notes from the field
Cards drawn by children welcoming disaster survivors home in Monte Lake, B.C.
that community affected by 2021’s White Rock Lake fire.” This year, after hearing about MDS’s work rebuilding four homes in Monte Lake that were lost to that fire, the children created cards for the families MDS was serving. They also made a framed “Welcome Home” picture featuring their thumbprints. Heuft divided the cards and pictures among the four families. “The homeowners were deeply touched by the gesture,” he said. For Heuft, the experience was a way to bless the homeowners, and also “to connect what we do as MDS with the children. It showed them how God answered their prayers through MDS as we helped the homeowners get back home.”
COLORADO
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Nurturing new forest An inch-high miracle. That’s what ten- year-old Natalie Lehman noticed as she was digging holes to plant new trees in Grand Lake, Colorado in July: a tiny lodgepole pine growing on its own. For Lehman, it was a sign mother nature had brought volunteer baby pines to help the human volunteers from MDS as they replanted a forest razed by the East Troublesome Fire. “I felt happy because I saw all of the new life coming up and knew that there will be a whole forest again someday,” said Lehman, recalling her time as the youngest volunteer during an MDS Summer Youth Project in Grand Lake. She was one MDS volunteer of many who, among other tasks, planted 370 trees and flagged 200 tiny trees so people wouldn’t inadvertently pull them up or mow them down.
Homeowners in Monte Lake welcomed home by local Vacation Bible School children “I hope you like your new home.” That was one of the messages a child from the River of Life Community Church (Mennonite Brethren) in Blind Bay, B.C. wrote in a card for families being helped by MDS in Monte Lake. Every year the church holds a vacation Bible school for local children. “This year the theme was missions and serving God,” said Roman Heuft, a project director in Monte Lake. “Last year,” said Heuft, “the children had prayed for people in
CANADA
Congregations in Canada are invited once again to apply for grants of up to $5,000 from the MDS Canada Spirit of MDS Fund. Funding can be
14 behind the hammer
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