Tennessee Baptist Mission Board Trains 400 New Volunteers
By Church News
Four hundred-plus participants registered for the training led by Wes Jones, Disaster Relief specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
He affirmed it was the largest single training event Wes Jones led during his nine years with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
Jonathan Chapman, collegiate ministry specialist at East Tennessee State University, and Troy Rust, director of missions for Holston Baptist Association, led to one of the largest-ever disaster relief training events in Tennessee.
The event at the ETSU Baptist Collegiate Ministry Center on Oct. 3 was planned, promoted and executed in three days.
Events are normally planned weeks or months in advance but with the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene in northeast Tennessee, Rust contacted Jones on Monday (Sept. 30) to see if he could lead an event three days later.
Jones didn’t hesitate and agreed to lead an Introduction to Disaster Relief and Flood Recovery class. “I was expecting about 200 participants but we doubled that. I was blown away,” he said.
To plan and set up the event on such short notice was not easy, Chapman affirmed, but he credited his BCM students for making it happen. Not only did they host the meeting, but they also provided pizza to attendees. When it became apparent they did not have enough food, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Jonesborough provided additional food.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Chapman said. “The Lord was really in it. To pull it off was a miracle.”