I am asking you to please go and purchase a five-gallon bucket with handle and form-fitting lid, and fill it.  The buckets must be new and unused.  Originally we were told that the buckets had to be white and could not have any company logos.  I am told by a good friend who works for the North American Mission Board that “the rules are now being relaxed, and orange Home Depot buckets (with or without a logo) are acceptable, because (State Conventions will put a Disaster Relief logo over the commercial logo).  Each bucket must have a sturdy form fitting lid.  For a list of places to purchase buckets look here. In my area the Ace Hardware bucket and lid costs $4.98 before tax with a discount after I told the store manager why I wanted it. The manager told me that if I could get 100 people to buy a bucket at the discounted price she could donate another 20 buckets to the cause. The Home Depot bucket and lid cost $3.32 before tax without any discounts, or value added donations.

The food items can and should be generic, store brand items so that you can afford to help a maximum number of Haitians. Do not substitute any items listed and do not add additional items.  (Each bucket must clear customs.  Were they to check a bucket that was not packed according to the standard your bucket could jeopardize the entire shipment).

• 2 – 5-pound bags long grain enriched rice
• 1 – 48-ounce plastic bottle cooking oil
• 2 – 2-pound bags dry black beans (can substitute with red beans)
• 1 – 5-pound bag of all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
• 1 – 20-ounce cylinder container of granulated white sugar (coffee service size)
• 2 – 1-pound boxes of spaghetti noodles
• 1 – 2-pound 8-ounce (40 oz) plastic jar of creamy peanut butter
• 1 – 2-gallon plastic ziplock storage bag (used to wrap the bottle of cooking oil)

The bucket and the food items should be able to be purchased for around $30.  When I purchased these items at my local Wal Mart the cost was $19.89. Adding the costs of the bucket from Ace Hardware the cost was approximately $25. That is not much money to feed a typical Haitian family for a week. An additional $10 is needed to ship the bucket to Haiti.

With millions homeless in Haiti there are a lot of hungry people which we need to feed.

34“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ Matthew 25:34–40 (NASB)

Please send a ‘Bucket of Hope” to the people in Haiti for $40, encourage your friends and co-workers to send a ‘Bucket of Hope” to the people in Haiti.  Have your church or civic organization send ‘Buckets of Hope” to the people in Haiti.

Visit the “Buckets of Hope” website, or log on to the SBDR Facebook page and tell them what your church or organization is doing.  You can even make a donation to SBDR via cell phone and text message by texting nambdr to 40579. A $10 donation will be charged to your cell phone account and sent to Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

The video below shows you how to pack your bucket.  Once your bucket of hope is packed take it to your local Southern Baptist Church or Association office and they should be able to take it from there.  If not, contact me and I will assist you in finding the distribution center nearest you.

]]> http://warnersmith.org/archives/780/feed 0 http://warnersmith.org/archives/690 http://warnersmith.org/archives/690#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:27:56 +0000 Warner Smith http://warnersmith.org/?p=690 The following was originally posted on Feb 3, 2010 by Mickey Noah at Baptist Press.  I received it in an e-mail from a friend.  I have summarized and posted it here.  Please keep praying for the people of Haiti.  If you can get trained in your state and go help them.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) medical teams are among the first Baptists to minister in Haiti.

SBDR medical volunteers from Mississippi and Kentucky arrived on Feb 1, 2010 and treated 550 patients. The Mississippi team is operating a small hospital out of a Haitian Baptist church located on the edge of one of Port-Au-Prince. The Kentucky team is working at a clinic near the presidential palace.

An incident command team from the North American Mission Board will leave Atlanta today  Feb. 4, to serve in Haiti. They will link up with the Florida Baptist Convention, who are on the ground in Haiti for the second time since the earthquake.

This team will be busy planning logistics, lodging, transportation, feeding and communications for SBDR’s eventual “D Day” (the day dozens of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams will begin to be deployed to Haiti, a process that will extend over many months.

Persons who have returned from Haiti say nothing prepared them for their first drive through downtown Port-Au-Prince.   One has reported he thought he had seen it all after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but now says “I’ve never seen anything even close to this disaster, even Katrina,”

As additional SBDR teams arrive in the Haitian capital in the days and weeks to come, they need to know why they’re going before they get there. “The mission ought to be clear,” “Folks need to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually prepared.”

Another volunteer said: “I would tell disaster relief people that they need to be prayed up before they get here, because they don’t know what they’re going into and what they’re going to be dealing with.”

Initial funding for these relief efforts will come from the International Mission Board’s disaster relief fund. Contributions can be made online, www.imb.org, or by mail, International Mission Board, P.O. Box 6767, Richmond, VA 23230.

Regardless of the SBC channel, all funds received for this purpose will go to relief efforts; none will be used for administrative costs.

Southern Baptists can contribute to “Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief” through their local church or directly to their state convention, the North American Mission Board (www.namb.net) or the International Mission Board (www.imb.org).

1. Baptist Global Response is hoping to have an 8-member, initial assessment team on the ground today.  They will be working to assess the situation and determine an appropriate plan of response.  That process alone is expected to take 10-14 days due to the enormity and increasing complexity of the situation.
2. The US government is strongly encouraging all untrained / non-credentialed volunteer groups to NOT self-deploy.  There is no infrastructure in place to accommodate volunteer groups.  Transportation and communication is still halted.  The only communication from Port Au Prince of which the North American Mission Board is aware of is via satellite phone.
3. The top priority at this time (per the Haitian government and the US state department) is medical evacuation and establishment of infrastructure.  Therefore, it is going to be a considerable amount of time before trained, Disaster Relief volunteer groups are going to be ready to enter the country; much-less untrained and inexperienced groups.

This disaster has been likened to “911″ and Katrina rolled into one.

• 3 million people living in Port Au Prince
• An estimated 100,000+ dead already
• Food and water are being quickly depleted
• Violence is on the rise
• Bodies are being loaded onto tractors to be buried wherever possible
• 10,000 vehicles at one border crossing trying to get in from Dominican Republic

What our church and other churches should do!

• PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!
• Give generously.  Donations can be sent to the GA Baptist State Convention.  Donations can also be made online at www.gbcdisasterrelief.org
• Minister to Haitian’s you know.  The Joseph family in our own congregation.  They are grieving the loss of many loved ones and are anxious for those they have not heard from.

• Go to any of the following sites for updates (the NAMB website has a pdf bulletin insert for churches to use): www.gbcdisasterrelief.org         www.namb.net          www.flbaptistdisaster.org           www.gobgr.org

Register for disaster relief training so that when the time comes you will be able to go.

The cost is $35.00.

The next training is February 5-6, 2010 at Hebron Baptist Church located at 202 Hebron Church Road in Dacula, GA   30019.  The  REGISTRATION DEADLINE: is JANUARY 29.

Or attend the training on March 12-13, 2010 at First Baptist Church of Thomson, located at 253 Jackson Street in Thomson, GA  30824.  The REGISTRATION DEADLINE: is MARCH 5.

Or attend the training on April 10, 2010 at Ingleside Baptist Church, located at 834 Wimbish Road in Macon, GA   31210.  The Registration Deadline is April 2.

6. What churches should not do!

• Please do NOT self-deploy.  If you get there, there won’t be anyone to receive you or help you, and the sights, sounds, and smells are overwhelmingly ghastly.

• Please do not start collecting items to send.  Many times, the cost of shipping items exceeds the worth of the items being shipped, and there’s no one ready to distribute the items if they get there.  More than likely, the collections will end up in a landfill (a lesson we learned from Katrina).