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.
Raymond Cabello
“We decided to use our local missions offering to provide meals,” Raymond Cabello, lead pastor, said. “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 Fed Ex, 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 1500 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.”