After 38 years of uplifting the downtrodden, Datha Ray recently retired from her role as crisis center director for Lauderdale Baptist Association in Marion, Mississippi.
John Maxey, associational missions strategist, said of Ray, “She interacted daily with those seeking assistance through the crisis center. She was responsible for ordering, organizing, inventorying and distributing the food. She also secured volunteers from our partnering churches. … She has provided smiles, words of encouragement and hope for the discouraged that have entered through our crisis center doors.”
Only a few years after the center opened, Ray started as a part-time employee and quickly recognized obstacles: the building was spacious but divided into cubicles not functional for their work, and the center was hardly ever busy. Churches gave food donations, but they were often unwanted cans from cleaned out cabinets.
Ray’s standard
Because of this, Ray formed her standard: “If I wouldn’t eat it at home, I won’t serve it to someone else,” under which she worked until the day she retired.
A couple of years after Ray started, the crisis center partnered with the Mississippi Food Network — and operations began to improve. Churches offered financial donations to meet needs, and Ray’s hours increased until she eventually became a full-time employee.
In 2002 the center moved into a new building specifically built for their work.
Ray packed 30 extra bags of food items in the morning and 30 in the afternoon so clients wouldn’t have to wait long to receive what they needed. As time passed, the work wore on Ray — but God provided faithful volunteers.
“In the early years all food items were donated by our churches and the crisis center ministry was mostly used clothing,” noted Greg Massey, retired associational missions strategist. “Datha has changed all of that over these 38 years of leadership. It has become a huge ministry serving hundreds of families every year. If clothing is needed, then Datha contacts churches with the need by sizes and God provides. But the ministry primarily has evolved to help struggling families with much-needed food.
He added, “From an old building filled with old clothes to a huge building filled with walk-in freezers and tables filled with thousands of canned foods — that’s the difference Datha has made!”
Taking ‘clients’ needs to heart’
Jamie Smith, former ministry assistant for the association and a friend of Ray’s, said of her, “Datha took her clients’ needs to heart and tried to help them with not only food for their bodies, but let them know she truly loved and cared about their well-being. She would listen to their needs and try to give good sound advice.
“She always said that she knew she was where God wanted her to be,” Smith noted. “That was obvious by the way she treated people — with respect, kindness and love. She strived to be a good Christian influence for every client who sat with her because she just might be the only one they saw that day. Datha not only served the Lord through her work at the crisis center, but she served Him well.”
Looking back on those who stepped through the center’s doors, Ray reflected, “I knew who had an open-heart surgery. I knew who had a hip replacement. I knew who had a knee replacement. I knew who came in one month on a walker and still in a lot of pain, but then came back in three months and I said, ‘Oh you don’t have your walker!’ They just became my people and my extended family.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Lindsey Williams and originally published by the Baptist Record.
