Workers in Houston load aid onto an Antonov AN-124 cargo plane chartered by the International Mission Board to airlift 114 tons of children's coats, medicines, vitamins and food to North Korea.

Borne on the world's largest air cargo plane, the aid was unloaded immediately. Coats were distributed to children whom North Korean officials feared would freeze to death over the winter without protection from bitter temperatures that sometimes dip to 4 degrees below zero.

Children under 12 are at risk in the throes of an extended famine that has left them weakened and malnourished, officials said. They asked Southern Baptists for up to 180,000 children's coats and various medicines.

Tar Heel Baptists collected about 20,000 of the 70,000 coats, according to a letter to N.C. Baptist Men Director Richard Brunson from Bill Cashion, consultant for human needs with the International Mission Board (IMB).

"While we are grateful for the participation of almost 100 percent of the state conventions in this drive, no other group gave more coats for children than did N.C. Baptists," Cashion said in the letter. "...N.C. Baptists have been used by God to make a difference in North Korea."

More than 6,500 coats were collected Dec. 12-13 at the Baptist Building in Cary. When the deadline was extended until Dec. 31, workers at the Baptist Building collected about 3,000 more coats.

About 9,000 coats from around the region were collected at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Other coats from North Carolina were taken directly to the IMB in Richmond, Va.

Because of increased giving to Southern Baptist human needs funds -- including special gifts of $70,000 from Texas Baptist Men and $25,000 from the Georgia Baptist Convention -- the IMB bought 25,000 additional children's coats from Asia and shipped them to North Korea, Cashion said.

Cashion was part of a Southern Baptist delegation that arrived in Pyongyang Jan. 12 to meet with North Korean officials; he spent one full day helping deliver coats to needy children before returning to the United States.

He saw tall skyscrapers lit by candles and without heat. In one bitter-cold schoolroom, he videotaped the school children who were smiling and waving. When he stopped taping, the entire group began hacking and coughing.

"The coats and medicines we are bringing will literally save these children's lives," Cashion said.

The IMB chartered a Ukrainian-built Antonov AN-124, originally designed as a Soviet military craft, to airlift the coats and 10 tons of antibiotics, anti-diarrhea medicine and vitamins, 21 tons of corn, and 39 tons -- or 2 million servings -- of dehydrated soup mix.

The request for coats came late last year from North Korean officials through John LaNoue, director of adult ministries for Texas Baptist Men. He had spent three months traveling throughout the country.

"Coats for Christmas" was sponsored by the IMB, Woman's Missionary Union and North American Mission Board.

More than 40,000 coats were collected during the first wave of the effort, which ended before Christmas. But when the IMB learned it could not transport the coats into North Korea as quickly as hoped, Southern Baptist churches were asked to extend their collection time through Dec. 29. Coats were sent to temporary centers around the country, then shipped to Houston, where the aircraft was located.

The cry for help from North Korean officials came after flooding and other natural disasters in recent years devastated farmland and triggered a catastrophic food shortage in the country.

"Southern Baptists have felt the heart cry of this people, and they've heard the still, small voice of our God," said Cashion.

Stories from throughout the nation bear this out: Don and Barbara Rhoads, of Hollister, Mo., heard the voice of God stirring their hearts last spring.

"I had seen a program on volunteerism and wanted to do something," Don Rhoads recalled. "We just felt the Lord leading us to" buy children's coats, he said. "We didn't know what we were going to do with them; we just felt led to buy them."

The couple had 36 coats when they heard about the project for North Korea.

"We realize this is why we were collecting them," Barbara Rhoads said. "I just know in my heart that this is something (God) wanted us to do."

In North Carolina, Korean churches in Wilmington and Yates association responded immediately, while a Sunday School class from Crabtree Valley Church, Raleigh, agreed that the price of admission to its Christmas party would be a coat.

In Sylva, the Ashley Corporation, which makes coats and ball caps, donated 90 new coats.

Coats came in boxes and bags from 37 states, including from as far away as Alaska. Another shipment was sent from Canada.

In meetings with North Korean officials, Cashion agreed to future involvement in the country, including:

-sending a friendship basketball team of high school players to tour the country and schedule games,

-collecting 80,000 more children's coats for next winter, and

-providing about 6 million pounds of food as part of an 8 million pound shipment of food in April. (BP/BR)