Eva Wilson works with the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists. In an e-mail Thursday, she informed us that they are once again sending another team of volunteers into New Orleans to help with the rebuilding of the city. The group of 50 should arrive at Gentilly Baptist Church Saturday night, October 21. Their leader is Elijah “Touch” Touchton from Trinity Baptist Church in Pittsburg, Kansas. “Touch,” known to his team-members as “the Boss,” is an electrical contractor by trade and has been involved in full-time volunteer missions for more than a dozen years.
Eva sends her regrets that she’ll not be along this time nor will she make the November trip due to all the associational and convention meetings Southern Baptists tend to group together this time of the year. She expects to make the December trip.
Prior to Katrina and her ugly sister Rita’s visit to our part of the world in ’05, the Kansas-Nebraska Baptists had a working partnership with the much larger Arkansas Baptist State Convention, but working together in Katrina-land has taken their partnership to a higher level. Eva writes, “I often hear of ‘synergy,’ but this is one time I have truly experienced it.”
Over this year that our good friends from Kansas-Nebraska have been coming down, 116 volunteers have put in 5,000 hours here. They have rewired 10 houses, which saved the homeowners from $100,000 to $150,000. They’ve sheetrocked 3 homes and finished several others. They’ve insulated two homes, hung the sheetrock and installed the outside siding at Global Maritime’s new port ministry center, and poured the wonderful sidewalk outside our BAGNO associational center. They have done electrical work and painting at Gentilly Baptist Church where they and the Arkansans have created a headquarters and where they all stay. In addition to all this, they have handed out 900 flyers to local residents, given away 500 gift bags, 200 care bears, and 18 backpacks.
Eva Wilson writes, “It is a privilege for our small convention to join God’s work there.”