New MDS Canada Executive Director Announced

Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada is pleased to announce the appointment of Reynold Friesen to be its next Executive Director.

Friesen, who is currently the Director of Alumni, Church, and Donor Relations at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), will begin his new role at MDS Canada in February, 2026.

He will succeed Ross Penner, who has served as Executive Director since 2015 and will retire from his role in March, 2026.

At CMU, Friesen helped develop the university’s donor engagement strategy, shared the CMU story among alumni and churches, administered the scholarship and bursary program, and organized various donor and community events.

Before taking his job at CMU in 2021, Friesen was the Agency Manager at Harvest Manitoba, directing a staff and volunteer team supporting over 200 food banks, soup kitchens, and other non-profit agencies across Manitoba.

Prior to that role, he was Pastor of Community Ministry and Pastor of Youth and Young Adults at Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. He also served as Director of Silver Lake Mennonite Camp in Ontario and as Assistant Pastor of the Vineland United Mennonite Church in Ontario.

“I’m excited to be part of an organization which has a practical approach to living out faith,” said Friesen, who served with MDS as a volunteer in Manitoba in 1997 and in Crisfield, Maryland in 2015.

“In this, I had an excellent mentor in my father, who believed in letting his actions do the talking about his faith,” he added.

Of his new role at MDS Canada, Friesen said he is looking forward to being part of a team of staff and volunteers whose goal it is to “help survivors of disasters put the puzzle pieces of their lives back together . . . to be part of God’s reconciling work in the world.”

Friesen is also looking forward to how MDS brings together people from different denominations in the Mennonite world and beyond, as well as the shared work between the U.S. and Canadian MDS operations. “There is a lot of unifying work being done by MDS,” he said.

The creativity of MDS is also exciting. “The number and nature of disasters is changing, and MDS is responding to them in new ways,” Friesen said, citing how the organization responded to help wildfire evacuees from northern Manitoba when they relocated to Winnipeg this past summer.

A resident of Winnipeg, Friesen and his spouse, Tammy Sawatzky, are the parents of two teenage boys. They are members of FaithWorks, a Winnipeg congregation that meets on the campus of CMU. Friesen is also a member of the Leadership Team at that church.

John Longhurst, MDS Canada writer