Mennonite Disaster Service Canada has appointed Reynold Friesen to be its next executive director. He will succeed Ross Penner, who has served as executive director since 2015 and will retire in March.

Friesen is director of alumni, church and donor relations at Canadian Mennonite University and will begin his new role at MDS Canada in February.

Before taking his job at CMU in 2021, Friesen was agency manager at Harvest Manitoba, directing a staff and volunteer team supporting more than 200 food banks, soup kitchens and other non-profit agencies across Manitoba.

Prior to that role, he was pastor of community ministry and pastor of youth and young adults at Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. He also served as director of Silver Lake Mennonite Camp in Ontario and as assistant pastor of the Vineland United Mennonite Church in Ontario.

“I’m excited to be part of an organization which has a practical approach to living out faith,” said Friesen, who served with MDS as a volunteer in Manitoba in 1997 and in Crisfield, Md., in 2015.

Friesen said he is looking forward to being part of a team of staff and volunteers whose goal is to “help survivors of disasters put the puzzle pieces of their lives back together … to be part of God’s reconciling work in the world.”