English
Korean
Spanish
After retiring from the oil industry, Bellville man picked up a chainsaw and went to work for SBTC Disaster Relief
When Mike Phillips retired from a three-decade career in the oil industry, he faced the challenge of what to do next. Southern Baptists of Texas Disaster Relief provided the answer.
“I didn’t want to sit around. I always wanted to give back,” Phillips said.
He heard about SBTC DR even before retirement, when his Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Bellville told the class about his experience with disaster relief.
“We were tithing to the Cooperative Program through the SBTC, so we chose to be trained with SBTC DR,” Phillips said.
After a short retirement vacation, he got the call to serve in May 2013. An EF5 tornado had devastated Moore, Okla., and SBTC DR volunteers were needed.
Phillips hesitated. Was he ready? Did he know enough?
A family member encouraged him: “You’ve been looking at doing something like this for 15 years. Go.”
“I never looked back,” Phillips said.
The experience was transformative. He served among 90 volunteers from across the nation, including SBTC DR crews. “Chaplaincy, feeding, recovery, chainsaw. … We all had a common reason to be there helping people, spreading the Word, planting seeds.”
“I had a desk job in my career. My little world had nothing to do with people who were really hurting. At Moore and with DR, I was thrust out. It was something bigger than self. I loved it.”
Seven children died when the tornado struck an elementary school in Moore. One of the families Phillips helped had lost a child.
“I had a desk job in my career,” Phillips said. “My little world had nothing to do with people who were really hurting. At Moore and with DR, I was thrust out. It was something bigger than self. I loved it.”
Phillips estimates he has deployed more than 60 times over the last dozen years, most recently to Brownsville in April 2025 to assist flood survivors. While there, he was a site director for a multi-state Southern Baptist DR team in addition to overseeing the SBTC DR recovery trailer maintained by First Baptist Bellville.
“At Brownsville, we had teams engaged in feeding, chaplaincy, assessing, shower and laundry, and mud-out and recovery,” Phillips said. He worked in the field each day in addition to his administrative duties. “Everybody knew what to do. They made it easy,” he said.
Phillips often does chainsaw work on deployment and will be leading a specialized chainsaw training offered by SBTC DR for its crews.
“I am right where the Lord wants me,” Phillips said. “We all want to understand God’s will. I am doing what I think is the Lord’s work.”
