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Yellow shirts a ‘blessing’ to residents
Dianna L. Cagle, BR Assistant Managing Editor
June 09, 2011
8 MIN READ TIME

Yellow shirts a ‘blessing’ to residents

Yellow shirts a ‘blessing’ to residents
Dianna L. Cagle, BR Assistant Managing Editor
June 09, 2011

As a young boy, Lin Honeycutt never imagined that he would

one day be coordinating recovery efforts in the neighborhood where he was

raised.

“It’s been quite an

experience,” Honeycutt said. “It’s been a big blessing to be able to help

people I’ve known all my life.”

He lives, works and goes to church in the same area where he

grew up in south Raleigh and is the

white hat coordinator for the North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM).

NCBM set up its Raleigh

headquarters at Carolina Pines

Baptist Church

on South Saunders Street, a

hard-hit area of the capital city after an April 16 tornado carved a path

through houses and businesses, streets and playgrounds.

As of June 4, Honeycutt said Baptist Men and its volunteers

had completed 575 chain saw jobs with at least 60 more to go. Honeycutt

estimated that chain saw jobs will be complete within a couple of weeks and all

volunteers will be redirected to restoring and rebuilding efforts.

NCBM has agreed to adopt

Stony Brook Mobile Home Park, which originally had 180 homes. Baptist Men will

rebuild or restore 100 of the homes that were deemed salvageable.

“We’re getting the families out of the shelters and back

into their homes, said the Highland Baptist

Church member.

Because of the amount of devastation, he believes NCBM

will be at Carolina Pines for at least four more months.

BR photo by Dianna L. Cagle

A team from Red Mountain Baptist Church in Rougemont works to cut and remove a tree in a south Raleigh yard. From left, Wally Watson, Eric Sanders, Bill Johnson and Jamie Gillie spend their Saturday on mission while another team from their church served at Samaritan’s Inn in Durham.

Honeycutt, who has seen more than his fair share of

disasters in his 22 years of volunteering with NCBM,

compared the destruction to hurricanes — Katrina and Floyd.

Recapping experience

Honeycutt was in Winston-Salem April 16 at one of the

Baptist Men’s regional training weekends. He was on his way home Saturday

afternoon when he received a call redirecting him to Sanford

where a home improvement store was demolished.

He was 30 minutes from Sanford

when he received a second call telling him to go home because a tornado was

tearing across his area.

“I kind of freaked out,” said Honey-cutt, who could not

imagine a tornado hitting downtown. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

After talking to his wife about what she was seeing, “I put

it in high gear,” he said. Honeycutt drove to his business and unhooked a

camper he had used at disaster relief training.

“I couldn’t even get down the streets,” he said. “South

Saunders was blocked off completely. There were no lights anywhere.”

Compared to others, Honeycutt said the damage at his

business was minimal — roof, ceiling and signage.

By 10:30 p.m.

Honeycutt was surveying the church with a flashlight to see if it would be

suitable for responding to the disaster. With power out in south Raleigh,

he said he got chills recounting how the lights at the church came on while

inspecting it.

“There were no lights anywhere else,” Honeycutt said. “The

lights have not been off since then.”

Honeycutt said it has been a blessing to serve in his

hometown.

“Not only were we able to help residents but we were able to

help supporting churches,” he said.

Chain saw teams were on site April 17, the day after storms

ripped across the state. They worked to clear streets for two days. By April

18, NCBM was contacted by Red Cross to help

with feeding people. The first meal served 45,000 out of the church’s parking

lot.

At one point, there were 12 sites operated by NCBM

to help communities in need across North Carolina.

The site in Fayetteville

closed about two weeks ago, leaving Raleigh

as the only site left open to help those in need. While the feeding has

switched to the church’s kitchen to feed the volunteers, Honeycutt estimated

30-50 volunteers each day with as many as 150 on site at any one time.

“We have been able to use local volunteers through the city

and county … as many as 125” totaling about 250 on a recent Saturday, Honeycutt

said.

Because the city is known for its oak trees, Honeycutt said

two out of three of the jobs needs heavy equipment. For the first time, NCBM

had to purchase a 48-inch saw, and he said that some of the trees are still

bigger than that saw’s range. Honeycutt said he had a bucket truck, cherry

picker and excavator as well as six Bobcats operating out of the Raleigh

site.

He said 650 jobs is typical for a hurricane site but not a

tornado. This recent disaster showed Honeycutt that “disaster can happen at

your back door.”

Preparedness is key, Honeycutt said.

Volunteer crew

Red Mountain Baptist Church in Rougemont sent a team of four

down recently to help on a Saturday. Wally Watson, a member at the church, led

three other men — Jamie Gillie, Eric Sanders and Bill

Johnson — as they cut apart a large black walnut tree that had fallen in a yard

in south Raleigh.

Watson became Baptist Men coordinator five years ago at his

church; they bought a trailer and have since had a total of 15 church members

trained in some form of disaster recovery.

He and some church members spent four days in Sanford

in May doing similar work

Anytime we get a phone call, Watson said he brings a request

before the church.

Teams have worked at Camp

Duncan and Baptist Children’s Homes

facilities as well as doing yard work for people in their community.

“It’s really been special for me … in fact our church is

starting to respond more,” Watson said.

Gillie was just certified in March at a training in Fayetteville.

He also served on the crew that worked in Sanford recently. Gillie was out of

the state when the tornados hit North Carolina,

but it was all over the news in Washington

state where Gillie had gone to see his brother.

Watson said he has used presentations for the congregations

to encourage and motivate members to get involved. Volunteers share with the

church how God has worked in them to bless others.

‘Blessing’ ministry

Freddie Malone, 62, sat on her front porch planting flowers

as a NCBM team cut apart a neighbor’s tree.

“I am very happy to see those yellow shirts,” said Malone.

“It is a blessing for us.”

Malone grew up on this street, and she knew the tree they

were cutting was tall, even when she was just a little girl playing in the

yard.

The tree down in the yard across from her house served as a

daily reminder of the devastation that struck her neighborhood April 16. “You

never get over it because every time you see it you go through it again,” she

said.

Malone serves as the caretaker of the rental property where

the volunteers were cutting the tree. The woman who owns the house lives in

another state.

Malone said her house was fine but she had damage in her

back yard. She lost a metal shed and her privacy fence was toppled. She had no

electricity for five days and no phone for three weeks.

“We were truly blessed,” she said. “God looked out for us.”

Because of the coverage of the fallen tree, Malone said she

could not tell the house behind the tree had sustained some damage from it. The

renter in the house beside the tree had begun planting flowers and preparing to

have a party in that section of the yard for a birthday and graduation this

month. Now that the volunteers in yellow shirts have come, that party might

happen.

“I praise God that He sent them,” Malone said.

NCBM seeks partners to

help rebuild

North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM)

is moving toward the repair and rebuild stage and is in the process of seeking

church-to-family partnerships. Volunteers are still doing chainsaw, debris

removal and putting tarps on homes in the Raleigh

area.

Baptist Men has set a goal of helping 400 families rebuild

homes. The idea is to partner churches or individual groups within churches to

help these families. The families will apply for help and commit to giving

funds from FEMA to help purchase materials for rebuilding their home. There is

also a form for the church or group to complete.

NCBM is providing up to

$3,000 of building materials per home for the partner church to use in

rebuilding the home. The church or group does not have to commit to provide any

amount of money, although ministry to that family is encouraged.

There will need to be a meeting to agree on what the

volunteers can do for the family and assess what resources are available.

Other ways to help the family: call on a regular basis; ask

about prayer needs and share those needs within prayer ministry or the church

bulletin; collect furniture and appliances; and invite them to church or other

events.

Contact Baptist Men at (800) 395-5102, ext. 5599, email

[email protected] or write to N.C. Baptist Men, P.O.

Box 1107, Cary, NC 27512.