News

Stories of reawakened hope fill MDS annual meeting

HARTVILLE, Ohio — Close to 300 volunteers, staff and donors came together to celebrate the work of Mennonite Disaster Service during the MDS All-Unit annual meeting Feb. 13-14 at Hart­ville Mennonite Church.

A broad spectrum of Amish, Brethren in Christ and Mennonites came together around the theme, “A Touch of Love Awakens a Taste of Hope,” discussing how love awakens hope when disaster strikes.

Michelle Pruitt, owner of a new MDS-built home in Cris­field, Md., spoke about escaping Superstorm Sandy and the loss of her home of 30 years.

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March 2, 2015

Filmmaker explores humor in Low German culture

There’s a stereotype floating around that filmmaker Orlando Braun doesn’t like. The stiff Mennonite farmer who traded his sense of a humor for a new seed company hat just isn’t true, and Braun wants to prove it.

Now a director and producer in Winnipeg, Man., Braun was born in Paraguay and spent some of his childhood there before his family moved to Manitoba. He grew up speaking Plautdietsch (Low German) and feels humor is intrinsic to Mennonite culture.

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February 23, 2015

Spanish education opens doors

Many of the 17 recent graduates of Instituto Bíblico Anabautista (Anabaptist Biblical Institute) shed tears as they gave graduation-day testimonies.

It was an emotional moment, said IBA director Rafael Barahona, because receiving a certificate from IBA is the first accomplishment of this kind for many. A large portion are first-generation immigrants.

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February 23, 2015

Canned meat provides drought relief

Central America faced its worst drought in 40 years last summer when an El Niño weather pattern hit. The dry spell affected the first growing season between May and August, causing widespread crop loss.

To help farmers make it through to the second growing season, Mennonite Central Committee provided emergency food assistance to 1,666 families. That included a distribution of 30,384 cans of meat in El Salvador, Honduras . . .

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February 23, 2015

100,000,000 books sold

Choice Books added contact information to its books, sold on small stands in stores across the country, letters began pouring in.

Simon Schrock, executive director of the largest distributor of Choice Books, located in Manassas, Va., said each letter that comes into his office is saved, and staff try to respond to all of them. There are 27 boxes full.

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February 16, 2015

MCC flooding response unites former enemies

When Cornelius and Shauna Frantz of Pittsburgh came to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013, they expected to work with people who had experienced trauma during the country’s 1990s civil war. They didn’t expect a new traumatic event would help unite people across longtime ethnic and religious divides.

2014 started with a mild winter and early spring. Precipitation that would have fallen during a typical winter came all at once in May, bringing three months’ worth of rain in just three days.

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February 16, 2015
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