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2009-02-17 issue:

MDS faces year of natural disasters

300 gather to celebrate Mennonite Disaster Service's work at All-Unit Meeting.

by Paul Schrag for Meetinghouse

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In Mennonite Disaster Service's busiest winter, Charles Duplessis' three-year wait is almost over.

The Baptist pastor is about to move into what he calls "a house built on love."

He means the love of MDS volunteers. Duplessis says he's met hundreds of them.



Charles and Thirawer Duplessis, left, stand on the porch of their new house in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward with Leonard and Lorena Penner of Millersburg, Ind., who served with Mennonite Disaster Service in New Orleans for a year. Photo by Paul Schrag.

They’ve built Duplessis a house to replace the one that was swept away when a wall of water broke through a levee and surged through New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005.

"They're hard workers; there’s no quit in them," Duplessis said of MDS volunteers. "They did their work, and they did it gladly. You saw the genuine joy and commitment to what they're doing."

Duplessis—who lost not only his house but also the meeting place of his church, Mount Nebo Bible Baptist, when the levee broke—gave a testimony during the annual MDS All-Unit Meeting Feb. 13-14 at Spring Hill Baptist Church in Mobile, Ala.



More than 300 MDS leaders and volunteers from the United States and Canada gathered to celebrate and support an organization that is touching more lives than ever.

With a record number of 14 binational projects under way this winter, MDS activity has grown to a high point that its leaders hope to keep building on.

Duplessis site in 2007. Photo by Everett Thomas.

"We want to maintain this project level or even greater, because the needs are there," said Scott Sundberg, communications director.

Though contributions and grants to MDS increased by $584,000 in 2008, the year wasn’t without disappointments.

"Hurricane Ike was a wake-up call, because it showed that if you don’t get the media attention, then MDS is impacted," said Kevin King, executive director. Donations were lower than hoped for after the September storm, and MDS was not able to respond to the extent King would have liked.

Hurricanes and floods
Yet 2008 was a big year for MDS. More than 4,800 people volunteered 26,316 days to binational projects. That number doesn’t include the countless people who responded to local disasters in their own regions.

It was an unusually active year for natural disasters. The hurricane season was one of the worst in history. For the first time, six consecutive named storms made U.S. landfall.

There were 500 more tornadoes in 2008 than in 2007, King said. MDS volunteers responded to floods in Manitoba and wildfires in California.

In Iowa, "2008 will never be forgotten," reported Lynn Troyer of Wellman, Iowa. Summer flooding turned 86 of the state’s 99 counties into disaster areas. About 1.2 million acres of corn and soybeans were destroyed, devastating the state’s economy.

But MDS volunteers in Iowa saw the disaster bring out the best in people.

Troyer told of a divorced woman in Iowa City with an 11-year-old quadriplegic son. She worked on the electrical and plumbing repairs on her home, saying, "I'm not a victim, I’m a survivor."

He told of a 72-year-old woman in Cedar Rapids who accepted MDS help but used borrowed tools to do most of the drywalling and mudding herself.

MDS’s biggest binational projects continued on the Gulf Coast—from Mobile to southeast Texas—where recovery from 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita continues. MDS spent more than $1.3 million at 11 Gulf Coast locations last year.

The agency’s impact in Mobile has been great, said Penny Dendy, former director of Volunteer Mobile.

"Without your assistance we would not be the community we are today, almost totally recovered from Hurricane Katrina," Dendy said.

"MDS volunteers put 42 families in Mobile County back in their homes — sometimes much better homes than they had ever had before."

King reported that MDS has purchased property for a new office and warehouse building in Lititz, Pa. About $1.3 million has been raised toward the $3 million capital campaign goal. The MDS board of directors reaffirmed its support for the project before the All-Unit Meeting.

New home program
Jerry Klassen, disaster response coordinator, led a workshop on the new Partnership Home Program. In this program, MDS connects congregations with clients in distant places for home-building projects. Church groups can travel to the construction site, or they can build a panel house close to home, ship it in pieces to the site and complete it there.

Three Pennsylvania congregations—Akron, Gingrichs and Lititz Mennonite churches—have built homes for Gulf Coast families in this way.

The Partnership Home Program’s goal is get more people involved in helping MDS clients who lack the resources to resume home ownership after disasters.

"What we want is for you to have the experience of bringing a family a home," Klassen said.

Various funding options are possible for these projects, ranging from a church raising all the money to getting funds from outside sources. More information is available at mds.mennonite.net/programs/partnership_home.

The All-Unit Meeting featured worship and meditations on "Sowing Seeds of Service," based on 2 Corinthians 9. The chapter calls for sowing generously, and verse 12 promises that "service ... overflows in many thanksgivings to God."

Sam Jones, bishop of the Birmingham District of Good News Fellowship, a network of Mennonite churches, said sowing seeds through MDS was a labor of love.

"It's more than just building houses," he said. "It's showing who God is. You are giving the love of God."

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