By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor
LORANGER/HAMMOND – The hay is gone; the money is gone.[img_assist|nid=7736|title=Haylift|desc=Sonny Ridgedell carefully drops a round bale of hay onto a tractor-trailer that will be taking the donated hay to drought-stricken Texas owners of 50 head (or fewer) of cattle, for a ministry from Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond and friends in Loranger.|link=none|align=right|width=640|height=480]
Both ran out at the same time, said the Loranger man who ramrodded a four-month-long disaster relief operation that aided the cattle owned by Texans with ranches of fewer than 50 head of cattle.
The retired state highway worker who asked that his name not be used linked Louisiana farmers and ranchers with hay they were willing to donate, and Texas Baptist churches willing to help get the hay to those who needed it most during the state’s worst-ever season of extended drought.
“I would just like to thank everyone,” the mission project catalyst said. The church where he’s a member – Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond – plus Northshore Baptist Association, and the Louisiana Baptist Convention all put money into what was determined by LBC Men’s Ministry Director Gibbie McMillan to be a Disaster Relief project.
The mission project catalyst mentioned several people by name whom he said were influential in the project, including Larry Culbreath, Bill Hiller, Tommy Harper and Sonny Ridgedell, all of St. Tammany Parish.
The men gathered and arranged transportation for 1,800 square bales and 850 round bales of hay.
“You can only put 38 [round bales] on an 18-wheeler,” the mission project catalyst said. “We were the only group that I heard of that was going on donations.”
God led every step of the way, said the man from Loranger.
He spoke of one man who called, wanting to donate hay to a children’s camp. Two hours after he called, the phone rang again, with a request for hay for the Still Creek Ranch for Boys and Girls – the only call from a children’s camp that came in during the four-month project. They got 200 bales.
“Eleanor lived north of San Antonio. She was out of money and out of hay, and she was in her 60s,” the mission project catalyst said. “I told her if she could get to Vinton, La., that she could get some hay. She borrowed a trailer; her church donated the money for fuel. … She called me when she got home to say thanks, and that her faith in God had been renewed. She was crying.
“I got so many phone calls from people who would cry,” he continued. “They couldn’t understand ‘free.’”
Billy West is a member at the Baptist church in Vinton that served as a drop-off/pickup point for hay. He loaded and unloaded every single bale that went to Texas.
The rest of the story: He’s paralyzed from the waist down and has to be hoisted into the tractor.
“At first I started to say – but then I saw the look on his face and I asked myself, ‘Who am I to take this blessing away from this guy?’
“When God lines up something for you to do, follow His direction, because He knows the way,” the mission project catalyst continued. “For everyone who was involved in this, it was amazing. It touched grown men so much.”