Heather Muraca raised her two children on a hillside property across the road from Adams River in British Columbia. Rooted there for 23 years, she never imagined they would lose their home to a wildfire. A lightning strike ignited the Lower East...
“Growing up in Lytton, you’re used to fires,” said Nikiah Coghlan, who at age 33 has spent most of his life in the southern British Columbia village. For the past 15 years or so, residents have anticipated the “seasonal” smoke plumes that...
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...
As needs grow in the wake of deadly flooding in Texas, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers are on the ground, continuing to clear debris, remove damaged trees, assess damages, and pray with communities. As of July 14, MDS was focusing...
During a seminar on July 9 at “Follow Jesus 25,” the Mennonite Church USA convention in Greensboro, North Carolina, leaders from Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) explained how to find a “holy space” in disaster response work—a mission...
Florence Walde and Sheryl Giudici have cooked together for the past 20 years. They met at church, through mutual friends, about 35 years ago and have found themselves running church kitchens, soup kitchens and MDS kitchens together over the past two...
Severe flooding struck central Texas beginning on July 4, as torrential rains from a stalled storm system caused rivers, especially the Guadalupe, to rise rapidly and overflow. Communities across the Hill Country have suffered devastating losses,...
In 2017, schools of redhorse suckers streamed through a culvert into Jeanne Gauthier and Steve MacKenzie’s flooded yard. They were so plentiful that an organized response was needed to return the fish to the Ottawa River. That was the first time...
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