The gospel is impacting flood survivors, first responders in the Hill Country

By Jane Rodgers
July 28, 2025

Southern Baptists of Texas Disaster Relief teams are winding down a multisite response in Kerr County, San Saba, San Angelo, and Leander following devastating floods that swept across the Texas Hill Country on July 4.

In Kerr County, more than 130 people lost their lives as flash floods turned the normally peaceful Guadalupe River into a raging torrent. Among the dead were 27 children and counselors from a Christian youth camp outside Hunt, a community of about 1,300 residents.

Much of the SBTC DR effort in Kerr County concentrated on feeding, chaplaincy, and shower/laundry work, with operations based out of First Baptist Church Kerrville.

“We mostly have been serving first responders and volunteers in feeding and shower/laundry,” SBTC DR Director Scottie Stice said. Recovery teams from Spring Baptist Church, as well as from Oklahoma Baptist DR, have mudded out homes, cleared debris, and done chainsaw and general cleanup work with an emphasis on residential properties.

“We’ll stay to help with feeding and laundry as long as needed,” Stice added.

San Saba: Impact of a different kind

Recovery work in San Saba has been of a broader scope. SBTC DR volunteers worked alongside their counterparts from Oklahoma to complete dozens of jobs. San Saba’s First Baptist Church opened its doors as a clearinghouse where residents could find help.

Though much of the work was typical of a disaster response, the San Saba deployment featured a few unusual twists.

Among the structures flooded was the historic Mill Pond House in Mill Pond Park. SBTC DR volunteer Jim DeLaPlaine advised authorities on the amount of moisture in the structure and how best to treat the sodden plaster.

The Mill Pond House wasn’t the only bit of San Saba history to be encountered during the deployment, however.

When stripping multiple layers of ruined vinyl flooring from a home, an SBDR recovery team uncovered multiple layers of old newspapers from San Saba and Dallas, including a Feb. 5, 1956, edition of The Dallas Morning News with the front page headline: “Dallas Celebrates 100^th Birthday.”

That discovery made headlines in the present-day San Saba paper, as did an account of the hard work of SBTC DR crews helping the community.

In addition to blasts from the past, a Californian found something much more significant in San Saba. The man, a San Diego resident named Hector, heard about the Hill Country floods and searched online for ways to help when he came across information on San Saba’s First Baptist Church. He phoned to offer assistance and was told if he could make it from San Diego, he was welcome.

Hector drove to San Saba, received DR training, and began helping on the field for a week as the only Spanish translator in that area. Through that work, Hector requested a Bible, and Alan Arthur, pastor of San Saba’s First Baptist Church, shared the gospel with him. Hector accepted Christ on a Thursday and was baptized that Sunday.

DR teams also offered shower and laundry services in Leander, as well as feeding operations in San Angelo, in support of the Red Cross shelter there serving 400 displaced flood survivors.

“We’re grateful to be able to help,” Stice said.

A cooperative effort

On Saturday, July 26, SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick—speaking at the annual Equip Conference, held this year at Houston’s First Baptist Church—offered an update on the convention’s disaster relief response and thanked churches for their support that makes such efforts possible. That response has included nearly 18,000 volunteer hours served, more than 1,500 emotional or spiritual care contacts, thousands of meals prepared and served, and 20 professions of faith.

“When you sit in your church on Sunday and you invest in the kingdom of God through your tithes, and [when] your church partners with other churches of the SBTC through the Cooperative Program,” Lorick said, “you are in your city, in your church on that morning … but you are also in Kerrville and in San Saba, still serving those who are searching for healing.”

Lorick then read from an email sent to Bruce Northam, pastor of Clay Road Baptist Church in Houston, from a law enforcement first responder from the Panhandle who had been in Kerr County for nine days.

“This deployment, at times, feels like a losing battle. Searching for souls has been upsetting and just about unbearable. I was told about a yellow and blue trailer manned by three guys who would do laundry if you dropped it off to them,” the first responder wrote, referring to SBTC DR’s laundry unit. “That laundry service has been the only win I have experienced since I got here. I dropped off filthy rags to those gentlemen, and they accepted them with open arms and thanked me for dropping it off. My clothes have been sweated through, and covered in blood and tears, and returned to me clean. Having clean clothes to put on before taking on an uphill battle (literally) makes me feel valued and lets me know that someone thinks I am important enough to have clean clothes.”

Said Lorick: “We are certainly making a difference together.”

Cumulative Report for Central Texas Floods (July 4-26):