SBC of Virginia Disaster Relief Ministry began in November 2002 with one shower unit built by Georgia men. We determined that our focus would be intentional evangelism, first, last, and always. Our goal is to go through the door God opens through disaster and minister to the victims’ spiritual needs. While we do this, we strive to meet their physical needs as well. In the eight years that we have been involved in this ministry our teams have lead dozens of people to Christ and planted untold thousands of seeds. We were deployed for the first time in May of 2003 to Indiana and Ohio in support of floods.
During hurricane Isabel in 2003 our shower unit was set up to support the general public in Gloucester County, VA providing an average of 380 showers per day. During this same event we purchased our first two recovery units and conducted recovery operations in Gloucester and Williamsburg, VA. We began developing our Damage Assessment program during Isabel, conducting assessments on more than 550 homes in Gloucester County, VA. We continue to revise and update the assessment program including computerizing the system and developing applications for notebook computers that can upload information to laptop or desktop computers.
2005 became a pivotal year for the SBC of Virginia DR program. We began building our first feeding unit and added two more recovery units. Our training program was growing and we were averaging over 50 volunteers at each of our training events. We completed our feeding unit on August 31, and on September 1 we were deployed to Prentiss, MS in support of Hurricane Katrina.
There have been many deployments since Katrina and with each one the volunteers of SBCV make an eternal difference in the lives of those impacted by disaster.
We have added several units and training is continuing to evolve including adding an on-line component in 2017.
We now have a physical location for the DR ministry, a warehouse located in Lynchburg was acquired in late 2016 and is used to house and maintain nearly all of the SBCV owned DR units.
As we move forward, we need to be sure that we look Forward as we plan for the future needs and ministry in DR.
The Lord has truly blessed this ministry, allowing us to grow far beyond our expectation. With all of our volunteers and equipment we can only wonder what He has in store for us. “He doesn’t call us into this ministry to sit on our hands”.
Be trained to get involved in Disaster Relief.
The SBC of Virginia offers training to equip members of SBC of Virginia churches so they are able to respond during times of disaster. Each training offers necessary instruction for volunteers to respond with other Southern Baptists around the world during times of disaster and crisis. The training is practical and allows those, 18 years old and above, to serve with confidence.
