When Aysia Adkins, a rising senior at Goshen College, found herself on a Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) site, it changed her life. She traveled with other students from the college to Selma, Alabama, where the group not only helped rebuild...
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Shirley Smith, 83, waits every day to hear the singing. From her living room, where she sits and cares for her 101-year-old husband, Joe Smith, she hears the sounds of MDS volunteers who are repairing their home in Selma, Alabama: hammering, sawing...
Pastor John Grayson lost an argument with God. He really didn’t think he had time to open a shelter to offer unhoused people a hot meal and a warm bed. Wasn’t his church—the Gospel Tabernacle Chapel—doing enough? “The Lord won the argument...
Airplanes swooping down low over the cotton fields of Alabama. That’s one of Doris Hale’s first memories as a little girl. “I was born November 30, 1965,” she said. “My mother worked in the fields, and we stayed on people’s places.”...
Gavin Hadley likes to change things up sometimes. As the 15-year-old from Faith Mennonite Church in Newton, Kansas helped a crew build a new home in Welsh, Louisiana as part of a Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Summer Youth Project, he...
The Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Annual Celebration, held January 21-22 in Sarasota, Florida, drew nearly 400 joyful participants, some in-person and some through a livestream. Together, they reminisced, reconnected, and shared their vision for...
Photo by Joanne Murray. * By Joanne Murray “Our roof was blown off as we huddled in the corner of our porch from six in the morning until nine at night. Nothing like this had ever happened to us before.” That’s how Shirley Kent vividly...
Jeffery Moseley is a patient man. As the resident of Marianna, Fla. watched Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) close the doors on his half-built home in December because of a spike in COVID-19 cases, he knew the volunteers would be back. “COVID has...
For people in Marianna, Florida, MDS volunteers are the biggest Christmas gift of all. As 20-year-old Chris Whitehead worked alongside the MDS crew removing shingles from his grandmother’s house, he shared his harrowing storm story. Whitehead and...
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