Katrina Outreach

September 10, 2005

Dear Friend,

We need your help in reaching out to a select group of public school children in a very special way!

This weekend I was scheduled to speak at First Baptist Church of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. If you’ve been following the news regarding Hurricane Katrina, you have seen images of the catastrophic damage that has replaced the once-quiet coastal areas of that portion of the USA. During Hurricane Katrina as many as 50 families at this church lost their homes and basically all of their worldly possessions. Photo albums, clothing, furniture, financial documents, food, Bibles, computers … everything, gone.

Every family in that church and, in fact, in the entire community is struggling through the aftermath of this incredible catastrophe. We can only imagine the devastation and heartbreak that so many are experiencing.

Friend, the AiG speaking event can be rescheduled (and it will—Pastor Barnett, with whom we’ve had infrequent contact, is pleading that this be so), but the opportunity for AiG to help this pastor and his church to be the bright, shining lighthouse to their community that they long to be is now!

This Bible-believing church is in a strategic location, being across the street from city hall. Their facility is being used as a distribution center of sorts. (One man in the church who lost his shrimp business in the storm is allowing his refrigerated trucks to be used as a temporary morgue.)

Pastor Barnett—a dear man of God—has learned that the public school system of Ocean Springs intends to re-open on the 26th of this month. However, most children have lost all the school supplies that their parents bought only a few short weeks ago.

How you can help Donate a backpack with supplies for children starting school ($10/each—use the ”Katrina backpack fund” option when donating online). Already funded. If you’re local to AiG–USA in Petersburg, KY, drop off personal toiletry items. See drop-off hours here. You can also donate to help fund the toiletry kit option. Already funded. Donate to GLS.

When asked by our staff how AiG might be able to help, Pastor Barnett shared that over 4,000 bookbags and all the necessary notebooks, pens, calculators, glue, etc., are needed for these kindergarten through high school students. But due to the devastation, the ability of the families to find and repurchase the materials is almost nonexistent.

I am asking you to help share the love of the Creator to those of Pastor Barnett’s community by supplying as many “bookbag kits” as possible.

We are stepping out in faith to fund and deliver at least 1,000 kits, and we would love to deliver even more. These kits will not contain a heavy-handed, anti-evolution message. Instead, they’ll include a very simple care-card that expresses that Answers in Genesis is supplying these bookbags in the love of the Creator, Jesus Christ, as we’re instructed to do in the record Book of history, the Bible. For the older (high school) students, a Why Is There Death & Suffering? booklet may also be included.

Our staff and volunteers are working even now to find the best possible prices (and even free materials) for these bookbags and their contents. We expect that we will be able to buy and supply them for an average of about $10 per student (yes, that is an amazingly low price, but we expect that many of the components will be donated or sold to us at cost), with basic contents listed above. We will supply only as many bookbag kits to this special relief outreach as your donations will support.

Please donate $10 per student now. Consider asking your children to forego one pizza or one theater visit. Then pray together for the students to whom your bookbag will be delivered. Pray also for their families. Pray for their eternal salvation.

Who knows—maybe because of the love we show these students, some of them and their parents will also attend AiG’s meeting when it is rescheduled later this year. What an opportunity we have to share the love of Christ with people as God tells us to do in His Word!

How many Ocean Springs public school students will your family adopt?

In the love of the Creator,

Ken Ham

P.S. Through a “missions fund” we maintain here at AiG, we are also going to be supplying “toiletry/hygiene kits” to the nearly 500 people in Pastor Barnett’s congregation at First Baptist. Soap, toothpaste, shampoo, Tylenol and a few other very basic items that are now exceedingly rare for these dear people will be included. These kits will cost us about $8 each. Finally, if you live in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area and can drop off disposable diapers, baby wipes and powder, blankets and pillows (click here for a map to our headquarters), a drop-off location in the Creation Museum parking lot will be available starting Monday. It will be open Monday through Saturday (9 am to 6 pm) and Sunday (1 pm to 5 pm) until we load the AiG trailers to drive to Mississippi on September 21.