March 11, 2002
TEXAS BAPTIST MEN:
Being the presence of Christ
___By Roger Hawlik
___"A while back, JoAnne bought me a new pair of slacks. They were the kind that could be used for casual wear or mowing the yard. A short while later, I received a bluish-grey shirt and a bright yellow baseball cap.
___The first time I wore this ensemble, I kept it on for three days, and when I removed it, the trousers were caked with a combination of beef stew, ravioli, chili (with beans) and cooking oil. I think if there were some way to scrape it off, there might have been almost enough for a meal.
___The shirt was soaked with perspiration and streaked white with salt that sweated out of my body. And the hat, the hat was slightly soiled from being removed so often when I tried to wipe the sweat off my forehead or adjust it to keep the sun out of my eyes.
___ I had gone to Houston with the disaster relief organization of the Southern Baptist Convention to help with feeding effort. The American Red Cross supplied the food, and we prepared it. Then the Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles came by, and we loaded them up with between 300 and 500 meals which they took out to the surrounding area and distributed to the people. Each day I was there, we prepared between 3,500 and 9,000 meals, depending on the need.
___The weather was hot and humid, and the work was exhausting, and a couple of times in the evening I thought about leaving early. Then I looked at the other men in the large room where we were sleeping open their medicine dispensers and take their blood pressure, heart, cholesterol or whatever else pills which kept them going, and I felt sort of ashamed. One man raised his shirt to examine the scar that ran from his stomach to his neck, and I asked someone if he had a heart by-pass operation. "No" was the answer. "He had a heart transplant."
___One of the things I noticed was the number of ladies working. One of the groups seemed to have almost as many women as men working, and even our group had a couple. Also, many of the surrounding churches sent out volunteers to help anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days. These included young people and adults.
___Joanne has washed my shirt, which has the disaster relief logo on the sleeve, and the pants, and I can wear them again. But my cap is still soiled.
___It's nowhere near as soiled as the ones worn by some of the others in Humble, but when another disaster strikes, and it will, maybe my cap will start to look more like theirs. I noticed the dirt didn't take the shininess of theirs. In fact, they seemed to have an extra little glow to them.
___This testimony was delivered to the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board Feb. 26. Hawlik is a Texas Baptist Men volunteer from Mesquite.
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