March 2-3, 2020 a EF-3 tornado touched down in Nashville and Wilson County in the middle of the night. This overnight disaster left hundreds of people with damaged or destroyed homes, business, churches, and schools. The NBA office received extensive damage as the roof was torn off and everything on the top floor has to be replaced. There was also extensive water damage to the building. In the midst of working through those issues, our Executive Director Rusty Sumrall made calls to our NBA churches and Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief to get volunteers and responders into our communities.
This was the clarion call to have boots on the ground to assist families and other responders in the north Nashville community. The NBA churches showed up! New Season Church one of the NBA churches was used as the communication hub for donations and volunteers. In addition, the NBA shower trailer was housed there. The NBA requested a feeding unit from TN Disaster Relief. The Texas Baptist Disaster Relief sent a feeding unit to Nashville to serve hot meals. They arrived and parked their trailers and truck at the New Season location.
According to dictionary.cambridge.org, “boots on the ground” means people who are physically present in a place doing the work to achieve something. In having boots on the ground we were able to engage with families, individuals, business owners, teachers, and pastors to meet their specific needs. One thing for sure we know God called us to is to Go! (Matthew 28:19).
Upon us going, Isaiah 58:12 (HCSB) became a reality. And it reads, “some of you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will restore the foundations laid long ago; you will be called the repairer of broken walls, the restorer of streets where people live.”
In the aftermath of this severe storm and tornado, this is where God gave us the opportunity to share Christ and bring help and hope. New Season Church, Sylvia Baptist Church, First Baptist Joelton, 24 Church, Hope Church, On The Go Ministries, New Life Baptist, Broadmoor Baptist, Judson Baptist, WMU, Nashville Baptist staff, were boots on the ground. These churches put together over 2,000 personal care bags, 2,000 snack bags, 1,500 cleaning supplies boxes. All of these boxes were hand delivered to people in the community. Over 5,000 bottles of water were handed out. In the midst of this tragedy with boots on the ground, there were three (3) people that were led to Jesus Christ and one (1) was baptized at New Season Church on Saturday March 21, 2020. The other two will be baptized over the next couple of weeks. We had teams of people dispatched removing trees that were blocking streets, cutting trees that had smashed on homes, removing debris and piling branches, etc. for pickup.
The eight-man team that came up from Texas with the Texas Baptist Disaster Relief, prepared 4,200 hot meals that were served in the community and to anyone that wanted food. These men served lunches and dinners that were set up in the community and each night we drove around the community and handed out those hot meals. One afternoon we took three hundred hot meals to Pearl Cohn High School and fed teachers and students. These men joined us on a couple of the night excursions serving food and praying with hundreds of people.
Partners:
We also had Sudden Impact bring their mobile grill and they grilled 400 hotdogs. Frito Lay donated 500 bags of chips and Little Debbie cakes partnered with us and donated 500 assorted cookies. We served 400 hotdogs, chips, cookies and drinks to students and teachers at the school and apartment complex in Mt. Juliet, TN. Thank you Gideon’s Army and their director Deidre Childress, Trial By Fire Track Team, Dave Walker Ministries and HighMark Holdings four your donations through New Season Church.
On behalf of the Nashville Baptist Association, I want to say thank you to each of you for clearing the way to make communities livable again!
Sincerely,
Dwayne Lewis
Church Planting Specialist
615.519.2222 Cell
615.259.3034 Office