Two new yearlong volunteers—Simon Martin, 20, from Chugiak, Alaska and Lukas Houben, 19, from Dusseldorf, Germany—and returning yearlong volunteer Mary Joyce Wise, 28, from Auburn, New York, are starting their year of service by spending a month...
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...
On Dec. 10, 2021, Mayfield, Kentucky, became known for a tornado that killed 24 people, destroyed every municipal building, and devastated the city, home to 10,000. Three-and-a-half years later, Mayfield is known for the compassion, born out of pain...
Katie Shirk Snyder Katie Shirk Snyder, from Goshen, Indiana, shared an encounter that happened just a few weeks ago—a time when she was having, well, a not-so-good week on the MDS site as a crew leader. “There was a lot of down time,...
After their first assignment in 1991, Jerry and Doreen Klassen accumulated more than 1,500 days of voluntary service with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) over 14 years — simply by responding to a call when asked. In 1990, Jerry had resigned from a...
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...
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