Shirley Smith, 83, waits every day to hear the singing. From her living room, where she sits and cares for her 101-year-old husband, Joe Smith, she hears the sounds of MDS volunteers who are repairing their home in Selma, Alabama: hammering, sawing...
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...
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...
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...
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.”...
Phil Helmuth was beating the bushes to find a reasonably-priced electrician. It was early 2023, when MDS was rebuilding and repairing homes in the wake of hurricanes Laura and Delta in southwest Louisiana, Helmuth, an MDS project coordinator,...
The Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference is a partner with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). The following reflection was written by Stanley Green, executive conference minister for the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. He recently toured...
Claude and Loria Adams and their adult son survived a June 19, 2023 tornado in downtown Moss Point, Mississippi, by huddling in their bathroom. When the storm passed, only two walls were left standing in the entire house—and they were the bathroom...
Retired U.S. Army General Joe Orr can run just about any operation with precision. This includes his role of co-coordinator at Homes and Hope for Kentucky, a nonprofit assisting with long-term tornado recovery in Mayfield and the surrounding Graves...
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