• Contact
  • Return to IBSA
  • Advertise Through Us
  • Subscribe
  • E-Reader

IBSA News

Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

  • QuickLinks
    • E-Reader
    • Subscribe
    • Baptist Press
    • Resource Magazine
  • News
    • Corona Virus
    • IBSA
    • SBC
    • Culture
    • Religious Liberty
  • Mission
    • Illinois Churches
    • Church Planting
    • Missions
    • Evangelism
  • In Focus
    • Longform Articles
  • Columns
    • Nate Adams
    • Eric Reed
    • Meredith Flynn
  • Leaders
    • Pat’s Playbook
    • Fresh Ideas
    • iLead
    • Devotional
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief personnel are helping care for evacuees of a fire that raged through neighborhoods west of Denver last week, one day before heavy snowfall blanketed the area. (Submitted photo)

Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief personnel are helping care for evacuees of a fire that raged through neighborhoods west of Denver last week, one day before heavy snowfall blanketed the area. (Submitted photo)

Illinois Disaster Relief assists after Colorado fires

January 21, 2022 By Eric Reed

Four volunteers from Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief (IBDR) joined a team manning a feeding center in Colorado where wildfires just before New Year’s wiped out several communities in Boulder County. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed and tens of thousands were forced to evacuate. A semi-trailer mobile kitchen and a support unit were set up immediately and reported serving 250 meals a day at the onset.

While snowfall helped extinguish the fires, the weather has hindered the ability of many people to deal with their losses. “Much of the work may not be able to begin until the spring or summer, as typical Colorado winter weather will prohibit this type of work,” said Coy Webb, Send Relief Crisis Response director for the North American Mission Board. Webb expects the weather to contribute to the response’s longevity.

“We also anticipate requests from church planting/church leaders for ministry grants to provide relief and recovery help in the affected areas,” Webb said.

Illinois team leader Randy McClellan is serving with trained IBDR volunteers Kathy Dudly, Maryland Vaughn, and Pamela Leslie, along with two volunteers from Ohio through the end of January, according to IBDR state director Butch Porter. They will provide relief for volunteers who have been on site for about three weeks.

Among the Colorado volunteers, Dale and Linda Hinkle, have served in the feeding unit. They lost their Louisville, Colorado home of 30 years, barely having enough time to escape with a few items out of the house.

“All I have right now is my faith in God, family and friends,” she said. “But as tragic as it is, it makes you realize what’s important. All of these possessions that we cling to…you can’t take them with you anyway. You realize how many people care about you [from the] love of our church, our friends, and our family.”

With 900 trained volunteers, Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief is a ministry of the Illinois Baptist State Association, with its member churches and teams from local Baptist associations. Send Relief, operated by the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, is the third largest disaster relief ministry in the nation.

–Illinois Baptist staff with additional reporting from Baptist Press

Share This Story

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Coronavirus

  • News
  • Church Helps

Sexual Abuse Prevention & Ministry

Resources

  • Protect your children, protect your church
  • Caring Well
  • Related Stories

Featured Columns

Nate Adams

Hope set high

Nate Adams

Have you ever set out with high hopes, only to find things not working out as you expected? Should that happen even in church and in ministry? Last summer our son Noah and his family moved from the Chicago suburbs where he was a pastor to the front range of the Colorado mountains and a […]

Meredith Flynn

Brighter Day: Small seasons

Meredith Flynn

My family will soon celebrate the end of an era for our youngest daughter. Molly and her classmates will walk across the stage and receive their diplomas, marking the end of preschool and the beginning of their elementary years. Some preschools even dress graduates in miniature caps and gowns. Ours does not, but Molly will […]

Handling history

Nate Adams

A little more than a year ago, a main sewer line backed up into the basement of the IBSA building here in Springfield. Though the primary blockage turned out to be well outside our building, the plumbers also discovered a break in a secondary line. It was directly beneath the section of basement where IBSA’s […]

More Columns

Banding together for Bibles

Illinois Baptist Staff

“Everyone agreed—it was worth the time and effort to make Bibles available to anyone who needed or wanted one,” Pastor Brian Fuller said. Fuller spent much of the 1980’s and 90’s as a Contemporary Christian music (CCM) artist. Now as pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodlawn, Fuller recently picked up a mic again for […]

News

Green arrested on grooming charge

Illinois Baptist Staff

Keith D. Green, a substitute teacher from Ashmore, was arrested May 17 by Mattoon Police on a charge of grooming. Green briefly served as pastor at two Illinois churches more than four years ago. Mattoon Community School District #2 notified police of the allegation that Green had contacted a female under age 17 using an […]

Effective teachers ask: What do learners need?

Former IMB missionaries encourage churches to go global again

More News Stories

Mission

Annie Armstrong

How SBC missions have been influenced by Annie Armstrong

Sandy Wisdom-Martin

A few years ago, I read the SBC president at the time was considering different gavels for presiding at the SBC Annual Meeting. One of the options under consideration was the Armstrong gavel. I sent him an email with this message: This weekend I did a bit of reading on Annie Armstrong and was inspired […]

On mission again

New partnership targets biblical literacy

More Mission Stories

  • Blog
  • News
  • Mission
  • In Focus
  • Columns
  • Leaders

Copyright © 2022 · Website by Megaphone Designs