Multiple Arizona Disaster Relief teams serve in New Mexico

Arizona Disaster Relief volunteer Eldon Curry presents a Bible to a homeowner.

For the past month, Arizona Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers have been serving in New Mexico following devastating fires there. Thirty-two Arizona volunteers have filled a variety of roles as needs have arisen, including a team of 11 currently doing recovery.

The Arizonans have served alongside teams from New Mexico Disaster Relief, Texans on Mission (formerly Texas Baptist Men) and Hawaii Pacific Disaster Relief.

According to Texans on Mission, more than 1,000 homes burned, and recent record-high flood waters destroyed over 200 homes.

On June 17, a fire started west of Ruidoso, and a second fire erupted on the nearby Mescalero Apache Reservation. New Mexico Disaster Relief quickly responded and provided feeding support for Red Cross shelters.

On June 21, Arizona Disaster Relief sent a feeding team and chaplain, the Feeding Quick Response Unit (a kitchen trailer for meal preparation) and pantry trailer when called to help support additional shelters in Roswell, New Mexico. The team and equipment stayed until the shelters closed on June 27.

The feeding team provided hot lunches and hot dinners, totaling 800-1,000 meals a day, said Marie Godfrey, blue hat (team leader) for the callout.

“We are blessed to be invited to these disasters,” Godfrey said. “I always see this as an invitation to be God’s hands and feet.

“When you get called, people are at a really low point, not knowing if they have a house. They are not allowed back to their properties for a time, and that’s hard. It’s a blessing for us to be there, and we don’t take that lightly.”

Arizona Disaster Relief volunteer Bill Whaley sifts through ashes looking for valuables from a burned home.

Godfrey praised the Arizona team of volunteers.

“It was a very cohesive team,” she said. “Everyone worked hard to get the job done with joyful spirits.”

As they worked, they looked for opportunities “to remind people that God loves them and He is with them no matter what journey they’re on,” she said.

As shelters closed and the feeding team headed home, recovery work began in Ruidoso. Arizona Disaster Relief first sent two volunteers and the Shower/Laundry Unit to support the recovery volunteers. They returned to Arizona July 7 but left the shower unit in New Mexico to be run by New Mexico Disaster Relief volunteers.

Two Arizona Disaster Relief assessors, Dave and Norma Turner, worked to discern how Southern Baptist Disaster Relief could effectively help residents. “They have just completed their 100th work order,” reported Don Vickers, Arizona Disaster Relief director, on July 9.

In addition, Arizona Disaster Relief sent a recovery team and the recovery trailer. Initially, the assessors and recovery team worked with people whose homes had burned. The team cleaned up homesites, cutting burned trees, removing metal debris and sifting ashes for valuables.

Arizona Disaster Relief chaplain Norma Turner serves at a Red Cross shelter.

However, when several rainstorms caused massive flooding in the area, the recovery team switched to meeting the more immediate need of helping residents get mud out of homes that were not touched by the fire, said Eldon Curry, blue hat for the recovery team.

Curry shared the story of homeowners at one of the burned sites where the team worked for part of three days.

Following an evacuation notice, the couple started driving down the mountain, with the husband driving a pickup pulling an RV and the wife following in a car. Disoriented by the fire nearby and lots of smoke, the husband drove off an embankment. He managed to get up the hill to his wife, and with fire all around, they left in the car.

“They lost their truck and RV and home,” Curry said, “but they were grateful to be alive.”

For these homeowners, having lost a home 14 years earlier in a fire, it was their second time to have help from Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

“He knew what we had to offer him, and he really appreciated it,” Curry said.

Arizona Disaster Relief volunteer David Ager folder towels in the Shower/Laundry Unit.

As is the case at every completed job, the recovery team signed a Bible and presented it to the homeowner.

“He choked up and had tears over the signed Bible,” Curry said. “He said, ‘My first book for my new library.’”

A second recovery team headed to New Mexico on July 20, and, if possible, a third team of six will go Aug. 2, Vickers said.

At the same time, feeding and recovery teams are being assembled to serve in Arizona following the Watch Fire on the San Carlos Apache Reservation earlier this month. Volunteers will begin serving at the end of July or the first weeks of August, he said.

“Continue to pray for us as we continue to respond to the needs,” Vickers said. “Pray for our travel and equipment, the safety of our volunteers as they work and for opportunities for us to share the hope that we have in Jesus.

“You can help us by praying, by signing up to become a Disaster Relief volunteer and by giving to help offset the expenses we have when we respond.”