For Joanne Caldwell, Vice-President of the Westwold, B.C. Community Hall, there was no question about letting Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) use the hall for free as its hub of operations for house building in nearby Monte Lake. “It’s amazing...
Each morning, when Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers head out to job sites in Monte Lake, B.C., Helmut Hein of Abbotsford, B.C. feels a pang. “I always wish I could be going with them,” said the long-time MDS volunteer, now serving as a...
Dustan Eager was home alone when the knock on the door came at 2 a.m. It was August 4, 2021 and someone from emergency services was there, telling him to get ready to leave his home in Monte Lake, B.C. because of the encroaching fire. His wife, Tammy...
A Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) work site is often a beehive of activity. You wouldn’t normally think of it as a place to practice contemplation. But that’s not how it was viewed by John and Kim Alexis. The couple are part of Imago Dei Church...
They call themselves the “three amigas”—Spanish for “friends.” The three—Betty Ramones, 31, Lindsay Hofer, 20 and Shannon Lang, 27—are longer-term Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada volunteers in Monte Lake, B.C. All three are in...
A crew of eight volunteers from Puerto Rico are “paying it forward” this week in Crisfield, Maryland, where they are building a new home for a flood survivor. Volunteer Demeric Flores, from Ponce, said he sees the parallels between the...
The home has been under construction for many months on the grounds of the Mount Academy in Esopus, New York—founded by the Bruderhof Christian community movement in 2012. High school senior Niels Wipf explained some of the many skills he’s...
Volunteers from Acknowledging Christ Through Service (ACTS), which operates collaboratively with Mennonite Disaster Service, are building 16 new homes for tornado survivors in Mayfield, Kentucky. On Dec. 10, 2021, a tornado damaged or destroyed...
For Sam Perera of Princeton, B.C., it was a case of really bad timing. Perera, originally from Vancouver, bought a riverside house in that southeastern B.C. town in October 2021—a place he could afford in a community he intended to call his new...
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