Rising out of the mud in Idaho: MDS volunteers transform a home

A first-time Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteer described his hard work in Idaho as “a great experience.”

Jerry Kinsel, a retired teacher who lives in Arizona, traveled to Kamiah, Idaho, where he served for five days as part of a regional MDS response. “The basement had been completely destroyed by mud—six feet of mud!—after a huge rainstorm.”

After neighbors helped homeowners Ron and Cindy Prall remove the mud from their home, MDS volunteers installed new insulation and drywall.

“Ron and Cindy were so kind and nice, and they were so glad we came,” said Kinsel, who is already looking at locations to volunteer again. “It was a really good to go in and help.”

Ron Prall expressed how grateful he and Cindy are that Kinsel and other MDS volunteers came to lend a hand. “They did a fantastic job,” he said. “On April 14 of this year, we had a thunderstorm that dropped about four inches of rain in three hours.”

Their home is located at the bottom of a draw, which loosened, bringing down rocks and mud that cascaded straight into the Prall’s basement.

“We took 14 backhoe bucketloads of mud out of the basement,” he said. “We lost probably 85 percent of the stuff that we had in there.”

Prall, a lifelong carpenter, had just finished putting up some cabinets in the basement for his wife’s canning supplies. “They all got ruined,” he said.

After 30 years as a professional carpenter, Prall still volunteers around Kamaiah, fixing local churches and helping neighbors when he can.

“I gave my heart to the Lord when I was 16,” said Prall. “I’ve been trying to serve the Lord ever since. I’m 73 now.”

But when the cascade of mud and rock ruined his basement, he knew he couldn’t recover alone.

Now the Pralls are in the process of getting a crossing put into the draw so they can prevent future disasters.

He sees the disaster as something he needed help to overcome—and he has high hopes of preventing a repeat.

“You might call it a nightmare,” he said. “It’s something I hope I never go through again.”