The year 2021 marks 20 years since terrorists took 2,996 lives in attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The following brings back some memories of the ways in which Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) responded. “How to get people in...
Growing up in a farm family, Randy Short spent a week serving with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) in Kentucky after his senior year of high school. After that, he served with MDS each winter for three or four months. “After we were married, it...
Michael Bering paused in the shade on his back patio in LaPlace, Louisiana, chatting for a few minutes with his brother, Edward, who has come by to lend him some moral support as he copes with the havoc Hurricane Ida wreaked on his home. Michael’s...
Sixty-seven-year-old Pamela Haskin was sweeping, cleaning, and sweating up a storm inside a hurricane-damaged home in LaPlace, Louisiana. She’d traveled from her home in western Pennsylvania several days before, but still seemed a little surprised...
For Bradley and Virginia Walker, livestock farmers in Endeavour, Saskatchewan, this year’s weather was a disaster. “The rain was so patchy,” said Bradley. “Some places got good rain, we got nothing.” The lack of rain meant they couldn’t...
The Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey Unit celebrated its 65th anniversary on Oct. 8 with a look back at its long history and a look forward to its path of hope. The festivities took place at the Blooming Glen Mennonite...
Philip Hirtle pulled moldy drywall, soggy carpet and bedraggled belongings out of his mother-in-law’s home, sweating in the early October Louisiana Gulf Coast heat, hauling pickup truckload after truckload to the growing pile at end of the long,...
When an electrical fire in August all but destroyed LaTanya Wade’s house on the outskirts of Philadelphia, she wasn’t sure where to turn. She had no fire insurance, and the damage meant the house had to be entirely gutted and rebuilt. A city...
When Hurricane Ida caused the Brandywine River to overflow its banks in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, a small town of about 8,000 on the outskirts of Philadelphia, it flooded many homes and businesses—and the New Beginnings Fellowship Church. That’s...
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