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...
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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...
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...
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...
First time in the city? Yes. Where you from? The Prairies. Want to share your first impressions? Sure, why not. Good, I’m listening. Well, for starters there are lots of taxis on the streets, mostly yellow, over 10,000 of them I&#...
As power continues to come back in Louisiana, many residents are returning to survey severe flood damage from Hurricane Ida. Many other states are also reeling from deadly tornadoes and flooding unleashed by Ida’s remnants as the storm cut a wide...
Cliff and Lydia Trudeau’s home looks out across Cuisson Lake, B.C. and up onto a mountain of rock that has come out of the Gibraltar copper mine. It was a peaceful setting—until an unexpected fire destroyed their home this spring. MDS B.C....
Sondra Smith, a native of Elkton, Virginia, remembers watching her neighborhood creek as a little girl. “The creek was half the width that it is now,” she said. When Sondra and her husband, Troy, moved back to Elkton 13 years ago after living in...
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