Disaster Relief in Carteret Grows to Permanent Ministry

By Jerry Higgins

HAVELOCK – David Phelps remembers the phone call like it was yesterday even though it happened more than three years ago.

Phelps, Atlantic Baptist Association director of missions, received a frantic call Sept. 18, 2003 from the pastor at Sealevel Baptist Church, who was standing on US Route 70 in waist-deep water as Hurricane Isabel ravaged Core Sound and eastern North Carolina counties.

“We need any and all help,” the pastor said as the eye of the hurricane passed over him while the waters of Pamlico Sound flushed over the region. “When someone sits by the side and road loses everything and says, ‘I need help,’ you need to do whatever you can to help your neighbor,” Phelps said.

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided trailers and housed refugees of the floodwaters, faith-based groups like the North Carolina Baptist Men and the Salvation Army rushed in much as they did in the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, the Baptist Men not only provided physical help like rebuilding storm-ravaged homes, but also provided spiritual aid as well.

The group brought in mobile feeding units the day after Isabel hit. Volunteer groups come to help wherever needed, whether by “mudding out” flooded homes, building ramps for the handicapped or more intensive labor on damaged homes.

Baptist Men worked with the Atlantic Association and its churches, and their willingness to do whatever it took to bring the region back rubbed off on everyone, Phelps said. Volunteers touched lives with Gospel presentations and distributed Bibles where lives were disrupted by not just Isabel but Hurricane Ophelia, which damaged the region nearly two years later.

“The Baptist Men encourage volunteers to talk to the homeowners,” said David Seymour, who coordinated the relief efforts for Baptist Men in the region from May 2004 to Jan 4, 2007. “The work is important but the spiritual need is more important. We stop working and talk to people. We’ll have prayer with them. Before we were ready to go home, we’d present a Bible to the homeowner. We passed out 300 Bibles while we where there.”

The storms brought together a region of proud people who never ask for outside help, according to Phelps. The association pitched in about $30,000. A number of churches outside the region responded with either money or workers. And the churches in the hardest hit parts of the association like Atlantic Missionary Baptist Church saw a new ministry opportunity to reach out and help those in need.

The church, which sits near the beginning (or the end, depending on your viewpoint) of US Route 70 near Core Sound, was used as a primary staging area to distribute food and shelter. It sat across the street from a small white house used for the Baptist Men Disaster Recovery Center where Seymour and his wife, Frances, stayed.

Church Starts Handyman Ministry

Church members felt the crying need from people without flood insurance or who couldn’t afford repairs. So the church started a handyman ministry to tend to the community, according to pastor Eddie Brookshire.

“We get into the mold of leaving it in church on Sunday and the week is a different world,” Brookshire said. “God has impressed upon me and our people that we need to be his head, heart and hands in the world. We need to take a place outside the four walls of the church and touch people where they are hurting. We need to bring people through the love of Christ into the kingdom.”

Phelps said, “The handyman ministries take care of needs as they come up. They help widows. Contractors do not make any money on these jobs so they don’t like to do them and people with no means are in need.”

The handyman ministry supplemented the work done by Baptist Men. Seymour worked tirelessly with local social organizations that reached out for help. He drove his white truck about 150 miles a day to survey the damage and coordinate repairs.

Frances Seymour, who worked as a church secretary, wrote a book on the experience, “Significance of a Dream,” which is available on amazon.com and pleasantword.com.

“Years ago, people used to look out for each other,” Seymour said. “We don’t do that any more. Someone once told me, ‘Remember, what would Jesus do? He helped his neighbor.’”

“We made an impact as we went on. We helped get a ministry started in Atlantic. People knew who we were and why we were there. We shared Jesus. They didn’t open up to us at first. As time went on, we got to be friends with lot of people.”

Norma Clark, a member of the Woman’s Missionary Union and the Interfaith Disaster Council of Carteret County, worked closely with Seymour to help coordinate volunteer groups with the needs surfaced by county emergency workers.

“We’d wait on the Lord to provide resources and people understood,” Clark said. “All I can say is that God was at work down there. You are the instrument.”

Offering Provides Funds

While most people paid their own expenses to travel to eastern Carteret County to help, the work of the North Carolina Baptist Men was funded by the North Carolina Missions Offering.

“Anything we do in this world takes money,” Seymour said. “Sharing Jesus’ name takes money. You have to buy literature, Bibles. What the Baptist Men do is great and a lot of people know what we do, and the North Carolina Missions Offering supports us.”

“God expects us to use every resource, our talents and all things to glorify Him,” Brookshire said. “I was involved in a house dedication last month. It was cool. I didn’t know much about the Baptist Men before. I got to know David Seymour and what they do is miraculous.”

Phelps added, “The state missions offering revitalizes our community. It’s a catalyst which leads to a better understanding of the church. It helps the vision and vitality of churches in our own Jerusalem.”