Ohio Disaster Relief Serves in Florida
Recently Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwestern Florida as a category four storm. Even before the storm began battering Florida, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) was preparing to launch relief teams. Just five days after the hurricane hit, seven SBDR recovery and feeding sites were operational.
Ohio DR is partnering with Louisiana Disaster Relief and Texas Baptist Men to support feeding and flood recovery teams serving out of First Baptist Church, Naples, Florida. During the first two weeks of operation, the Naples site prepared 74,000 meals and assessed 190 properties. More importantly, the site has seen twenty-three gospel conversations and seven professions of faith.
Two weeks into recovery services, SBDR had eleven sites in operation. Accounting for all sites, this recovery mission has prepared 551,000 meals, worked 117,183 hours, and distributed 1036 Bibles. Storm victims are hearing the hope of Jesus Christ as 795 gospel conversations have taken place with 119 professions of faith across Florida. The first Ohio DR team in Florida has seen three professions of faith.
An Ohio DR team of sixteen is currently working in Naples. Josh Wright, University Middletown, is leading a mud-out team of eleven which includes Mike Mayer, Monterey BC as chaplain. Carl Brown, Dayton Avenue BC, is the team lead for a feeding team of four from Ohio. Carl will also be leading the total feeding efforts at the Naples site, cooking 3500 meals per day. Ohio DR Director John Heading, First Light Church Vandalia, is serving with the Incident Management Team for the Naples site.
This latest deployment includes two new team members who completed the online training for their certification and are doing their unit training in the field.
The last Ohio DR training for 2022 is November 5 at FBC Waverly. Visit scbo.org/dr to see how you can train and be ready to deploy to bring Help, Hope, and Healing to those in need.
For those who would like to financially support Ohio DR, please go to scbo.org/give. Thank you for your prayers and your support.
Hurricane Ian caused massive devastation in Naples, Fl