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MOORE, Okla.—Wayne and Ann Barber didn’t start out to be storm chasers but it seems to have worked out that way.
The SBTC Disaster Relief volunteers deployed to Moore, Okla., from their East Texas home in Jasper on May 26. Last Friday (May 31), they found themselves “hunkered down in the hallway” of Southern Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, riding out the second wave of tornadoes to strike the Oklahoma City area in two weeks, Wayne Barber told the TEXAN.
Five tornadoes were confirmed in the Oklahoma City area on Friday, NBC News reported. At last count, nine adults and five children died in that day’s storms. One of Friday’s tornadoes turned south and swept through Moore, the area ravaged 11 days earlier by a massive EF-5 tornado that killed 24 people.
One of Friday’s tornadoes passed over Southern Hills Baptist Church, just a couple of miles north of west Moore, Wayne Barber said. Southern Hills was hosting the SBTC DR volunteers.
The clouds Friday afternoon seemed threatening, prompting DR workers and others to seek shelter, Wayne Barber said.
“One of the tornadoes went right over the church. It destroyed a little bit of the steeple. People started banging on the church doors. A lot of people were caught in this. We let people in,” he said.
Some 75-80 people sought refuge in the church, including DR workers, people from the neighborhood and stranded motorists, Wayne Barber explained.
“We heard there were four tornadoes within a 10-mile radius of the church,” he added.
One of the tornadoes crisscrossed the area where SBTC DR workers had cleared debris through the week. The tornado scattered much of the debris, which had been stacked up.
“We got home [to Jasper] on Saturday. We decided we had had all the tornadoes we wanted and we were coming home,” he quipped. The couple approached Dallas only to find tornado warnings in effect. They continued south to Jasper, where early Sunday morning a storm hit, knocking out electricity.
“It’s been a rough week,” Wayne Barber said.
But it was a fruitful week as well.
On Monday, two people accepted Christ. Ann Barber led a 15-year-old girl to Christ and later that afternoon Wayne Barber led a man to Christ who lived across the street from the girl.
The 54-year-old man’s wife had died two years before. “He said that his life was just empty. He had nothing,” Wayne Barber related.
“If the Lord had taken you home during this storm, do you know where you would spend eternity?” Wayne asked the man, whose name was Tracy.
“I’ve been thinking a bunch. No, I wouldn’t,” Tracy replied.
“Would you like to know?” Wayne Barber asked.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking a bunch about that, too,” Tracy answered.
“He was just ready. He was ready to be picked. The Lord just sent us there. We just shared with him. He went with us to share with his neighbor. He was so empty and exhausted; now he was full. He was totally different,” Wayne Barber related.
The Barbers gave Tracy a Bible supplied by their home church, Hillcrest Baptist of Jasper. He confirmed that he had begun reading it enthusiastically, according to the Barbers.
Stories of faith that was confirmed and even rekindled abound as well.
Another man told the Barbers he hadn’t prayed in 42 years. The man, Tracy’s neighbor, told DR volunteers he had accepted Christ at age 7 but an unfortunate experience with his parents on the mission field left him bitter towards God, he said.
When the tornado struck, the man and his wife got in their bathtub. The storm damaged the tub but spared the couple. During the tornado, the man who hadn’t prayed in four decades asked the Lord to forgive him. “He told us he said, ‘Lord, if you want to take me, please take me fast and easy. But if you don’t, I’ll turn to you from now on,’” Wayne Barber stated.
“He was ready to share the Lord. He was so glad we had come by. He could not wait to share his story with us.”
Wayne said he also got to pray with an 83-year-old biker known for being cantankerous. The biker and his wife sought refuge in a closet during the May 20 tornado. “Their home was totally destroyed and they were under all of the debris,” Wayne Barber said. A neighbor rescued the couple.
He asked the crusty gentleman about his faith.
“He said that when he was 21 years old, he had accepted Christ as his savior but he never read his Bible and had never gone to church. He had never worshiped God or served him until now. We gave him a Bible and he was excited about that,” Wayne Barber said.
“He may have already been a Christian, but he is a stronger Christian today,” Wayne remarked. “He was proud of his new Bible; he was protecting that.”
The words of one tornado victim, a middle-aged believer who had also survived the 1999 tornado that devastated Moore, inspired Ann Barber, who said the couple lost everything then and again this time.
The two-time victim’s response of faith was simply this: “I feel fresh and renewed. It’s like being saved. The past is washed away and we are going to start afresh and anew and not worry about all the things we have lost,” Ann Barber explained in quoting the woman.
“We also prayed with a lot of the policemen who were there,” Ann Barber said. “Quite a few told us they were Christians. They said, ‘I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t know Christ.’”
The Barbers haven’t been home much lately. They volunteered after the fertilizer plant explosion in West, assisting SBTC efforts to aid victims there. They spent a week at DR training before deploying to Oklahoma.
The couple even celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary in Moore on May 28.
“Two people had accepted Christ that Monday. We thought that was the greatest anniversary present we’d ever had,” Wayne Barber said.
SBTC DR teams were continuing their work with Baptist groups in the Moore area this week. Chaplains, clean-up/recovery and chainsaw teams have rotated in and out.
Meanwhile, the lights were back on at Southern Hills Baptist Church following Friday’s storm. The church held only one service on Sunday, but VBS began on Monday.
