|
Disaster Relief
You've watched the news or read the paper and heard of tragedies like Hurricane Katrina, California Wildfires or flooding. It’s likely your heart was moved by the need to provide relief.
Did you know that Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams from all over the country deploy to meet immediate and longer-term recovery needs?
We are some of those people! Opportunities for serving include food service, communications, laundry units, chaplains, chain saw crews, mold removal and even childcare.
At Westside, we have our very own "Pastor of Disaster", Art Push. Art & his wife, Debbie, are fearless leaders ready to engage when duty calls. They don't do this alone. They work tirelessly providing preparedness training so you, too, can be ready and on standby to serve when an emergency strikes.
There’s no need to wait until a disaster strikes, contact Art & Debbie to learn how to be a Disaster Relief team member.
Understanding the Disaster Relief Organization
To understand how it all works together, first a quick lesson in acronyms ...
- As a Southern Baptist Church, Westside is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
- Within the SBC there's an organization called the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
- For each state there's a Baptist Association. Westside belongs to the Eastern Nebraska Baptist Association (ENBA)
- Each state belongs to a convention. Due to size, Nebraska teams with Kansas, thus we're known as the Kansas Nebraska Convention (KSNE).
So how does this all fit together?
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) & the state convention leaders take the lead in organizing Southern Baptists (SBC) to respond to disasters. They contribute manpower, ministry, and financial help during floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and urban disasters. NAMB uses Disaster Relief donations for meeting human needs as a priority and of sharing the Gospel and/or starting churches as part of NAMB's overall disaster relief ministry once these priorities are met.
|
