East Texas

BY PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

A team of seven Texans, including one from Lindale, left Dallas-Ft. Worth airport Wednesday for the former Soviet state of Georgia. The group's goal is setting up "a mass feeding kitchen" for thousands of refugees fleeing the recent Russian military incursion into Georgia.

Lindale resident Larry Blanchard, 79, of Baptist Global Response is one of the group leading an attempt by the Southern Baptist Convention to ease suffering in Georgia. It won't be an easy task but that's what the team of seven knows how to do, Blanchard said Wednesday.

"This seven-man team is from all over Texas," said Blanchard, "and we have years of experience between us in setting up field kitchens and doing mass feeding operations. I've been doing it for 40 years myself."

His is the "leadoff" field kitchen team, Blanchard said.

"There are three other teams coming after us, each one working two weeks before the next team takes over. We're expecting to serve about 100,000 meals to about 5,000 refugees, and we'll minister to them any way we can. If they're hungry we're going to feed them," Blanchard said, "and they have to be hungry."

Special attention will be paid to women with children, he said.

"We have diapers and powder, and lot of that kind of stuff already in-country," he said. "Everything a mother with small children would need in that kind of situation, we have."

Blanchard has worked with Baptist Global Relief in many crisis situations.

"We were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during the flooding a month ago and served 120,000 meals there," he said. "We were in Harlingen after the hurricane (Dolly) for eight or nine days and dished up more than 100,000 meals. We're ready to go."

The kitchen setup and mass feeding team will return to Texas in two weeks, he said. Visit the Web at www.baptistglobalresponse.com for information.