ANKENY, Iowa—As the floodwaters subsided in Cedar Rapids, one thing was clear: The annual conference of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches would not be meeting as scheduled in the U.S. Cellular Center. Baptists are comfortable with being immersed, but this was really pushing it.
Just before James Maxwell, president of Faith Baptist Bible College, left on vacation, he offered the Ankeny campus as a possible alternative site for the conference, an annual gathering of 1350 churches and affiliated organizations.
This would be no small task. The college was in the middle of several campus improvement projects that were not scheduled to be completed until the end of summer break, not to mention the usual weekly tasks of mowing the lawn and taking out the trash.
Meanwhile, John Greening sat in Schaumburg, Illinois, watching the streaming video from KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids. As the national representative for the GARBC, it was Greening’s responsibility to decide whether a Cedar Rapids conference was still viable.
“We were fortunate to have good advice from Cedar Rapids officials,” John Greening said, explaining the challenges created by floodwaters, utility failures, and restaurant and hotel closings. “There were times I thought maybe we could make it work,” Greening said of the planned Cedar Rapids conference. “But in the end, it just couldn’t be done.”
So with James Maxwell still vacationing in Colorado, campus officials at Faith Baptist Bible College organized work crews that cleaned vacant dorm rooms, set up conference meeting rooms, and hauled 20 loads of pruned branches. Volunteers mowed the 52-acre campus in one day, aided by five commercial mowers loaned by three local landscaping companies.
Maxwell returned home to a campus overrun by a frenzy of activity. “The esprit de corps was unbelievable,” Maxwell said. “There were professors working alongside maintenance staff, administrators working alongside students, and pastors working next to laypeople from area churches. Everybody loved what they were doing.”
Conference delegates began arriving in Ankeny on Monday night in preparation for the start of the conference on Tuesday. Many who arrived brought canned goods and baby care supplies to replenish local food pantries and relief organizations. Churches and individuals have donated to a fund created by Baptist Builders Club to assist Iowa churches that were damaged in the recent tornados and floods.
And James Maxwell is ready to meet his recently invited guests.
“I feel like a nine-year-old boy at Chuck E. Cheese with a pocket full of tokens,” said Maxwell of the week’s effort. “It has been one blessing after another. God has poured out spiritual blessings, material blessings, and social blessings. It’s been unbelievable.”
- Visit our gallery of Monday’s conference photos
