After serving with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) in Monte Lake, B.C., Sofia Epp won’t see news about fires or floods the same way. “Hearing stories from the homeowners personalizes it,” she said. “It’s been an eye-opening experience.”...
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Clarence Kruschel knows exactly what wildfire survivors in Monte Lake, B.C. are going through. It was 19 years ago when Kruschel, 74, lost his own home to the Okanagan Mountain Park firestorm, which destroyed 239 houses in Kelowna, B.C. Kruschel,...
People come to Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) as volunteers in different ways—they hear about it at church, visit the MDS website, learn about it on social media, or are invited by a friend. For Rudy Martens of Vancouver, it was because of a...
It’s the things she lost to the fire that still hits hard for Michelle Maisonneuve. “I keep remembering all the things I lost, the things I thought I’d keep the rest of my life, my books and photos,” she said of what the 2021 wildfire in...
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...
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