The Arkansas Baptist Disaster Relief box ministry based out of Baring Cross Baptist Church in Sherwood recently deployed to Morgan City, Louisiana, where the unit ministered to people impacted by Hurricane Francine.
The hurricane slammed into the Louisiana coast on Sept. 11 as a dangerous Category 2 storm, knocking out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people and threatening widespread flooding as it sent a storm surge rushing inland along the Gulf Coast.
ABDR partnered with Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief to aid efforts in Morgan City, about 30 miles northwest of where Francine crashed ashore in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
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Charles Wilson, a volunteer with the box ministry unit, said they packed the trailer with a little more than 1,300 small and medium-sized boxes and other boxing essentials. On final report, they distributed 1,322 boxes over a five-day period. They assisted in boxing up three homes, made 58 ministry contacts, and prayed for the folks they were encountering. Out of the 58, Wilson said they were able to deliver the gospel and plan of salvation tracts to two individuals and presented a Bible to owners of each of the three homes.
“The neat thing about a box ministry … we are going to be in and packing people’s homes and spending a lot of time with them. There’s a lot of interaction. And that is what makes the box ministry so special,” Wilson said. “We have chaplains with the unit and they’re easily praying and finding out about the spiritual health of those individuals. We do everything we can. When we weren’t in a house packing up, we were back at the (host) church with the unit opened up doing ministry there.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Mary Alford and originally published by Arkansas Baptist News.