Seeing God’s Provision in Disaster Relief

By John Heading, Ohio Disaster Relief, state director

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? It’s even more fun when the plan develops, and you know that God had to be the one putting all the pieces in place.

Ohio Disaster Relief (ODR) has seen the Lord moving the pieces as we evaluate our current ministry and  plans for future efforts. Currently Ohio Disaster Relief (ODR) is in a multi-year plan of revitalization. This revitalization includes personnel, processes, equipment, and deployment. 

Last year as we evaluated the equipment we currently own and researched what we still needed, we discovered we had a need for four pieces of equipment.

We needed a heavy duty pick-up truck; a trailer to hold DR childcare supplies that we wanted to donate to Faith Journey Church, a new church plant in North Mason;  a fully loaded recovery trailer for a partnership between ODR, University BC, Beavercreek, and Cedarville University; and a newer trailer for the recovery equipment. The cost to purchase used equipment for these purposes was $82,000. 

Over the course of a couple of months God met these needs in amazing ways.

Here’s how it happened. I sent an email to all the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief state directors and asked if any of them had equipment that they would donate or sell to ODR. Gaylon Moss, Missouri DR director, emailed back and offered to donate a six year old 20 feet long box trailer for us to use as a recovery trailer. To purchase the trailer would have cost around $7000. ODR accepted the trailer, and it is now in Ohio.

God met these needs in amazing ways

That same email also went to our SCBO partners in Florida. David Coggins, Florida DR director, called and offered a fully stocked recovery trailer from Gray Gables Baptist Church, Callahan, FL. The church once had an active DR team but now wanted to donate the unit to a mission to expand DR efforts. This type of recovery unit costs about $30,000. We accepted the unit, and it is now in Ohio. 

Finally, Coggins also offered to sell us a used heavy duty truck that he was going to sell to buy a bigger truck. He said he would give us a great deal. A few days later, Coggins emailed and said that after a conversation with Dr. Tommy Green, executive director-treasurer, Florida Baptist Convention, he would donate the used 2017 Dodge 3500 to ODR. The truck sells for approximately $45,000 used and is now in Ohio.

God met our needs in ways that we did not expect. In a short period of time, God provided $82,000 worth of equipment to Ohio Disaster Relief to continue to expand our ministry. Praise God for his continued blessing on ODR as we endeavor to bring help, hope and healing to people impacted by disaster.