In summer 2024, John Henry and Judith Yoder of Lakeville, Ohio lost their home in a house fire. The family contacted Gid Yoder from Disaster Aid Ohio asking if they might consider building a house for someone who did not attend church. Gid provided...
Eldon King was 25 years old when he first heard about Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). Now the resident of Orrville, Ohio, who is almost 100, is still dedicated to MDS and, most of all, to serving others in the ways he can. When it comes to service...
Heat and humidity. Fresh shrimp. Devastation. Trust. Stagnant smells. Blessings. A rollercoaster of memories rolled out from Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers who responded to Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago. During the aftermath of the...
As they climbed a 205-step wooden trail staircase on Mackinaw Island, Twila and Leonard Hochstedler talked about why they love the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) RV Program. The both have a sense of adventure. From Kalona, Iowa, the couple has been...
As Hurricane Katrina approached, Blanca Mackay and her husband, Mario, left New Orleans for Houston, Texas. “We took one of our cars and followed our son and his wife,” Blanca remembered. “We stayed in Houston almost a month. Everything in New...
David Harms lived in Houston, Texas, during his first year after college, working in investment banking. From Houston he watched Katrina bear down in the Gulf. “A few years before Katrina,” David said, “I met a Tulane student who told me...
Sometimes, Alicia Hertzler looks back at her journal entries from 2005, when she helped Hurricane Katrina survivors. Today we toured New Orleans and some parts of it are just ruined. There are piles of debris outside every house and some of the...
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...
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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