The fire destroyed our home on November 17, 2024,” Aleeshia Haskell said. “Only three years after we bought the place. That house was a catastrophe when we got it. We completely rebuilt it. We did the work. I did the plumbing, and my husband did...
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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...
After a mile-wide tornado tore through southern Kentucky on May 16, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers from Ohio are engaged in early response, removing damaged trees and debris in the London and Somerset communities. MDS Regional...
During the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Annual Celebration in Wichita, Kansas, two yearlong MDS volunteers, Jonathon Shirk Snyder and Katie Snyder shared their perspectives on how young people view service—and why, more than ever, how it adds...
Sixty-eight trucks?! Fifty-one cargo trailers?! And that’s only a small part of the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) fleet, which collectively clocks more than 600,000 miles to respond to disasters in a single year. Who keeps all those...
Every morning on his way to work, contractor Ken Hollinger passed a black space. He knew two area homes recently burned. Between cancer treatments and work, however, there was never enough time. Besides, he and Suetta, his wife, had a spring...
“If I never come back here again, it’s going to be too soon.” Peter Goertzen, who has volunteered at more than 26 different MDS sites, remembers uttering these words back in 2007—the first time he ever served as a long-term volunteer in the...
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...
Closing down the longstanding MDS response in Jennings, Louisiana, wasn’t easy. MDS Project Director Rollin Ulrich had the tough job—both logistically and emotionally—of moving MDS volunteers and equipment out of the Jennings Church of Christ...
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