A bucketful of response

Brian Carroll

Gabe Carroll sits on a stack of 50 buckets to be shipped to Haiti through Western Association and Northside Baptist Church in Newnan, where his father, Brian Carroll, serves as pastor. Carroll anticipated Northside sending more than 100 buckets in the Buckets of Hope effort.

DULUTH — When the first videos and reports and mega-celebrity pleas for money to Haiti came out following that country’s Jan. 12 earthquake, Georgia Baptists wanted to respond like they normally do. A desire to be on the field, in the action, came along with scraping together funds for supplies.

However, that desire for involvement was tempered with warnings from state and national convention leaders on taking well-intentioned but ill-perceived relief trips to Haiti, where logistics were still in flux amid the destruction. When a volunteer group from Idaho was arrested and charged with transporting children without the proper paperwork, calls from denomination leaders for discretion were reiterated.

This month a different action plan is being fulfilled, by the bucketload.

“Buckets of Hope,” a relief effort through Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief and the North American Mission Board, was conceived shortly after the Haiti quake. Through it church members pack enough foodstuffs in a five-gallon bucket to feed a Haitian family for a week. A total cost of $40 – $30 for supplies and $10 to offset shipping – gave Southern Baptists a hands-on feel that couldn’t be duplicated through writing a check or sending a text.

Dan Spencer, pastor of First Baptist Thomasville and Georgia Baptist Convention president, saw the effort as a way for church members to connect more personally with helping Haiti.

“When the earthquake hit, [many church members] responded by giving money through texting. But, they felt that once they pushed that button it was transferred and they didn’t see it anymore,” he said.

A Feb. 28 church-wide event spent packing buckets for shipment became something of a time for families here helping families there, he added.

“Buckets of Hope gave them a chance to get their hands on something to send. People purchased materials to make buckets for each of their children or grandchildren.”

No specific state goal for Georgia was made, said GBC Disaster Relief director Stuart Lang, but as of March 4 more than 6,000 buckets were expected this weekend to be shipped toward Hialeah, Fla. Nationally, an estimated 150,000 buckets from Southern Baptists will begin making their way from Florida to Haiti by the end of this month.

With a specific shopping list (rice, cooking oil, dry black beans, all-purpose flour – not self-rising, white sugar, spaghetti noodles, peanut butter, and zip-lock plastic storage bags), Wal-Mart supported the project by encouraging individual store managers to cooperate with Southern Baptists buying buckets and items, reported Baptist Press.

In Macon, one store manager set up a display at the end of an aisle with all materials for Buckets of Hope.

“He said they sold more beans and rice that first weekend than they usually do in a month,” said Ingleside Baptist Church missions minister Lisa Call, whose church is sending 500 buckets.

John Doane

Hannah Sivyer, 14, packs a bucket at First Baptist Church in Thomasville. Sivyer was part of a crowd of church members to take part in a mass effort to provide supplies to Haitians still recovering from January’s earthquake.

“I went to our Wal-Mart and encouraged the manager to buy extra supplies because Baptists were about to descend on that place,” said Wayne Jenkins, associational missionary for Western Association in Newnan.

Knowing there would be an immediate need for containers, a call to a bucket-producing company near Macon got a $3-per-bucket deal, resulting in 1,000 coming to Newnan at a reduced price. At the Western Association’s ministers meeting the Monday after Buckets for Hope was launched, pastors dug into their wallets on the spot to contribute enough to fill up two more buckets.

“Our pastors are very mission-minded. This thing has really caught on like I thought it would. Every now and then something really touches the hearts of Southern Baptists, and I believe Buckets of Hope has done that,” related Jenkins.

Call’s experience matches.

“Over and over again people have expressed being thankful to be involved in something hands-on,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of families do this with their children as a way to expose them to missions. They see it as an opportunity to present hope.

“We hope that when people receive the bucket they’ll also receive the Gospel.”

The response of Southern Baptists may be seen as overflowing by some, but Jenkins views it as typical.

“Southern Baptists can do whatever they want to do,” he said. “This shows that our people will give money when they see the need. At times we’re like an ocean liner that takes awhile to get somewhere but when we’re there, we’re there. We’ll be helping Haiti for a long time.

“In a month you won’t be able to see a picture of people in Haiti without spotting a white bucket.”

If Georgia Baptists do send 6,000 buckets, each containing $30 of supplies, that’s $180,000 of food collected and shipped in a little more than a month.

“It says, as a whole, that Georgia Baptists get it,” said Spencer. “We have a responsibility to reach as far as we can and do as much as we can.

“It’s a reflection of our people. It’s a reflection of our leadership in the GBC.”

John Doane

Members of First Baptist Church in Thomasville pack items Feb. 28 for the Buckets of Hope outreach sending needed supplies to Haiti. Pastor Dan Spencer said First Baptist would likely send more than 1,000 buckets, doubling the church’s original goal.