. And um my my family and my my dad actually grew up uh just a few blocks away from uh where where Cookie is from, and almost every man at least, and the women too, but uh but almost every man that I was a pastor of over there, nobody would call them by their names. It all had a nickname, you know. And so um, you know, uh Bowie and Ham hock and those kind of names were were more prevalent, Sonny, as opposed to the people's actual names. So um anyway, it's good to have a cookie baker.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

The biggest guy was always tiny for some reason. That's right. Yeah, yes, cookie baker. Um, well, cookie, you could tell all kinds and please tell whichever ones the Lord brings to mind of disaster relief experiences. But before we get into that, um connect the dots between your salvation and your ministry and your life of service as a as a church member and then when you first began uh in disaster relief ministry.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Well, I was a stay-at-home mom after my second child was born. And I was I was active in church, Sunday school, BBS, everything going on in the church. I was I was staying active because I wanted to to keep that close relationship to God. So I wanted to serve him. And uh in 1990, my husband was laid off from work. We had to move to Tennessee uh he was laid off from Goodyear. All you Alabama people will remember that one. So he went to work at Bridgestone in Tennessee, and we were going to a church up there, and Middle Tennessee has tornadoes like Alabama. And a little church we were going to had a tornado, uh came right through that area, picked up a house right behind the church, dropped it in our churchyard, and there was a 12-year-old boy underneath there who died. We had people, I had never heard of disaster relief, but we had people coming in from uh the Memphis area, had chaplains coming in to minister to us at the church as we were trying to clean up and help people in the area, and they brought in food, chaplains, and they were helping us. And I said, What is this? And they were disaster relief. I had never heard of it. So I said, Yeah, I felt like that's what God was calling me to do, was to be like those chaplains who were to come in and encourage you, show you hope, and just be there with you. So a few years later, we were going to a larger church in town in Manchester, and one of the women sitting in front of me turned around just out of the blue and said, You know, you need to get involved in disaster relief. And I said, Really? Okay, God, what are you saying here?

SPEAKER_01 11:12

That was pretty clear.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

She said, Um, yeah, you really do. She said, That'd be good for you. And I said, Well, if they ever have another training, I'll go. Now, this you've got to remember, this was in October, right after Katrina hit.

unknown 11:24

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So if they ever have a training, I'll go. She said, Good, I'll sign you up. We're going Saturday. So that was my start in 2005. Was uh got my feet wet and they've been wet ever since.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

So you've just uh celebrated 20 years as one of our disaster relief volunteers. That's tremendous.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, that's fantastic. Um, well, so we're transitioning a little bit more to the specifics of of um Greenville. And and of course, some of you who are listening may may remember back uh in the first of the year there was an ice storm, if I'm not mistaken, that came through um sometime in kind of late January. So uh you set the stage for us a little bit for those that may not know or remember. Um what what was kind of the the situation there?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Well, all of um the west part of Mississippi, parts of Tennessee and Kentucky had tremendous amounts of ice. Broke the trees down, power lines down, and the people were just devastated. Um so in any disaster like that, and and this is what's so great about disaster relief, it doesn't affect just us here in Alabama. When another state is affected and they need help, our state director contacts their state director to say, if you need help, we're available. So uh Hubert Yates with Mississippi talked to Mark Wakefield, our State Director, and they decided that yes, they could use some help over there. So they invited us to come to Mississippi and help them out. And it it was a mess over there.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

What do you remember your first uh you've seen all kinds of disaster sites? What was your first personal um response to it in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Um mine was we've got to go help these people. There's gonna be hurting people there, they're scared, they don't know where to turn, they don't know who to trust, they don't know what's going on, and there is a lot of racial tension there. But that didn't that didn't bother me. What I looked at was people hurting and that we could help. We could help clean up the yards, uh, we also have chaplains go. Chaplaincy is where my heart is, but I serve in other areas also. And I I just felt like God saying you need to be there.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

So I was about to actually ask that um uh what areas you've been trained in, and then kind of talk to us about the importance of chaplaincy. But what uh kind of a training have you had?

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I have been trained in everything Alabama has to offer except communications, and I my plate's just too full for that one. Well, and and I was in Tennessee. I started off in Tennessee my first 10 years, but I'm trained in everything, and the main reason I do that is if I'm there on site doing something and they need help somewhere else, I would at least understand what it was I needed to do. So I'm cross-trained in in all areas that we have other than communications.

unknown 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Well, for the purpose of our, you know, listeners, but also where we're trying to connect the dots between our um involvement and and giving through churches um in our missions giving um with cooperative program, the the touch point that I hear you're saying, you know, is that um the interconnectedness we have, because obviously uh the church's giving is is what is supporting having Mark as our state uh director for for um disaster relief, being able to have that connection with Mississippi and certainly other state conventions uh and and other places across our our country, because I I can't begin to wrap my mind around the logistical um complications and difficulties it is in these kinds of situations. Uh, a lot of churches and people want to help, but sometimes when they're in our exuberance to help, you know, we may be helping in a way they don't need, or in some cases, even helping in a way that may be a little counterproductive in our good intentions. But what what I I've I've learned and and seen it firsthand, and you have lived now for over 20 years, is there's a coordination that goes together. And it's such a beautiful picture of cooperation. But um, you know, talk a little bit about just getting to Greenville. How did how does that flesh out for you specifically? In other words, um, what was take us through the process, I guess you might say, of of getting there, and then we'll talk about the some of the amazing things that God did while y'all were there.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Well, we'll get in for me getting there since I was working in administration, and this time I was serving, actually serving as White Hat. Uh, for me getting there was packing my car and getting in my car and driving to Greenville, Mississippi. When I got there, they had already been there a week. The amount of equipment and trucks to get everything to Greenville was already there. But we have huge trucks that carry our equipment. We have uh the big pickups that pull the skid stairs. We have to get all the equipment over there. That's a lot of equipment, expensive equipment. Diesel is not cheap, propane is not cheap. It we are a big, big uh group with a lot of moving parts, but it takes it all to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah. Let's uh talk a little bit about chaplaincy, the role of chaplaincy, and then how how you saw that play out. Um, and the other uh everything you do opens doors, I know. But uh uh what is the role of the chaplain on a disaster relief site? Uh we can kind of picture folks doing chainsaw work and roof and putting tarp on roofs and cleaning up and laundry and all the other things, and they're all an important part of it. But what do you see as the role of chaplaincy on on a disaster relief site?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, we have have two areas of chaplaincy. One is we call the state teams of chaplains. That's where they call chaplains just to come in and work as a state team, and they'll do whatever's needed, and it's kind of up to Whitehead, or they needed uh chaplains to go out with assessors. Do they need chaplains to go talk to somebody that we've heard about that's that's really in crisis? Uh sometimes we go door to door in neighborhoods and knocking on doors, you know, how are you? What are you doing? Do you need anything? How can we help you? So that just depends on that. And then the teams have chaplains. Every team is supposed to take a chaplain when they deploy. So you take a chainsaw team, is working on a yard, cleaning up a yard, the chaplain is talking with the homeowner, ministering to them, and if the homeowner's not there, they can actually walk in the neighborhood and check on the people, and we we just try to minister to them, encourage them, show them hope, show them that we love them, and hopefully get a chance to uh to witness to them and introduce them to Christ.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

So, what are some of the stories that even a month or two or three later now that just are still lingering in your mind, some of the folks you met and the ways the Lord worked there specifically in that Greenville disaster relief effort?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Well, there was there was one story there that's uh the only way I can explain it, it was God working it out in the background, and I had no idea what was going on. Uh I was like I said, I was white hat, I was not serving as a chaplain, but you can always use your chaplaincy no matter where you're serving. So I was uh looking at job orders, we had over 700 job orders, and we were trying to get the priority one jobs done first. I had a stack of job orders that had 12 jobs on one street. So I kept looking through them and looking through them, and I kept going back to one particular work order. And it didn't even sound like it was anything critical. Uh it was a single lady, she had some limbs in her yard. It didn't sound like anything that was real crucial that needed to be taken care of, but for some reason I that kept coming up. Every time I'd go through them, that one just my eyes were pulled to it to look at it, and I finally said, Okay, I'm gonna call her. So I called her and uh asked her um if her she still needed the help. And she said, No, somebody came by and moved those lambs. She said, So that's done. Well, the chaplain see in me and the chaplain in me, and what God was saying was, go a little further. So I asked her, I said, Well, how are you doing today? How are you? And that opened the floodgate. She started crying. Um I talked to her 10 or 15 minutes. She was had multiple medical issues, she had uh financial issues, she was still without electricity two weeks. Her electricity had been off. She said, honey, I don't have any food. I finally got enough money to buy a loaf of bread, and my peanut butter's almost gone. She said, I used my last$200 to pay a man to dig a hole, to put a pole up to get my electricity back on. He took my$200, dug a hole, and left. And my heart was just breaking, but I was in a position where I could not leave because this she was over an hour away from our IC. So I talked to her and tried to encourage her and tell her, you know, we're here to help. Jesus loves you. We love you. We are here to help you people. So I said, somebody will you know be in touch with you. So we had two chaplains that were going home the next morning. And I asked them, I said, go to the kitchen, get all the food that they'll let you have, take it up, and I gave them some gift cards, gave her a couple hundred dollars in gift cards to uh to give to the lady so she could buy some groceries. So they said, Yeah, we'll we'll do that. So on the way home, they stopped by to see her. That afternoon they called me and said, Cookie, you don't know what you did. And I said, What are you talking about? And they said she was sitting at her kitchen table, had given up all hope, was ready to end it. Said, I can't do this anymore, it's over, I'm done. And said, You talked her off the ledge. And said, You talked, said you talked her into having some hope. And they stayed with her for, I don't know, an hour or so talking to her, ministering to her. And they sent me a picture later that day of the three of them, and she was smiling just as big as could be. You'd never know she'd been through anything. God was orchestrating. So it's just I try to always remember to be sensitive to his leading and go where he says go. As chaplains, we're trained to walk into a person's pain with them, not shy away from it.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Wow. I'm just sitting here processing. Um and as as you share that, um I'm fighting back some tears, and I know I know you are as well. Um and you know, one of the things that that we have really hoped to do with this podcast is is just uh try to help people see the flesh and blood, the the the testimonies of of real life change, and that's exactly what you're describing. And and I realize uh in the 20 years you've been involved in, and I've been involved in disaster relief ministry for a number of years myself, there's there's lots of these stories. It's representative, I believe, of the hope. That's that's what my ear picks up on is hope. Um because when folks have lost all hope, that's a bad place to be. And when someone shows up to help and asks them that that sincere, how are you doing? That's what really broke broke the ice. Um talk a little bit about uh just all obviously a a lot of things came together for that for that testimony. But talk about the training that was poured into your life and that you you know took the time to do, how that uh made what happened possible, not only the resources that folks have given, but the training that has gone into that.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Well, I I took chaplaincy training, excuse me, in Tennessee when I started in disaster relief, and I was became an endorsed chaplain for now. Um I came to Alabama and I told him, I said, I've had all your training. And Mark Whitefield just kind of laughed. He said, Yeah, you're gonna train again. Because every state is different, so I had to take all their had to take all their training again, and I was amazed at the uh intensity of our disaster relief training. It's a three-day training, it's very intensive, and it's excellent training. And other than that, I've had several courses in schism, critical incident stress management, uh, pastoral counseling, different anything I could get in the way of helping people. And Alabama provides all that training to us. It's uh I I am just so so blessed to be a part of a state that provides us with the level of training they provide.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yes, uh I I've uh gone through that training for chaplaincy. Um when I did mine, it was at uh Shaco Springs, which is another one of our entities and another way cooperative program touches our lives. Um, but I was amazed um in that training because I had been already been through seminary. I had a master's from seminary and and um had actually gone on and done uh doctoral work, but I learned so much in those trainings, things that maybe I had some idea about, but when you began to see how it impacts and particularly like you mentioned in the the trauma and the and the stress of those situations, something I have heard. Now, this is I don't have any data to back this up, but just I in my experience, what I've I've heard from people, sometimes there's a little bit of a pushback. I know how to run a chainsaw, I know how to pray with people, I know how to share the gospel. But those training uh opportunities teach everybody, I believe, something they can learn, first of all. And second of all, it provides some structure so that we don't run into those problems of creating further issues, uh, whether they be um, you know, physical problems that people might have that um, you know, because they were maybe not aware of a particular type of you know, help they're giving, maybe there's something special about that that they didn't realize was going on that might cause harm to them or someone else. But also that slight difference in talking with someone who has experienced a bad day versus this type of trauma this lady had gone through. What do you recall anything uh specific from from the training? Or was I and I know this is a very broad question, but just that that kind of sticks out when you look back on it, that um you know came into play. Obviously, the Spirit of the Lord is is at the very top of all of this, God leading you there in the first place, but but talk a little bit about just some of those specific things that you were able to share with this lady.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Well, one of the one of the main things I took away from the chaplaincy training is to don't do the talking, listen. Let them talk. They need to tell their story, they need to tell how they feel. And if we're talking, they can't say that. So I've learned to just try to listen and let them explain what's going on with them and help them along and then ask them, ask them questions to keep them talking because the more they talk, the sooner they're going to start healing and getting over the trauma.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Yeah, yeah. Uh you mentioned the word hope, and that's really what it's about, is providing hope. Um, but we wouldn't be able to do that if those doors weren't open. Um the the training that you talk about is so important, also because it opens doors with other um folks who are running the disaster, basically. Um I know that Southern Baptist Disaster Relief um is well respected in the disaster world. In fact, a lot of folks don't know it's the third largest disaster relief organization behind uh American Red Cross and Salvation Army. Um and that is because um when you encounter law enforcement, when you encounter FEMA or whoever, they know all of our folks who have those yellow shirts on have been trained to that same level. So uh talk about the the way even just the yellow shirts and just uh the fact that we are trained in in a well-oiled machine, how even that uh lends itself to um uh the ministry we're able to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

One thing it does, they they respect our level of training. They know that if we wear those yellow shirts and have those badges, that we've been trained at a certain level. Um you mentioned law enforcement. We encountered a man in uh St. Augustine, he was a first responder, his yard was a total mess. I was with a team of state chaplains, we were walking the neighborhoods just talking, knocking on doors, asking people, can we help you? And we ran up on him, he had his baby with him, uh about somewhere around a year old, and asked him how he was doing. He said, Well, he said, I really I've got to get back to work, my wife's coming in, we swap out the baby, and she'll stay home with her, and I've got to get back to work because we're working non-stop. So since I was trained in assessing also, I went ahead, I did a quick assessment of his yard, and then we had seen a chainsaw team one street over from where we were, so I called the command center and talked to the white hat and explained that this first responder had trees that really needed to come out of his yard. So they actually sent a team over that afternoon. Well, when I was talking with the man, I asked him, I always do this when I talk to a person, can I pray with you? And he said, he started laughing. He said, I'm an atheist, you don't want to pray with me. And I said, You know, I don't care about that. I said, I'd love to pray with you if you'd let me. Well, you can waste your time if you want to. I said, Well, I'd love to pray with you. So I I prayed with him and just prayed, you know, generic prayer that you're able to go down and go to sleep tonight, get a good night's sleep, restful, be able to make the decisions you gotta make tomorrow, for you to have peace about the situation and for you to be hopeful, and just kind of left it at that and prayed with him. No response from him. So the next day we were in the same neighborhood, and uh walking by talking about the yellow shirts, this woman came running out. Hey, hey, hey, were y'all here at my house yesterday? We said, Yeah. And I looked over there and the yard was clean. All the trees had been moved. I said, I talked to your husband yesterday, and she said, Well, I don't know what you did, but he told me he's going to church with me Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

So, you know, you never know. You you just ask them if you can pray with them, and they very seldom say no. Like he said, I'm an atheist, you don't want to. I said, I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

People usually don't turn down a prayer. That is a great notion.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

First responders, they they need help too. They are hurting just like everybody else, sometimes more so.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I do think that's a a tremendous point to bring up because the the first responders that are there are doing ministry, whether they're an atheist or not, they're trying to help people. Um, some of it's because they have to, that's their job, but but they're doing that as a as a profession, as a to this extent in some lives, a calling. And I would imagine there's probably a lot of stories where the the ministry has been as much to them because they live in that community. They're from that county or that region, or maybe even right there in their own town. And um, I do think that's one of the blessings of the training and the coordination and how everything works with our yellow shirt army as as we call um our disaster relief teams. Um, when all that comes together, those people who are really on the front lines and they're worn out themselves, they're more vulnerable to to be stressed and more vulnerable to be hurting, and maybe things that were not even related to the disaster itself. But God uses that to bring up an opportunity for someone like yourself just to just to pray. And I don't say just to pray as that's not a big thing, because that's the most powerful thing that we can do. Now, I don't know, we're a few weeks out from the Greenville trip, and part of the testimony you you shared is something I know you've shared a little bit in some other formats. Have there been some other thoughts you've had since you've gotten back, kind of reflecting, decompressing maybe a little bit in your own mind, and maybe doing some of the chaplain work of kind of that um thinking back through and and you know, evaluating self. What what are some things that kind of linger from from the trip and from that particular uh ministry?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Well, I I actually had a little guilt about not being able to go see the woman myself. But with the with the job position I had, I really wasn't in a position at that time of the day that I could leave and be gone for that long. And I had to I had to turn that over to somebody else. And for a type A personality, that's hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Very good. It is interesting, but it also is a reinforcement that God had had the right folks ready to go uh to do that. Um you know, just to wrap this up for our viewers, not the the program, but the the situation in Greenville, um uh lasted a solid month in terms of Alabama Baptist involvement. Um, hundreds of volunteers, multiple salvations. Um, what kind of lasting impact um are you confident that uh the Lord has had through Alabama Baptist as a result of that investment of that uh that month of of work?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

One thing in particular stood out. Um one of the assessors came in one afternoon and said, you know, I said a I talked to a police officer today and said he was telling me that uh since we've been here, the race relations have eased off by at least 25 percent.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Oh that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

And things are calm you know calmer than they were. I said, Well, that's a good thing. And then he came back to me later and said, We're hearing that across the board, that these the whole community is so amazed that y'all came all this way and you're not asking anything for it, that you're doing it free.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

I think the the volunteer and the the the level, it's not just the fact that you have the number of people, but the resources that came with it. All those vehicles, all those gift cards, all those things which were made possible by the coordinated efforts of Alabama Baptists, those things speak volumes. Um, you know, and and and obviously when they see the tangible hands and feet of God, that is that is a very powerful uh testimony. And it's a it's a beautiful picture of the gospel. And um I just I just want to say thank you. Thank you for what you guys have done. Um now I I may be wrong about this. Help me know, I uh you mentioned the gift cards. Um, don't most of those gift cards have some sort of a gospel connection to them?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

We put them in a folder that says Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief, the plan of salvation is there. So every gift card is given with a plan of salvation.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I think that's such an important thing for our listeners to hear. There, there's so many questions I've got because I know that there's a lot of visibility and a lot of understanding of uh of what disaster relief is, but I also think there may be some some uh I don't know, misunderstandings possibly among some of our folks of how all these things work. But those that we've mentioned it a few times, um the yellow shirt army and um and the white hat. So so just for my own benefit, because I don't remember all of the details, what tell me what is a white hat? What does that mean now? Because I'm thinking, you know, uh we've got a Western, and you know, the good guy wrote in on the white hat. But what is what is the role of and what is what is the white hat?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Well, typically the white hat is the person in charge of the whole instant command. Um yellow hat is just the worker bees, which I usually try to be just the worker bee. And then the blue hats, they're over specific areas and a certain group of volunteers. And then the white hat is over the entire operation. So uh whoever's serving as white hat is responsible for all the equipment, all the people, the uh feeding unit, shower and laundry, the chaplains, they're they're responsible for everything and everybody. The buck stops there.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

So it's a very colorful world. Yes, right, yes. That's right. I love that. And it's but that points to the organization and the the structure of it. Um you mentioned a minute ago a couple things that made me think it is such a great picture of cooperation um from the local church, really all the way to our national effort uh uh that we do through the Southern Baptist Convention, but um the role of the association, the local associations and the teams that are are organized through there and the the investment they make, it starts at the local church because that's where volunteers come from, and then the the uh coordination through our state. So it is a perfect picture of Acts 1.8, as you said, um uh on every level of of outreach. Uh you also mentioned the gift cards, y'all in addition to those being gospel centered, do you have Bibles that you uh that you give out, particularly to homeowners that are signed?

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Every team is encouraged to to buy, and we buy the Bibles from the state board, um to give every homeowner a Bible, and everybody that was working on site signs that Bible for the homeowner. Um it's the last and thing that we leave with them because after the disaster we're coming home. So we leave something with them that they can look at and remember us by, remember what we did. A lot of the people are that we work with are Christians, they have their own Bible, but that they inevitably say thank you so much for this because it's it's then becomes a special Bible. For the non-believers, we just pray that they will look at it and go back to it and when they think about what we did and maybe get into the word. So we uh we encourage every team, every job they do to leave a Bible with a homeowner.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

And I think not only in addition to it being a Bible and what that means, but it being a tangible um reminder of a of a real experience they had, a benchmark, a spiritual moment in their lives. So I think it's it's a it's a great gift that Alabama Baptists are part of, as you said, as they give uh to support disaster relief. That's uh a tangible way that um that they are impacting these families.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

So um now this this may not hopefully catch you off guard on this question. Uh I I and I I I ask it just for our listeners' sake. Give us a an idea of the scope of that ministry um in terms of some numbers that you can just recall. You may I know you've got your your data there. Um talk about just the numbers of things that maybe you stick out to you that would be interesting for our folks to hear.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Okay. Well, in just Greenville, the last uh the last video, we had 16 salvations, and two people made other decisions to rededicate the rights. Praise the Lord, 16. So that's uh that's why we go. The trees are secondary. The main reason we go is to minister to the people. Amen. To bring them, as we call it. Help, hope, and healing.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Help, hope, and healing.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Help, hope, and healing. Um we gave out 196 Bibles. Wow. Had uh 555 chaplain contacts, 503 ministry contacts, where the chainsaw guys would would talk with the homeowners or whatever. Uh 179 gospel presentations.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

The uh another thing that that we do that it's not just a ministry to the victims, the people that had their uh tree damaged or homes damaged. By keeping up with the administration, we keep up with all the hours logged, equipment hours used, how many volunteer hours were worked. And the the local EMA can use those hours as money for reimbursement from FEMA. So during that one trip, volunteers, FEMA rates them at$28 to$35 an hour.

unknown 40:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

So we had uh 462 volunteers working for Greenville. So you multiply that out, that's over a half a million dollars, getting close to three-quarters of a million dollars for the people and equipment hours that that community will be able to use to help pay for some of the damage that was done there. So we're not only helping the homeowners, we're helping the community we're working in. We don't get anything, it doesn't help us at all, but it helps that community track uh those hours. And it's verified, we have records for it that can help that help that community recover.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

So I'm just sitting here trying to do the math in my head, and I'm not gonna be able to do it quickly here. But when you start talking about that type of of number, 16 salvations is a praise the Lord, hallelujah. The the how many hundred Bibles?

SPEAKER_00 41:35

We gave out uh 196 Bibles.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

So just shy of 200 Bibles uh in in all those gospel conversations that you had, and then on top of all of that, close to three-quarters of a million dollars of tangible impact for the future. Not that's not counting what would have they would have had to have paid, that woman paid$200 for somebody to dig a hole and not even finish the job. Y'all did um, you know, countless dollars of of tangible help to those people. I guess what I'm I'm sitting here trying to help our folks see is just the multiplication of it, which really is the heart of what we are talking about, is that we we place our um efforts in the hands of the Lord and He multiplies it. He provides the increase in the salvations, most importantly, but only heaven's gonna really know the true impact of of that trip.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Most of this we won't know till we get to heaven.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Amen. That is that is right.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Well, connecting the dots is really easy as Alabama Baptists give through the cooperative program and uh in this case through uh Myers Mallory's take missions offering. Um everything you just talked about comes to be uh the training, the the physical equipment, uh the Bibles, all of that. Um Alabama Baptists can be a proud that they have been a part of that. But they also have the opportunity to go. Um Mark Wakefield in the disaster relief office reminds me or reports that uh there are 5,500 trained volunteers at the moment. So we have all the volunteers we need, right? There's no room for any more volunteers.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Oh no, we need more volunteers at the time. I was throwing you a software. Yeah, that was a that was an easy one.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, so uh Todd, talk about that up uh the what opportunities are available and the need for more volunteers.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Well, and the one reason we need more people trained is because a lot of people get trained, but a lot of these people are still working full-time jobs and they can't deploy for a week or a week and a half. Uh maybe they can only do local jobs or they save up their vacation time and can go. So if you have a hundred people trained, you might get ten percent of those that can deploy. So we're always needing more people trained. We need more chaplains. Um there are times when we don't have enough chaplains on site, we need more. Uh we need more trained in every category.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

And I know we haven't enumerated that, but that'd be feeding, uh shower and laundry. And you can go pick up the list from there, chainsaw and clean up recovery.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Um one thing that we are so blessed with, thankful the churches are given the money, uh, is our skid stairs, our heavy equipment. When I moved back to Alabama and uh saw we had skid stairs, I was like a kid at Christmas. Oh they can move that wood for us. Yeah, that's tremendous. Labor saving device for sure. We are really blessed, uh, but we need we need people trained so that they can can run the equipment so that they can do these jobs. Our mass feeding training, I mean uh those women have to have and men have to have serve safe. We are we never get in trouble for having unsanitary kitchens. We anytime we're checked, we're good to go. So we need people trained in all areas.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

That's right. And I love I love the the the big picture we see of this. You're you're a member here at Cross Creek Community Church, and shout out to Chris Walker, the pastor here. And the the local churches have people who go to these trainings. Uh the the local association here, Edelwall Association, Craig Carlisle, you have those equipment um uh pieces of equipment. A lot of times are owned by the actual, some are owned by the state and some are owned by the local association, if I understand right. And then of course we have Mark coordinating all this and and and all of this, again, with their even our greater Southern Baptist family, all work together. So um it really is, you know, no one person, and this is my favorite part, I think, outside of obviously the salvations of my favorite part, but the the fact that we really aren't able to get any individual credit because there's so many people working together, it's God who gets the credit, and he's the only one who deserves it anyway.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

There's a lot of moving parts, and and I tell people there's no unimportant jobs. Every job's important because it takes everybody working together to get it done. It takes all of us.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

So although some training is taking place in March, uh the bulk of uh of Alabama training takes place in April, so uh there are still spots available, and uh so I encourage you if the Lord is um is uh talking to you right now about being trained, now is the time of year really to do that. Uh and I don't want to close without uh this uh reflection as well that it was 15 years ago this month that uh the uh devastating tornadoes went through our own state. And as uh challenging and difficult as uh time that was on April 28th, 2011, um 15, I think 14 or 15 other states came into our state. So sometimes we get to go other places, but uh sometimes it takes place right in our own backyard. What is your memory um as we kind of close down of that uh experience now 15 years old back in 2011?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Unfortunately, I was living in Tennessee then, so I missed that one. I missed that one.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

As we think about that though, it's a great reminder of that.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Um I have talked to a lot of people that were involved in that, and we even worked with um one association uh about three years ago when they had the tornado in O'Hachie. So some of the people that were helping us uh actually riding with us, showing them where people live to talk to. The people that were helping us were so traumatized because they said this is just like 2011, April 2011. So we were actually wound up ministering to our helpers who were traumatized and triggered by that tornado. So these things bring back memories to people years later and we still need to encourage them and love on them and and show them show them love and hope.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Yeah, and I think it illustrates too, you know, going back to the idea of the training, um there's always that urgent need that comes up and folks feel like maybe they missed miss the window because they haven't gone through the training. So I think that's why it's important if if you're listening to this and you think there's any chance that you might want to serve in this way, go ahead and go to a training. It will help you in ways that that won't even have anything directly to do with disaster relief. You'll be able to place these kind of skills in your daily life or at least uh on a regular basis. But then when something comes up, which it will, unfortunately, there's going to be another uh weather-related event at some point, whether it's here in Alabama or somewhere around the country. Um if you've been trained and you have that as an availability, then when the call comes, you can say, you know what, this happens to work with my schedule. Because I do think there are folks who think, well, I can't go for a week or I can't go for a month or something. And and probably most people can't, but you might be able to go for a weekend or a few days.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

We have a lot of opportunities for people to serve if they can only go two or three days that they can go and serve those two or three days. Um we need them.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

We need more volunteers.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Well, Jay, I think we need to plan a part two at some point. Uh there's just so much to absolutely and thank you, uh, Cookie, for your um sharing of your not only what the Lord's done through you, but uh uh how he has used so many other folks as well. Any other ideas, stories, thoughts come to mind as we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Just um I'm bl I'm honored to be a part of this organization where I can help people and show them hope and show them that Jesus loves them.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Amen. Well said. Well said. Well, Doug, I guess that brings us to a close. I know we could go on for a lot more a lot longer here, but I guess uh we'll we'll call it a day on that with the that thought of what a blessing it is and the hope we have in Christ. So any parting words from you?

SPEAKER_02 49:57

I would just say um that as you hear of disasters, know that uh almost always uh the yellow shirt army will be deployed. So pray for those who are um who are uh going into the disaster, not only our relief volunteers, but all first responders as well. But as you so ably said earlier, um we go into the places that need help. So pray for the volunteers, pray for uh our state missionaries involved in that, and and just continue to uh uh provide the your gifts through the cooperative program through our Myers Mallory State Missions offering, which makes these ministries possible.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Praying, providing, and participating are the words that come to my mind because we need all of those things. And thank you, Alabama Baptists, for all of those. We love you. And we will see you next month. Bye bye.