Hurricane Helene spent her fury in six different states, and six Southern Baptist state conventions are responding to the need with some combination of feeding and recovery. Among those groups is Send Relief, which is a collaboration between the SBC's International Mission Board and North American Mission Board.
Josh Benton is spokesman for Send Relief. He tells American Family News the disaster is huge – but they've been training for it for years.
"Through the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Network we have over 40 state Southern Baptist conventions that have trained disaster-relief volunteers," he explains, "and they're trained in everything from feeding to chaplaincy to chainsaw."
Numerous other Christian relief organizations are active in the stricken areas, including Samaritan's Purse, Eight Days of Hope, and Convoy of Hope.
The death toll from Helene is still rising, but it looks to rival Hurricane Katrina in 2005, ranking it among the deadliest storms of the last hundred years. Benton saw Katrina – and he says this is worse.
"I was in western North Carolina … and it is unlike anything I've really ever seen. There are communities in North Carolina that have just been wiped out," he describes.
According to Benton, many remote communities look to be cut off for months. "We were at a site … where the National Guard was in the process of making a helicopter drop – and in many of these communities, that's the only way they're able to get resources and supplies."
But where the need is greatest, Benton sees the Church – the people of God – rising to the occasion. "In the middle of the tragedy, what you're seeing is communities … being held together by local churches. And in every community, we were in yesterday, churches were responding to the need."
As of this weekend, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams were on the ground at more than 20 response sites across the Southeast in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Editor's note: Map image above compliments of SendRelief.org
