United Methodists team up with Baptists to help in Bamberg

On July 18, South Carolina United Methodist disaster response volunteers through the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission’s Early Response Team pitched in to help their Baptist counterparts tarp a severely damaged roof in Bamberg.

The roof was damaged in a Jan. 10 tornado that devastated portions of Bamberg. The home of the Mitchell family and their grandkids, Mrs. Mitchell is on dialysis with stage four kidney disease and the family has been struggling to make ends meet while taking care of the grandkids.

Bamberg First Baptist found out about the need and took action, which started with a combined United Methodist-Baptist mission to tarp their leaking roof. The roof had multiple holes in it from a tree that fell on it during the tornado. While it had been tarped earlier in the year, the original tarps were degrading and tearing apart.

The United Methodist-Baptist team prayerfully began the mission in a sense of unity from a Christian community coming together to help and show Jesus’s love to this family.

“It was a hot July day, but the Mitchells offered us cool refreshments and were so grateful though they were going through such hard times,” said Billy Robinson, South Carolina UMVIM ERT coordinator. “It was wonderful to see the love of Jesus flowing through them as it was also flowing through all of us back to them.”

Responding from First Baptist were Ronnie Smith, Bruce Watson and Perry Hutto, along with United Methodist ERTs Robinson and Felix and Misty Vazquez.

The team put a 31- by 50-foot tarp on the roof.

Ligon Hutto of Bamberg First Baptist grew emotional as he watched the combined effort to help the Mitchell family, shouting out, “Onward, Christian soldiers!”