Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Meals, Meals and more Meals

Today we received a phone call from the town of Surfside they said that the Salvation Army, Red Cross and FEMA all pulled out. They wanted to know if we could provide and bring them 250 lunches each day. Of course we said yes. That is 250 more meals on top of what we are already serving.

I know a lot of you have sent us funds and we thank you for that, but if you were thinking about helping us out now is the time we can use any amount large or small.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Update from Goodwood CoC

(Statistics since beginning of effort on Friday, September 5 – updated Sept 22, 2008)


Here are the numbers and statistics on what has been done so far:

4,852 hot lunches served daily from 11:00am – 2:00pm from Monday, Sept 8 – Friday, Sept 19
$250,000 in supplies distributed to 961 people; supplies donated by Churches of Christ Disaster Relief, congregations, and individuals
Cleaned-up 16 members yards/homes and 13 non-members yards/homes since Monday
Collected over $36,000 in donations from various congregations in five states
Set-up over 500 Bible study contacts to be followed up on; 5 baptisms thus far; at least 65 studies ongoing this week
Provided daily meals and assistance to at least 20 members (particularly shut-ins) and their families
Collected information from 961 of our neighbors indicating further needs including damage to property, counseling, and other spiritual needs
Housed and fed volunteers from seven congregations
Had several members of neighborhood stop by to volunteer after hearing or seeing what is happening at Goodwood
Provided meals and supplies to area fire-stations, school workers, power crews, and area congregations
Hung Goodwood advertising bags on 3000 “doorknobs” in the Broadmoor/Sherwood Forest communities
Provided support (food and supplies) to three local congregations during storm
Working to aid churches in Houma and Montegut with recovery effort
Benefited from POSITIVE news coverage by the Christian Chronicle (www.christianchronicle.org) and WAFB News (http://www.goodwoodchurch.org/gustav.shtml)
Plan to continue with relief effort as related to this storm through end of 2008; full reports of use of funds are being mailed out to contributors and are available on request.

Surfside Service



Today we had the regular services at Lake Jackson CoC. Than at 4 PM we had a service down in the Surfside community on the carport of one of the houses. Most of the homes there are still without any utilities.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Update From Don

" Disaster Assistance" has just finished a great week with the Lake Jackson Church of Christ. Many of their members have been very involved in helping us cook, preparing meals, mopping the kitchen and dining hall, helping line up bible studies, inviting people to church, and carrying meals to those who either had no transportation or did not know of our meals.. It has been a great week. I can not say for certain, but I have not seen any other religious group helping the people in Lake Jackson. People here certainly have an appreciation for the church of Christ.
This church is greatly interested in out-reach. Tomorrow after services, the church is going out walking in the community inviting the people to come and have a good hot meal, courtesy of the Christians at the Lake Jackson Church of Christ. Mike, Rosemary and I have been asked to prepare at least 300 meals in the morning before worship. No they do not let me cook, but they do let me open cans, sweep and mop the floor and haul out the trash. My cooking reputation has been ruined by several efforts, the last being when I cooked oat meal and there were those who thought it had the consistency of newly poured cement. I have since learned that a cup of oats and a cup of water boiled is a little to thick for some people. But we will get the meals out. Today we prepared and served over 500 meals and thus far have set up 50 bible studies. We set up these bible studies as we give the meals out and as there are so many people at a time, we simply can not ask everyone, but they do get a pamphlet of invitation to the church, and a telephone number with which they can reach us with future needs. It has been a great week, a very busy week and Jesus has been held up by Christian's showing that we care. " People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. " " When you go to where people are, you can take them where you are going". This has been a wonderful opportunity to show the love of Jesus in His people and to interest them in the Lord. Again thank you so much for helping make this effort possible. Good Night. Don & Rosemary

Today We Served 520 Meals, 250 Of Them Were Taken To Surfside For The Volunteers That Was There Working Today

Friday, September 26, 2008

Disaster Assistance - Lake Jackson CoC - Hilltop

Disaster Assistance, Lake Jackson CoC and Hilltop will be working together here in Texas. Hilltop is setting up at a church south of Houston. Disaster Assistance and Lake Jackson CoC will house and feed the volunteers that they bring to work in the areas from Lake Jackson to Surfside.


The Lake Jackson CoC had a large tree that was damaged during the storm. When the volunteers cut the remainder of the tree down they cut the trunk high and carved this cross. The amazing thing is some people who drive by and see it stop get out of their car come up to the cross, touch it and say a prayer. Than they get back in the car and leave.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

News Falsh The Power Is On At Lake Jackson CoC

We cooked and served 189 meals today with no power. Than we had services here at the church in the dark. There were around 150 people here. Just after services were over and most had left the power company trucks rolled in and we had power. The generators are now turned off but I think I will still hear thme for another week. Many things are planned for the rest of the week and weekend.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Today at Lake Jackson CoC

We registered 100 families here at the church in Lake Jackson while they picked up cleaning supplies and cloths. Hass took trailer load of supplies to Surfside and used a 6 wheeler to take them door to door. Everyone was glad to see them and wanted to know when the meals were going to start. The power is still off here at the church in Lake Jackson.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Disaster Assistance & Lake Jackson Church of Christ

I arrived here at Lake Jackson CoC today around 1 PM and went directly to a lunch meeting with the ministers and elders. After that I unhooked and setup my RV and headed to another meeting with a food supplier. I got back to the church just in time for 6:30 meeting with ministers, Elders, Deacons and some other members of the church. Below is what is going to start happening tomorrow.

Supply distribution will be here at the church from 10 to 2

Trailer of supplies will be taken daily to Surfside for distribution there

Start serving meals for the Lake Jackson area on Wednesday

Meals will be taken to Surfside for the families that can't get out and workers

Sunday we are going to ask the congregation to stay for a meal but before that they are going to have a short service than have the members go door to door and ask anyone who is home to join them for lunch at the church

Also the community of Surfside has ask if we will hold a worship there Sunday afternoon of course we said yes

Allen and two church members will be going to visit the Freeport Church of Christ to see how we can be of assistance to them

Clean up crews will be going to Surfside to help with their needs

And the most important thing of all is our Spiritual Warriors will be setting up Bible studies through all of these activities

As you can see we have very, very much going on. Especially for an area that some said needed no help

As always keep us in your prayers and if you can help with volunteers or funding please let me know

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Update From Lake Jackson, TX City Manager

It was encouraging to see those 1,000 electrical lineman in town. Again, we hope to see much progress this weekend. Officially we are still being told power restoration won’t be back until later next week. But, we can always hope.

Our crews will be out in force today (Saturday 9/20) before getting a day off on Sunday to give them a chance to check out their homes and settle their families. They will be back at it early Monday morning.

School is scheduled to start Tuesday and information on where students will be going is on our web site. Now we transition from an emergency operation to a debris removal and recovery process. We still estimate about 4 months to get everything cleaned up. But we are on our way.

4852 Total Meals Served By Disaster Assistance Here At Goodwood CoC

Friday, September 19, 2008

Today We Had 12 More Bible Studies and 3 More Were Baptized



Update From Don

Rosemary and I are back home from our mission in Baton Rouge. The "Disaster Assistance" effort, with your help and the help of a lot of great volunteers and members of the Goodwood Blvd. Congregation, really accomplished a lot. Trees and brush were cleared, people were cared for physically with food and other needed supplies and we made over 400 request for visits, prayers and bible study . The bible studies are now taking place, something over 50 are in progress, and it is a great effort not only by the members but also other Christians from other congregations are also helping in this effort.

Our next mission with "Disaster Assistance" is in Lake Jackson, Tx. Mike, our Director is planning to be there Monday, and Rosemary and I are planning to leave Tues. or Wed. to go there for at least a couple of week.s to try and help the folks there as we did in Baton Rough, again both physically and spiritually. It is our plans, working with the local church in Lake Jackson to set up many bible studies there while we are ministering to the people physically.

Now, if I might, say a few words about the wonderful church I serve here in Howell, Tn. ( 7 miles north of Fayetteville, Tn.). We are honored to serve not only as minister but also as a missionary for the church. When we are away on a mission as we plan to be for the next three weeks, the church continues to pay our salary. Without question, this enables Rosemary to serve in missionary work more than we might otherwise be able. There may be others that are reading this that might consider this example and program of mission work.

One more thing... There have been untold prayers for our efforts I am honored by your confidence and it shall be Rosemary's and my total efforts to be worthy of your trust. You have already donated hundreds, yes thousands of dollars to this effort and we are aware of your confidence and the sacrificial effort by many of you in financially supporting us. Again thank you and God is being glorified. Don

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Disaster Assistance On The Way To Texas

We have had many calls and request from churches in southern LA and TX. We have decided we can best serve in the TX area with the Lake Jackson Church of Christ. We will be arriving there on Monday. Our mission as it was here in Baton Rouge is to have Spiritual Warriors setting up Bible studies, coordinate housing and meals for volunteers, Distribution of food and supplies and cooking meals for the community. Along with the Lake Jackson area we will be helping out in the neighboring areas of Freeport, Oyster Creek, Clute, Sweeny and Angleton. This is going to be a large undertaking if you can help us out by volunteering or with donations it would be a wonderful blessing. Our work also is not finished here at Goodwood. There well be many Bible studies conducted by local Goodwood members and other teams coming to help.

Disaster Assistance @ Goodwood Church of Christ

Today we conducted 16 Bible studies and had 1 Baptism. Also served over 100 meals for lunch. Tomorrow(Friday) will be the last day for meals at the church.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

It truly is great working with the Goodwood Church of Christ here in Baton Rouge. They are busy this morning with the over 400 contacts that have been made for bible study. We are fortunate also to have brethren from other congregations here helping in the follow up. Russ Blackwell from Cox Blvd. in Florence, Al. tells me that 6 brethren are coming today to help in the bible studies work. "Disaster Assistance" has really enjoyed helping in cooking over 400 meals each day and we are especially thankful for the opportunity to set up these bible studies to help people spiritually. We have received so much prayer and financial support you and are humbled by the trust that you have in us. "Disaster Assistance" is doing a great job in organizing this work and wisely using the money in which you have entrusted us. Thank you very much for your trust. Don Hudson

Monday, September 15, 2008

WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS WEEK?

- Supply distribution ended on Thursday as we gave out the last of the supplies
- We will continue serving daily lunches at least through Friday. Than we will
reevaluate the need and determine where to go from there. We will still need help
preparing and serving this week
- We have some daily goals (through Friday) and need a lot of volunteers. Here are
our goals:
- Many of the 300 Goodwood "doorknobbing bags" were stuffed yesterday by
volunteers, but there are more to be completed. We have divided the neighborhood
into 10 zones and plan to distribute materials to two zones per day through
Friday. This will take most of each morning through Friday. We will begin at
8:30 each morning
- We have a database of names and numbers for each person who indicated they would
like to study the Bible with us. Each afternoon we are going to divide into teams
with a goal of each team tackling four studies per day. Thus, if we have 10 teams
we can cover 40 studies per afternoon. We have recruited help from an evangelist
named Zach Martin who arrived here today from Kentucky.
- OUR WORK IS NOT OVER. If we fail to follow up on meeting spiritual needs than
we have failed. TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Sunday, September 14, 2008



Disaster Assistance/Goodwood CoC Relief Update

Statistics since beginning of effort on Friday, September 5

- 3,400 hot lunches served daily from 11 AM - 2 PM since Monday, will begin serving again tomorrow.

- $250,000.00 in supplies distributed to 961 people since Monday; supplies donated by CoC Disaster Relief, Nashville, congregations and individuals

- Cleaned up 12 members yards/homes and 10 non-members since Monday

- Received many donations from various congregations in five states

- Setup-up over 500 Bible studies to be followed up on in next two weeks

- Provided daily meals and assistance to at least 20 members(particularly shut-ins) and their families

- Collected information from 961 of out neighbors indicating further needs including damage to property, counseling and other spiritual needs

- Housed and fed volunteers from four congregations

- Had several members of neighborhood stop by to volunteer after hearing or seeing what is happening at Goodwood

- Provided meals and supplies to area fire-stations, school workers, power crews and area congregations

- Benefited from positive news coverage by the Christian Chronicle www.christianchronicle.org and WAFB news www.goodwoodcurch.org/gustav.shtml

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Friday, September 12, 2008

A Rough Day

During the night we had very high winds and the electricity went off again. We setup all the grills and had generators running. Than it came back on around 8:45 AM. School was let out early as well as some offices. With the weather warnings our lunch totals were down a little from Thursday. We served 625 meals today. We are keeping our eye on Ike and hope we do not loose power for any length of time.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

OH WHAT A DAY

Today we served 761 meals between 11 AM and 2 PM. I think that says it all.
New photos below.




Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Goodwood CoC and Disaster Assistance on Local TV News

Today one of the local network news teams came here took a lot of video, talked to a lot of people and had lunch with us. Than on the 6 o'clock news they actually showed more than 5 seconds. They showed most of the film that they took and gave us a lot of time. At the end they put on the screen that we were serving free lunch from 11 to 2 so we expect a larger crowd tomorrow. We served 409 lunches today. This morning by 7 AM we had people lining up for supplies. By 8 AM there was over 100 people and we didn't open until 9 AM. The line continued until almost 2 PM. I will try and get more photos tomorrow.

Monday, September 8, 2008

We served 450 meals today!!!!!!






Above photos are of volunteers unloading supplies brought to us by Graymere Church of Christ Disaster Relief.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Work we will be doing

Today the Elders of Goodwood CoC approved the following items that we will be working on with them.
1. Spiritual Warrior Teams
2. Distribute food and supplies here at the church
3. Deliver food and supplies to the neighborhoods
4. House and feed volunteers
5. Help as needed with tree clean up and repairs
6. Start tomorrow serving lunch here at the church for the community from 11AM till 2 PM daily
We are not sure of how many that will be but Doug announced this morning it could be
between 500 and 2000 each day.
As you can see we are going to be needing volunteers and funding. Please help us any way you can.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Volunteers Needed




Above is the group of volunteers from Granny White CoC in Nashville, TN. They arrived today with a bus load of supplies. They worked in the community this afternoon and will work part of the day tomorrow before heading back to Nashville. We thank them so very much for their help and supplies. If you can come and help just let me know. We will be taking care of your meals while you are here and have a shower trailer setup.

Baton Rouge



Well I made it here safely. Had a meeting with the ministers Doug and JD. We discuessed their plan and are going to review it with the Elders on Sunday. If they agree we will start everything on Monday. The semi load of food and supplies that arrived here Friday morning from Churches of Christ Disaster Relief was all handed out to around 750 families in about 2 hours. Above is photo of shower trailer, back of church and BoB(big old barn) They have nicked their utility building Bob. Oh! did I forget to mention there is no electric here at the church and as of Froday about 80% of the town are without power.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Update from Don Hudson

Relief effort through Goodwood Church of Christ, Baton Rouge

Three churches in our area are sending relief supplies by us as we leave Tues. If you can help in this great effort may I encourage you to send a donation, no matter how small or big, to the Alachua Church of Christ- Disaster Assistance P.O. Box 237 Alachua, Fl. 32616. If you would like to volunteer in this effort, and it is a big effort, you can call Mike at 407-739-4963. You certainly can always call me at 931-698-3150. The work of Disaster Assistance is not just providing for the physical needs of people, but we use this opportunity to introduce people to Jesus and His church. I personally hope to set up bible studies with people while there. Please pray for this effort of Disaster Assistance as well as the many other good efforts that being made to help, and certainly pray for these wonderful people the Baton Rough area and other areas that have been so greatly effected. We look forward with your help and prayers to shed a little of God's love and teaching with the folks in the area. Thank you ahead of time for your help and concern in this effort to teach and help people with God's Caring Love. Don

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Gustav Update

Disaster Assistance will be working with the Church of Christ @ Goodwood Boulevard in Baton Rouge. I will be arriving there tomorrow. They are receiving a semi load of food and supplies tonight from Disaster Relief in Nashville. As soon as I arrive there I will be meeting with the Elders and Doug Burleson the minister. Doug is a very good friend of Don Hudson's son. He was minister at their church in Tenn. Don JR will be arriving Saturday with a load of supplies. Don and Rosemary will be joining me there on Tuesday. After my meeting with the leaders of the church I will let all of you know what type of work and ministries they want to work on. I am sure we will be in need of many volunteers also funding will be needed. If you can come and work with us for any amount of time please email me @ mbaumg7736@a0l.com or call me at 407-739-4963. Also funds can be sent to Disaster Assistance @ the Alachua Church of Christ. The address is on the left side of this page. Please keep all of the people affected by this storm and all of us working with Disaster Assistance in your prayers.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Gustav - Hanna - Ike - Josephine


Looks like they are going to keep coming. I have been in touch with my contacts in Mobile, Bayou La Batre, Gautier, Gulfport and Bay St Louis and so far they are all OK. That being said I am going to stay here at FBC and watch the progress of Hanna. Latest update shows it coming closer to Florida. Keep checking back here I will try and keep you updated with my plans.

Monday, September 1, 2008