News – California Mission Offering

BLACK MOUNTAIN, NC—CSBC Office of Communications staff recently walked away with seven awards from the Baptist Communicators Association annual awards competition. Two, first-place awards, four, second-place awards, and a third-place award were presented to CSBC in a variety of categories during BCA’s 68th annual workshop in mid-April at Ridgecrest Conference Center. Sarah Graham, director of…

Para leer en Español, click aquí A tropical wave began its journey off the coast of West Africa, on September 23, 2022. What would later be named “Hurricane Ian,” eventually grew to a category 5 hurricane as it made its way across tropical Atlantic waters. Hurricane Ian is considered the 3rd deadliest weather disaster ever…

As the Director of Disaster Relief and Camping Ministries, I get to go around the state, meeting with DOMs and pastors about disaster relief ministry. In fact, it is an important part of my job. Because all disasters start and end locally (in a community big or small), I talk about how any mission-minded local…

To read this story in English, click here. Una tormenta tropical empezó su jornada en la costa oeste de África el 23 de septiembre 2022. En su viaje hacia el oeste del océano Atlántico, la tormenta empezó a crecer y fue llamada “huracán Ian”, un huracán de grado 5. Un desastre de clima de gran…

PORTERVILLE—Spring flooding in California’s Central Valley yielded opportunities for California Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief (DR) workers to extend compassion in the name of Christ. In the process, a declining local church took a step toward revitalization. “There were several reports that [DR workers] got to talk to the people who were displaced,” said CSBC…

Vignette 1 “Never Canned” People may not know this, but one thing Disaster Relief feeding teams strive to do is provide food that people will really enjoy. We try never to use canned or frozen foods that are designed to simply be reheated. Effort is put into every meal to show how much we care…

Volunteering through Disaster Relief has given me the privilege of meeting many extraordinary people doing all kinds of extraordinary things. Shortly after the war in Ukraine began, I traveled to Romania as part of a Disaster Relief team tasked to assist the churches and ministries aiding Ukrainian refugees and to discover avenues for California Southern…

In the summer of 2022, the Oak Fire in Mariposa County burned approximately 20,000 acres and destroyed nearly 200 structures. CSBCDR responded, and teams were assembled. I was able to serve on a Personal Property Recovery (PPR) team in which we would search for items in homes destroyed by the wildfire.   For me personally, the fire…

If I had to summarize what we do at CSBC Disaster Relief, it would be that we step forward into difficult situations, giving of ourselves, all while trusting God. As a new SBCDR chaplain, I have been deployed fortunately (or unfortunately) 4 times for disaster relief in the last seven months. What was once theoretical…

In August 2020, the state of California began housing evacuees from the Santa Cruz fires at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove. The pandemic brought about changes to every segment of life, and disaster relief was no exception. Suddenly, congregate shelters – shelters set up to house dozens of people under one roof –…