Disaster RESPONSEHope for HUMANITYMission SERVICE

This report was written by former director Phil Rosburg, who retired in July as head of these departments. We want to thank him for the tremendous work he has done for these ministries, and for creating the strong framework and team dynamic that makes it easy to keep moving forward.

Disaster Response

South Carolina Emergency Management Division continues to provide Carolina Conference Disaster Response with use of a 10,000 square foot warehouse in Winnsboro, SC. This has included office space, 24/7 access, and use of their forklifts. This is such a huge blessing to our ministry!

Following our practice of accepting donations we need and keeping out items we do not need, we started receiving excess COVID-19 donations, including several hundred thousand masks. Many people thought that, like hurricanes and floods, COVID-19 would be here and gone in a month or two. Little did we know that over two years later, we would still be dealing with the same issues. We have been working closely with the state of South Carolina and various county emergency services groups to supply them with personal protective equipment from our inventory. We have supplied six emergency management services in South Carolina counties with masks, respirators, gloves, boots, and hand sanitizer. In partnership with Tabernacle Ministries in Marion, SC, we have supplied over 200,000 masks for the recovery work in Haiti. We have distributed vinyl gloves and 2,000 medical gowns to the South Carolina Baptists Association for use in their nursing centers in South Carolina.

In 2021, we distributed over 150 flood buckets for use in flooding recovery in Western North Carolina as a result of Tropical Storm Fred and Hurricane Ida. We will continue to need local churches to fill these flood buckets to have them ready for the next disaster. Thanks to every church that has done this in the past!

I want to thank Steve Stillwell, assistant director, for both his expertise and willingness to spend so much time in volunteering with this ministry!

We stand ready to continue our ministry to North and South Carolina, the Southern Union and the North American Division whenever needed.

Hope for Humanity

Formerly called ingathering, Hope for Humanity is an annual campaign coordinated by our office. With goals set for each church, the monies raised are used for community service in our conference and throughout the world. The portion of the money that stays locally can be used by each church to embrace their part of the Carolinas with the compassionate love of Christ.

Mission Trips

During the past six years the Carolina Conference has been involved in many short-term mission trips, either sponsored and planned by the Conference, or a trip sponsored and planned by one of our local churches.

We continue to work with the Hogar de Ninos in Santa Barbara, Honduras. We enjoy the interaction with the orphans, perform medical work, hold reaping meetings, work on construction projects and hold VBS-style meetings with the children. Miracles take place on these trips as we help those in need — and the need is great. What a great opportunity to embrace not only the Carolinas but also other countries with the love of Christ!

We had planned to make trips that would have combined mission trips and disaster response together to Haiti (after the earthquakes) and Puerto Rico (after the hurricanes) but COVID-19 travel restrictions put those on a hold. We plan to resume these trips just as soon as we can — the funding is available and we are ready to help — in these areas and more as we look forward to the upcoming quinquennium.

If you can get involved in one of these trips, you will come back knowing how blessed you are, and keenly aware of how you have blessed others.

DAVID GRAHAM

Director of Disaster Response (2022-)