“Empathy came at a high price” says MDS Canada volunteer and disaster survivor

When Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteer Jim Reimer tells a disaster survivor he knows how they feel, he’s telling the truth.

Reimer, who lives in Steinbach, Man. with his wife, Marlene, lost his house to a fire in 2022. Most of their personal possessions, and over 40 years of memories, were destroyed.

Serving as construction supervisor at Libau, Man., where the MDS Manitoba Unit is building a new house for a couple whose house was condemned as unlivable following a week of severe rain, Reimer brings first-hand experience of disaster to the project.

“I’ve gone through it. I know first-hand what it feels like to lose everything,” he said.

Such empathy “came at a high price,” Reimer acknowledged. But it helps him relate to the people MDS serves in Manitoba and in the U.S., where he has also been an MDS volunteer.

“We have a shared experience. I can say I know how it feels and I do know that.”

The main exception for Reimer is he was insured, and he had good support from the community and his church, Steinbach Evangelical Mennonite Church, for himself and his wife.

“But we still lost many personal items,” he said. “The new house is wonderful, but doesn’t contain the same wonderful memories.”

He doesn’t have any trauma from the fire, but life is divided into before it and after it, he added.

Of volunteering with MDS, Reimer—semi-retired after owning and operating a plumbing business for a career—says it is “good to help people like others helped me.”

John Longhurst, MDS Canada writer