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IN MOORE, OKLA., First Baptist Church (in background) sits amid a destroyed neighborhood.
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Volunteers deliver
calm after the storm
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___MOORE, Okla.--Oklahomans often joke that the best thing that ever came out of Texas is I-35. The humor may be gone now, but that statement has taken on new truth as a stream of Texas Baptists are journeying to the Oklahoma City area to serve as volunteers in the aftermath of one of the nation's most vicious tornadoes.
___The Sunday after the May 3 tornado, Pastor Gary Smith of Fielder Road Baptist Church in Arlington asked for volunteers to help with relief work in Moore, Okla. He quickly got 130.
___Two days last week, the Fielder Road members boarded buses early in the morning, traveled three hours to the Oklahoma City suburb, worked all day sorting, moving and
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RESIDENTS OF TORNADO-RAVAGED AREAS like this neighborhood in Del City, Okla., have benefitted from the labor of thousands of volunteers, including many Texas Baptists. The two men shown above are eating hot meals prepared by Texas Baptist Men disaster relief workers and distributed by the American Red Cross. (Photos by Mark Wingfield)
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distributing donated goods, then got back on the bus for a late-night trip home.
___The minute the pastor called for volunteers, truck driver Bill Ater knew he had to go, he said. Though he had to deliver a load to San Antonio on Monday and didn't get home until late that night, he was on board the Fielder Road bus Tuesday morning for the trip to Oklahoma.
___So were Rodney and Rosemary Pirkle, who at the end of the long day both said they felt "blessed" to be able to give their time and energy to the relief effort.
___"I wouldn't take anything for today," said Mrs. Pirkle, who worked in the church kitchen preparing and serving meals to scores of other volunteers and residents displaced by the tornado.
___And then there's Larry Blanchard, fresh from assisting Kosovar refugees in Albania. With only a few days' rest between assignments, now he's heading the Texas Baptist Men disaster relief unit set up at First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Okla.
___Blanchard and a team of Texans are cooking several_thousand hot meals twice each
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HENRY TOOMBS of North Fort Worth Baptist Church in Fort Worth prepares one of the meals at the mobile kitchen set up at First Southern Baptist Church in Del City.
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day to feed residents of Del City neighborhoods who are trying to repair their homes, clean debris from the property or, in the worst cases, remove what little remains before their homes are bulldozed.
___The Texas Baptists prepare the meals--such as chicken and dumplings with mixed vegetables and bread--which then are distributed street-by-street by the American Red Cross.
___Like many of the Texans on his team, Blanchard is a veteran volunteer. He scans the list of previous disasters painted on the side of the semi-trailer turned mobile kitchen and grows teary recalling the good Texas Baptists have done around the world.
___"We go out with arms of love," he said, adding that this fulfills Jesus' commands to be salt and light in the world and to love neighbor as self. "It's a beautiful way to show God's love."
___Robert Thomas, the group's head cook, also grows teary telling how Oklahomans have received the Texas volunteers, who are highly visible in their blue disaster relief uniforms with bright yellow caps bearing the words "Southern Baptist Disaster Relief" and "Texas."
___He told about the night the Texas crew of 15 went to dinner at a steak house after finishing their day of work. After the meal, the waitress came with the $200 tab and asked,"Who should I give this to?"
___As one of the Texans reached out to take it, a voice came from behind them. A man they never had met took the bill and said, "I'll pay it."
___The Texans protested, but the man insisted. "You're helping us," he explained. "And I want to help you."
___Although the disaster relief workers often labor behind the scenes--usually preparing meals someone else delivers--they find the work richly rewarding.
___"God called me to this," said Thomas, a former mess sergeant in the Army. "There's
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FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH in Moore, Okla., has become a hub of activity for volunteers like Amy Wingard, Jo Skinner and Jane Ball of Arlington , filling bags of rice.
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no ifs, ands or buts about it."
___Of course, Texans aren't the only ones serving as volunteers on the Oklahoma storm scene. Thousands of local volunteers have pitched in, as have hundreds from other states. Many businesses have donated goods and services, some even lending personnel.
___At First Baptist Church of Moore, which has become a central staging ground for relief efforts in the Oklahoma City area, a man showed up soon after the storm and unloaded a forklift off a truck.
___"I'm a forklift operator, and my company sent me here with this forklift to help you," he said. "They told me not to come back to work until you didn't need me any longer."
___That man has spent days moving tons of donated goods around the First Baptist campus, where volunteers are working day and night to sort and store donated goods in a circus tent in one parking lot, perhaps a dozen semi-trailers in another parking lot and in a nearby warehouse donated by a church member.
___The inside of the church has been turned into something resembling a shopping mall, community center and aid station. Tornado victims push shopping carts down the carpeted halls of an education wing, picking up free groceries in the choir room, clothing in one classroom, toys in another.
___The Federal Emergency Management Agency has set up an office there, as have
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FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH in Moore has become a hub for donations from corporations and individuals, like the person who wrote a personal note on the box of clothes.
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various insurance companies and the state insurance commissioner.
___In addition to a mobile kitchen operated by Oklahoma Baptist Men, which supplies hot meals for Red Cross distribution throughout Moore, the church is operating a continuous service cafeteria inside, staffed completely by volunteers.
___Randy Harms, who owns a local catering company, is donating his time to oversee the cafeteria. Kenny Meeks, a local businessman, has left others to run his two businesses while he works from dawn until late night managing the entire First Baptist relief effort.
___They are assisted by a cadre of volunteers, some from the church, others from far away.
___When First Baptist Pastor Alan Cox is asked how many volunteers have kept this ministry center operating for more than a week, he shrugs in befuddlement. "Hundreds and hundreds," he finally suggests.
___Disasters like the tornadoes that ravaged parts of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas the first week of May create natural opportunities for the spirit of volunteerism that exists in all people, especially Christians, said Sam Porter, director of men's ministries and disaster relief for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
___"We have a God-given void inside, and we fulfill that whenever we serve others in Jesus' name," Porter said. "Everybody wants to make a difference.
___"Jesus said if you lose yourself for my sake, you will find yourself, and that's what volunteers do."
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