Janice Mason had just lost her husband of 21 years when Hurricane Sally rolled into the Alabama Gulf Coast in 2020. She and her daughter sat up through the night listening to the wind batter the house.

“I’m thinking the roof is fixing to come off any second,” she said. “I was wondering if I was going to live through the night.”

But she did, and the next day, an Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer found her standing in the yard still processing the storm.

“It was her talking to me and praying with me that got me through it and got me moving again,” Janice said.

She looked at the volunteer’s ABDR shirt and said, “I’m going to do that too.”

Fast forward to 2026, and Janice bumped into someone who looked familiar — the same volunteer she had met in the yard that day when she couldn’t wrap her head around what she had lived through.

This time, both were deployed to help those affected by Winter Storm Fern in the Mississippi Delta.

“It’s all God,” Janice said. “It’s all about what you’re doing for others. They see it, we feel it, and God blesses it.”