Jessica Lawrence wasn’t sure how things would come together when she agreed to coordinate volunteers for a Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Alberta Unit response. While she entered the role with administrative experience, it was her first time...
Closing down the longstanding MDS response in Jennings, Louisiana, wasn’t easy. MDS Project Director Rollin Ulrich had the tough job—both logistically and emotionally—of moving MDS volunteers and equipment out of the Jennings Church of Christ...
A swath of devastating and deadly tornadoes walloped communities in the Plains States over the weekend. Authorities report at least four dead in Oklahoma and one in Iowa. At least 40 confirmed tornadoes hammered communities from Texas to Iowa....
Pastor John Grayson lost an argument with God. He really didn’t think he had time to open a shelter to offer unhoused people a hot meal and a warm bed. Wasn’t his church—the Gospel Tabernacle Chapel—doing enough? “The Lord won the argument...
An eight-year-old kneels, with battery-operated drill in hand, over a sheet of plywood. He knows what to do. It’s a familiar scene at Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Family Projects. It’s amazing what young people can accomplish with the...
Loria Adams wants to “get good sleep and cook something decent” in her new house. Across town, Betty Holloway wishes her mother could see her new residence. “If she could see me now—my mother would be 109 years old,” she said. What’s 96-...
The wall of signatures and blessings. Freida Platt’s cooking. Meals, jokes, and prayers with Pastor Roy Platt, at the Jennings Church of Christ. All the ways the church and the whole community of Jennings, Louisiana, opened their hearts to MDS...
Denis Sabourin took a leap of faith when he signed up to volunteer with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) ten years ago. He was introduced to the organization in 2014 when a group of weekly volunteers received an outgoing blessing at his church, The...
Airplanes swooping down low over the cotton fields of Alabama. That’s one of Doris Hale’s first memories as a little girl. “I was born November 30, 1965,” she said. “My mother worked in the fields, and we stayed on people’s places.”...
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