‘The church being the church’ in wake of St. Louis tornadoes

By Vicki Stamps, The Pathway

FLORISSANT, Mo. — After sunset on Friday, March 14, 13 tornadoes took aim at metro St. Louis. The widest one was three-fourths of a mile wide, and it took aim at the Hazelwood/Florissant area. But, on the following Sunday morning, the members of Cross Keys Baptist Church, Florissant, less than a mile from the destruction, saw an opportunity to serve.

“We decided to use our local missions offering to provide meals,” said lead pastor Raymond Cabello. “We put up a sign-up sheet online and worked with the local school district to discover the need.”

“We started with mostaccioli and salad,” Cabello said, “because it was the easiest and then we went to sandwiches and chips.”

It was after this initial step of faith that the partnerships began. “On our needs online sign-up,” Cabello continued, “we asked about all needs: toiletries and cleaning products. So, we were able to meet many of those needs with the aid of others. My father-in-law works for FedEx, and they have a warehouse for Unilever products, and the company told him to take what was needed. So we were able to get a lot of cleaning products and toiletries. The city of Florissant as well as a couple other school districts also stepped in with donations for cleaning and other supplies.”

When all was assembled, it was the congregation and community volunteers who delivered the meals and other products. “The need was great. So many homes were destroyed or damaged and more than 1,500 were without power for several days. We wanted to be intentional and not just use a blanket approach to meeting needs, so on the sign up we asked if they had any prayer requests.”

Those prayer requests paved the way for more than 450 gospel conversations. “Each meal was presented with a gospel presentation, a tract with information or a life book,” Cabello explained. “We wanted to pray with people in addition to meeting physical needs.”

Another partner, Cabello discovered, was World Central Kitchen, an organization that helps provide food in disaster areas. They send chefs to disaster areas and in this case the organization supplied 250 meals over two weeks from Sugarfire Smokehouse.

Cabello reported that toward the end of the second week, the sign-up sheet online was not being used as frequently, so they packed up meals and drove around the area looking for the need.

“We saw Ameren workers out restoring the power, tree trimmers working to clear homes and people just cleaning out the damage,” Cabello said. “So, we shared meals with them.”

“We also served the American Legion with a cleaning event and provided meals,” he said.

Cabello also saw the impact that serving had on his congregation. “It was the first time for our people to see a widespread need in the community as a whole,” he continued. “They got to see the church being the church and to live out the mission and vision the Lord has given us.”

Kentucky pastor affirms ‘serving is what we love to do’

By Mark Maynard, Kentucky Today

FALMOUTH, Ky. — Trinity Southern Baptist Church is all about loving their neighbor. Serving others is what they do best.

With residents of Falmouth returning home after having to evacuate because of historic flooding potential, pastor Abram Crozier said a hot meal seemed to be in order. There were 540 satisfied customers from two hours of providing the food.

They organized a hamburger and hot dog dinner at the church for Monday night (April 7) where there was a good turnout, along with some gospel presentations. Not only does Crozier not miss an opportunity to serve others, he also does not miss an opportunity to share the gospel.

“I was telling a church member this is what we do best,” he said. “I absolutely love it. We’re thankful. We weren’t 100% sure what impact (the flooding) may have but it didn’t even get our parking lot.”

The community evacuated because utilities were shut off over the weekend in anticipation of historic flooding. However, the flooding has not been nearly as bad as expected and only a few homes have water in their basements, Crozier said. 

“Everybody was losing their electric, which is why they evacuated the whole city,” he said. “Turning off the utilities was our biggest issue.”

It turned out the flooding was only a moderate level with only a few homes taking in water in basements, Crozier said.

The evacuation was lifted on Monday morning and people began trickling back into town. Understanding they would come home to refrigerators with spoiled food, Abram and Trinity Southern decided to ease that burden by providing a free hot meal for anyone who wanted it. He assembled volunteers to help serve and a catering company in town provided the food and cooking.

The meal will include a hamburger or hot dog, a bag of chips and a drink. It also comes with a smile and an invitation to visit the church again.

When the evacuation was ordered last week, church members jumped into action, going door to door to see if residents needed any help in getting out of town.

“We had a wild couple of days there,” Crozier said of helping people leave town. He said about two dozen church members were part of the group helping.

On Monday night, nearby Falmouth Baptist was sending volunteers to help put the food in to-go boxes for those who came by for the meal. Crozier appreciated the help from the sister church.

“This is an opportunity to meet with some people who maybe wouldn’t come to church otherwise,” Crozier said. “Serving is what we love to do.”

Trinity Southern has been on a steady growth trend since Crozier became pastor in 2019 when the church had only 20 members. They have baptized 240 over the past six years, including 55 last year. The youth group has been exploding as well with 75 coming weekly.