Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 9
April 28, 2008
One nail at a time
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Fourteen youths and five adults from Foothills Mennonite Church in Calgary travelled to Cameron with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) last month on a service trip organized and led by youth pastor Rita Heidebrecht.
More than two years after Hurricane Rita demolished Cameron, the town is trying to rebuild itself, but only about 40 percent of the residents have returned. The Foothills youths saw first-hand the damage caused by the storm.
The MDS regional directors Carl and Laura Dube and several long-term volunteers made the Foothills group very welcome. Each day for a week we were assigned a group to work with as we built porches, roofs, decks and ramps, installed windows and cleaned yards.
Along with the work, the youths were able to visit with many of the residents of the town, including the people whose homes they were working on. The stories they heard were filled with trauma, sorrow, fear and now hope. The residents were all so thankful for the work of the youths.
It was a great learning experience for the entire group. During daily devotions and times of reflection, the youths and adults shared how they were impacted by the experience and learned about the importance of service to people in need. Each member will remember this experience as an important step in his or her personal faith journey, and a concrete way in which they were able to put their faith into action.