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disaster relief

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Help needed from Salt Lake area Baptists

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Utah Food Bank truck delivers pallets of food to Baptist Concern Center several times a week
Utah Food Bank truck delivers pallets of food to Baptist Concern Center several times a week

Salt Lake City, UT – Ron Clement was spotted kneeling in the parking lot of First Vietnamese Baptist Church Monday afternoon, November 14.

Clement is Salt Lake Baptist Association’s Executive Director.

When asked what he was praying about, Clement said he was praying his knees would hold out. Then he chuckled as he corrected himself. “No, I’m just picking up trash.”

The Vietnamese church meets at the same location – 1235 California Avenue – as the Baptist Concern Center, a food pantry sponsored for more than 20 years by the association.

A Utah Food Bank truck delivers to the Concern Center “rescue groceries” donated by several area grocers on Mondays, and canned food, dried food, produce and dairy items on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

The Baptist Concern Center’s clients include people who live in downtown Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, Kearns, Cottonwood Heights, Draper and other town in Salt Lake County, including the homeless who live in rickety recreational vehicles along 1700 South.

A shrinking – because of age and/or illness – number of volunteers help unload and shelve the food as it comes in, shop for clients as they come in and help clean up inside as well as the parking lot afterward.

Your help is needed.

If you’re 6 or older, or have young knees, you could pick up scraps of paper and cardboard outside.

If you are reasonably strong, your muscles are needed to move boxes – mostly the size of rectangular banana boxes, weighing about 20-30 pounds each, up to a maximum of 50 pounds. The Utah Food Bank truck unloads pallets with a fork lift onto the parking lot. Help is needed to carry individual boxes about 50 steps into the Concern Center’s storage area.

If you can pick up a 1-lb. package of rice, box of bakery cookies, or a can of corn, you can put items from the boxes onto shelves.

If you can push a shopping cart, you can take a post-it note from the wall, walk around the room, fill the cart with items for a family of the size indicated, and take the cart out to the parking lot where the recipient will put it into their vehicle, stroller or bike basket, giving you opportunity to have a kind or spiritual conversation, as the Holy Spirit leads.

If you can type, you don’t even need to walk! You can greet the people requesting food, explain the process, help them fill out a form (requested by the Utah Food Bank for verification purposes) and as the Holy Spirit leads, share the love of Jesus with them.

BCC Director, Sonia Gutierrez
BCC Director, Sonia Gutierrez encourages one of her volunteers

The people who come to the Baptist Concern Center appreciate the help they’re given. If you’re most comfortable silently arranging produce in the storage room, they still appreciate you, because you are helping them feed their family.

The ministry is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays; and from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Client interviewing and sign-in as well as stocking and shopping cart help are needed at all these times.

Truck unloading starts about 12:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 10:30 a.m. Thursdays; and 8 a.m. Fridays. Each day the truck unloading time requirement is less than two hours. A volunteer also is needed Monday mornings to pick up donations from Chick-fil-A and Starbucks.

Handyman volunteers also are needed at the Concern Center.

“Something is always breaking down,” SLBA Dir. Clement told UI Connections. On Nov. 14, two men were onsite repairing a copier machine, and the light fixture in BCC Dir. Sonia Gutierrez’ office continually flickered.

A full article about the Baptist Concern Center is to appear in the next issue of UI Connections, but the need for help is too immediate to delay. Donations of food items – rice, dried beans, cooking oil in particular – and money to help pay for Food Bank donations, also are needed.  

By Karen L. Willoughby
A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com  

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Historic flooding brings ministry opportunity to local church in Moab, UT

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Moab, UT – When historic flooding recently hit the city of Moab, the people of Canyonlands Fellowship Church grabbed their shovels and began to dig their neighbors out of a muddy situation. Pastor Geoff Thomas led his congregation to give of their time and was rewarded with an opportunity to present the gospel to local business owners.

This is Pastor Geoff’s testimony about what took place when he witnessed his congregation step up and help-

We had a tremendous turnout for the clean-up outreach. Thirty-five of our congregation canvassed three business for about four hours on Sunday morning, September 4. Two of our volunteers had the glorious opportunity to be invited into Woody’s Tavern by the Owner of the property. At ages 80 and 82 they shared the gospel and prayed with “Sheri”. There was no doubt that this crisis softened this bar owner’s heart. Sheri’s response was the assurance to us that she got saved back in 1994.

We also encountered a host of bilingual Hispanic business owners that were very welcoming to us, as a church, being willing to help and serve their need in time of crisis. 

We were all totally blessed by the whole ordeal and we recognize God’s glory and his demonstration of love through us. Humbled, we were!

Pastor Geoff Thomas is the pastor of Canyonlands Fellowship in Moab, UT. 

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Responding to the Historic Flooding in Montana

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RED LODGE, MT – When the waters of Rock Creek began to surge across its banks into homes and businesses in Red Lodge, Montana, the members of the Church of the Rockies began to respond.  At first, it was neighbor helping neighbor, checking on one another and offering aid.  Then, the Red Cross arrived. The church family quickly began to volunteer to be the hands and feet for this relief organization. They began preparing and delivering meals, distributing supplies and helping coordinate the response.  The church also has a benevolence fund and they too began to meet immediate needs.

Pastor Justin Carter said, “I’m so proud of the way our church has responded. Every day, I’m hearing new stories of how church members have served the people of Red Lodge. It’s amazing. The church immediately reached out to community leaders to offer our facility to be an emergency shelter. We made a few meals, but quickly realized that coordinating with the Red Cross was our niche. Working together, we have had the greatest impact.” 

In the next few days, coordination with the Disaster Relief Unit of the Utah Idaho Convention and our Missouri Baptist partners began to take place. A Missouri shower unit that had been assigned to Lee Merck for summer ministry in Bozeman was redeployed. Then, a team from Utah Idaho arrived to coordinate “mud out” crews. As basements have been cleaned out, the team offers to spray them with “Shockwave” to kill bacteria and mitigate against mold forming. As these homes dry out, they will be ready to rebuild. The team has had opportunity to pray with flood victims, exchange stories, and be a source of hope and encouragement.

This is excerpted from a longer article by Darren Hales, Church Strengthening Team Leader for the Montana Southern Baptist Convention. Here is the link to the complete article published 6/30/2022

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Utah Idaho Disaster Relief Team in Montana
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Homeowner in Red Lodge Montana were grateful for the hard work of DR Volunteers from Utah and Idaho
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Most of the work centered on the basements, removing wet sheetrock, spraying “shockwave” and preparing it to mold free installation in the future.
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Following a day of work, the DR Team prayed with the homeowner
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Thank you, Russel Hohmann, for coordinating and organizing this mobilization
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DR Volunteers from Utah and Idaho bring hope to fire victims in CO

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BOULDER, CO – When Disaster Relief teams are activated in an area, it is often during the most difficult days in the lives of the people they are called to serve. This was especially true when teams from Utah and Idaho were activated to serve families who lost all their worldly possessions in the Marshall Fire that ravaged communities in Superior and Boulder, CO.  

Magic Valley (Idaho) Disaster Relief volunteers, Brenda Crisp and Cathy Keever connected with other DR Volunteers in Utah, February 18, 2022. The Utah team included Don Dana and Chuck Jones from Sandy, David Porter from Provo, and Dan Schaffner from Elko, NV. The next morning the combined crews left for Boulder, CO where they joined UISBC DR Director Russel and Clara Hohmann, who had been in Colorado since Feb 4.  The plan was to work in ash-out crews after the Marshall fire hit Boulder County December 30, 2021. The fire destroyed 1084 homes and two lives were lost.

The Utah Idaho Volunteers served with DR teams from Missouri, Arizona, Ohio, Virginia, Alabama, Florida and Colorado. There was a total of fifteen teams that worked this disaster over a period of eight weeks. The majority of their work was sifting the rubble for valuables. Of the over 1800 homes destroyed, 430 of them were completely sifted by the DR teams. Over $100,000.00 of gold was recovered,  2000 pounds of coins, 100 diamond rings, other precious jewels and jewelry were all returned to the grateful homeowners. This was an affluent neighborhood with many accumulated valuables.

Teams were sifting two houses per day. The temperature was extremely cold and at least twice teams had to work in the snow. Hand and feet warmers were a welcomed luxury the team enjoyed when one of the members located some in a local store.  The pipes froze in the shower and laundry trailer. Team members were having to descend ladders to access basements. Other team members assisted in the kitchen preparing meals for the many State DR Teams present in the camp.

The team was informed that Boulder County is one of the most unreached counties in Colorado. Among the rubble, several Buddha statues were found, along with many other statues to false gods. When the team finishes a home site, a Bible is signed by the crew and the teams are given the opportunity to pray with homeowners. Before the Utah Idaho team left for their return trip home, they heard that there were fifteen first time professions of faith in Christ made by locals in Boulder. We were also told that in the town of Superior (where many of these homes were located) there are currently no evangelical churches. When someone saw what Southern Baptist Disaster Relief was doing, that person decided that maybe they should have a church in their community. Plans are being made to locate a church planter in that community this month (March) to seek out the opportunities to plant an SBC church.

All work in the Marshall Fire area of Boulder, CO was to be completed by March 1 by order of State and Local Government officials. As of now, all teams have returned to their respective homes.

If you want to know more about how you can be involved in a local Utah or Idaho Disaster Relief team, visit our website at www.uisbc.org/disaster-relief.

This story was submitted by Cathy Keever, MVBC Disaster Relief Co-Coordinator. Photos submitted by Russel Hohmann, UISBC Disaster Relief Director.

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

UISBC Disaster Relief Team in Colorado

Yaira Mortensen, Patty Christensen, Russ Hohmann, Clara Hohmann

DR teams answer ministry call three times in late summer

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By Karen L. Willoughby

UTAH-IDAHO- Utah-Idaho’s Disaster Relief teams traveled to Pennsylvania in early September to help in Hurricane Ida recovery.

Ten days previously they had been in Idaho to help in a microburst windstorm, and before that, in Colorado to help after a forest fire.

“We love to serve and we did get to do a lot of it right at the end of summer,” said Russel Hohmann, member of Redemption Church of Ogden, Utah, and director for the last six years of Utah-Idaho’s Disaster Relief ministry. 

“Everybody involved wants to serve the Lord,” Hohmann continued. “It gives us a purpose and a pathway to meet people who need help and tell them why we’re there:

“Our goal is to go out and tell people about Jesus Christ,” the Disaster Relief director said. “Cleaning up burnt-up or flooded houses is just a way to talk to people and show Jesus’ love to them.”

The six-person DR team from Utah-Idaho anticipated going to Louisiana after Hurricane Ida hit August 29, but “it seemed like all the big states were going there and Pennsylvania needed help,” the director said. “We decided to go there instead.”

Hohmann and his wife Clara served as the Incident Management Team in Horsham Township, ten miles north of downtown Philadelphia. They processed 89 requests for help from area residents, and helped with chainsaw and mudout ministries to free homes from the effects of flooding and an EF3 tornado, with winds up to 130 mph, which damaged more than 500 homes in the rural area.

The other four members of the UISBC DR team were involved in assessing property damage “to see if we can help,” chainsaw and heavy-duty equipment ministries to tackle fallen trees. In six days of heavy-duty ministry they cleared five homes from fallen trees and met with 25 property owners to assess homes.

A windstorm “microburst” September 1 near Buhl, Idaho, flattened trees “like a tornado [would],” Hohmann said. Ten houses were affected. In four days, the seven person UISBC DR team with the help of local church members cut down several trees and cleared the debris for one family’s home. 

The East Troublesome Fire near the tight-knit mountain community of Grand Lake, Colorado, last October mushroomed in about 36 hours from a “troublesome” 19,000 acres to a massive 170,000 – and eventually 194,000 acres – forced the evacuation of more than 35,000 people, and destroyed 466 homes.

“For many in the Grand Lake area seven months later, the struggle continues to try to reshape lives that went up in a flash,” according to a June 24, 2021, article posted to the denverchannel.com website.

An eight person UISBC DR team ministered there for two weeks in August.

“We separated metal and ash and put it in 40-yard roll-off dumpsters,” Hohmann said. “We worked on the remains of ten homes.”

The DR director, retired as a logistics manager after more than 40 years at Boeing, travels with the Disaster Relief volunteers and “church camps,” Hohmann said, meaning they sleep in nearby churches.

“Without the partnership of local churches this ministry would be severely hampered,” Hohmann said.

About 150 people in Utah-Idaho are trained DR volunteers. About 50 are active, “and everyone is older today than they were yesterday,” Hohmann said. “We’re looking for active retirees and younger people. Request your pastor to request an information meeting with Disaster Relief.

“I thought Disaster Relief would be an easy ministry when I got into it,” the director continued. “I figured, ‘Utah doesn’t have any disasters.’ The next year, 2005, there were the floods in St. George. That’s when I really got hooked on helping people through Disaster Relief. When you get to do what God has directed you to do, you are filled with His joy.”

To those who might wonder about the ministry involved in Disaster Relief, Hohmann said, “I tell ‘em, ‘You won’t know ‘til you go out and do it, so come and join us.’ God can use everyone who has a desire to be active in the Disaster Relief Ministry.”

The next training opportunities are slated for chainsaw and Serve Safe on November 5-6, 2021 in Burley, Idaho. “Online training is not offered at this time, however I encourage you to ask your pastor to schedule an in-person information session or initial Disaster Relief training,” the director said.

For more information, see UISBC.org/disaster-relief/ 

About the Author

Karen L. Willoughby

Karen is a National Correspondent for Baptist Press and has written extensively about Utah-Idaho and our region for many years.

Disaster Relief Operational Stress First Aid (OSFA)

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We will be practicing social distancing and limiting the number of attendees. Please let us know if you would like to attend.

Class Registration Due by September 20, 2020 – To register, please contact Tiffany Neilson or Russ Hohmann 

Operational Stress First Aid (OSFA)

Is a flexible multi-step process for the timely assessment and pre-clinical care of stress reactions or injuries in individuals or units with the goals to preserve life, prevent further harm, and promote recovery. Required for DR Chaplains and recommended for all people working in a stressful environment.

Note: This is one of the required trainings to serve as a DR Chaplain. You will also need a recommendation from your pastor and approval from UT-ID leadership. To serve nationally as a Disaster Relief Chaplain, there is an application and similar approvals as the UT-ID approval. There is not an assertion that these classes will be accepted in other chaplain services.
Russel

Accommodations
IMPORTANT: If you are planning on church camping PLEASE let us know ASAP. We need to coordinate rooms with the church.

Contact Persons

Tiffany Neilson
UT-ID Training Coordinator
Cell: (208) 440-3982
Email: droffsite@uisbc.org

Russel Hohmann
UT-ID Disaster Relief Director
Cell: 801-644-4638
Email: disaster.relief@uisbc.org

Joe or Dolores O’Neill
UT-ID Chaplain Coordinators
Phone: (208) 880-9340
Email: daoneill94@gmail.com

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