Don Yelton
I recently had the pleasure of visiting with Don Yelton to get his perspective on the impact of relief work and the legacy brought through meeting the needs of others.
At a lectureship in London in 1981, Don was moved by Bill McDonald’s message about the ongoing starvation in Poland. He immediately called his wife and Carl Allison to see what could be done to raise awareness and meet the needs of those who were starving. Upon his return from the lectureship, a meeting was set and a decision was made to send tapes of Bill’s speech and letters to Churches of Christ across the United States asking them to join us in meeting this need. Over $2 million poured in.
A team was assembled, 31 trucks were leased in Germany, five tons of food were loaded onto each truck, and a team of men drove these trucks to distribute life-saving food to families in Poland.
A second convoy later took 50 trucks in to continue this effort. By the spring of 1982, Alton Howard and other US church leaders met with the Polish government where the government signed an agreement to allow Churches of Christ to meet freely in Poland. When I asked Don what the hardest part of this effort was, he said, “When you have something that you know is going to change the world, there is no hard part.”
Meeting their physical needs opened the door for the Gospel to be shared! That work has borne fruit that none of us could foresee. Now, for the past couple of years some of these very same churches in Poland have been meeting the need of Ukraine refugees during their crisis.
As a result of this first relief effort, WFR Relief was born and soon became aware of a tremendous drought in Ethiopia. Once again, letters were sent to Churches of Christ and the Christian community raised over $8 million! Don was allowed into Ethiopia with food that had been shipped in a 20-ton container. He was able to bargain with the government to take food to the locations they chose—but also to the church members in need. As a direct result, there are many churches in Ethiopia that were born out of feeding the hungry.
The next great effort was in Ghana. When food was delivered in 1983, they saw that all the men were malnourished. Two years later, they had gained their weight back to normal and the Church of Christ had grown from 100 churches to over 1,000 churches!
When I asked Don about the impact relief work had made on his family he replied:
During my 35 years leading relief efforts at WFR Church, I had known and believed that God was real but seeing Christians in action to meet the needs of the hurting was a great faith builder. My family was proud of the work we did. My wife Harriett was very involved in the behind-the-scenes part of relief, and my sons saw how God worked through this ministry. Their faith was built with mine.
We thank Don for his fierce leadership of this ministry and the legacy we still follow and carry out today.
While our world and its outreach methods are changing, one thing we know for sure is that hunger and disasters still plague many parts of our world. Needs still must be met in an effort to share the hope we have in Jesus. The legacy of relief through the years has grown and WFR Relief is now overseen by One Kingdom ministry. We now have the ability to use the internet, YouTube, emails, social media, and more to reach our brotherhood in Christ around the world quickly with immediate information.
This, combined with traditional mail, has proven to be effective in uniting churches with the goal of sharing the Gospel through charitable efforts. Whether working through a local church in the US following a natural disaster, or working through a church in Turkey, Zambia, and others, we know that hunger and shelter continue to be immediate needs. By working in partnership with ministers and local churches, they become the face of relief to their communities.
We see time and again that the hearts of communities are touched first by our helping hands, and then they are receptive for the Gospel to be shared. Our prayer is that the work begun in 1981 will continue to impact the world long after we are gone.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35