8 | March 2026
Ohio Couple Manages Send Relief Hurricane Response
By Stephanie Heading, managing editor
president. They also work with Ohio Changers and Ken- tucky Changers. It might seem unusual for a couple to leave the comforts of home to spend eight weeks in a disaster zone, but for the Stickels, the reason is clear. “The simple answer is God asked us, and we prayed about it. There wasn’t any reason why we couldn’t, so we did,” Matt said. As the Project Coordinators for Southern Baptist Disas- ter Relief efforts in Jamaica, the Stickels are managing 15 DR teams from multiple states and coordinating the logistics. They do all this while relocating the operation every oth- er week. “We’re changing locations every two weeks, which means changing suppliers of material, changing trans- portation, changing locations, changing staff that are going to help us with meals and laundry. That’s a big challenge,” Matt said. “And we also need to meet the Jamaican Baptist Union,” said Sue. “They’re really the ones who are directing where they want us to go, as far as location.” Jamaica is a sovereign nation, so Send Relief and SBDR follow the lead of the Jamaican Baptist Union (JBU), the Southern Baptist organization in the country. “That’s why we’re moving every two weeks, because they want to share the blessing,” Matt noted. SBDR teams deploy to Jamaica each Saturday and spend the following week working on projects, includ- ing replacing and repairing the roofing on churches and parsonages. The groups leave the following Saturday as new teams arrive. “It’s mostly church roofs, but we are working on some schools as well,” Matt said. A team of eight from Ohio DR partnered with teams from California and North Carolina during the week of Febru- ary 14-22. The teams replaced the roof on a school and a parsonage. While the work is hard, the Stickels have been blessed by meeting and working with the people of Jamaica. “I think one of the things that I try to keep in mind is we see the damage that the churches have had, but the people’s lives, their own personal well-being – mentally, physically, spiritually – have been affected far worse than the buildings have been,” Sue commented. “They’re used to living with electricity and water, and all the things. They’re used to that, and now they don’t have it,” Sue said. Story continues on the next page...
Matt and Sue Stickel
When God asked, they said, “Yes.” On October 28, 2025, Hurricane Melissa unleashed its fury on the Caribbean. The category 5 storm slammed into Jamaica with wind speeds of 190 mph, making it the first category 5 hurricane ever to hit the island nation. Four months later, the recovery work continues. Immediately after the storm, Send Relief and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) sent a Disaster Assis - tance Response Team (DART) to Jamaica to assess the needs and develop a plan. What they saw was large- scale devastation. Approximately 70 percent of the island was left without electricity. Roofing on homes and businesses was dam - aged or blown away. Mudslides covered roads and cut off areas of the country, and dozens of Jamaicans lost their lives in the storm. It became clear that the recovery work would be a long- term project. SBDR needed someone on the ground to coordinate these efforts, and Coy Webb, Send Relief Crisis Re - sponse director, knew exactly who to recruit. “Coy asked us to come down for a couple of months and do what we are doing right now, manage the teams,” said Matt Stickel. Ohio Baptists Matt and Sue Stickel are members of Guide Church North Campus in Hilliard and have long been involved in mission projects in Ohio and around the world. Matt served with Baptist Global Response, which even- tually became Send Relief, managing teams working to bring clean water to areas of the world without access to it. Sue served in Ohio WMU as vice president and then
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