MDS youth impact through service

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 10 June 2000

HESSTON, Kan. -- With sawdust flying in their wake, 250 youth volunteers and sponsors from the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) constructed two houses in a weekend building blitz during the MDS 2000 all-unit meeting and 50th anniversary celebration, June 2-4.

"We were looking for an event to help young people understand the work of MDS," said Ritch Hochstetler, MDS coordinator for the youth weekend. "Since we couldn't plan a disaster, the closest thing we could do was create a service experience."

The youth ate, slept, worshiped and worked at the Morning Star Ranch, the home of a residential housing program for inner-city young men affiliated with World Impact. This two-year program is designed to help its participants develop spiritually and vocationally, providing them with the skills they need for life. The new buildings will increase the capacity of that program to 18 to 25 young men.

Millard Fuller, the founder and president of Habitat for Humanity International, toured the ranch on Saturday.

"The greatest sermon that any of us ever preaches is the sermon that we live," said Fuller. "You have preached this weekend with your life, and others see it. [You are] doing something which is of benefit to those who have been marginalized in society. And those people know about what you are doing. Your actions are having an impact."

The impact is realized in the testimony of Max Barbosa, a 19 year-old who graduated from Morning Star in May. Barbosa shared with the MDS youth about a life of running with gangs and how he came to Morning Star to "get closer to God and away from the distractions in the city."

"What we experienced together this weekend in the youth event was an opportunity for us to share our love of Christ in action and truth," said Hochstetler.

"You know that with the MDS name, things get done," said World Impact director Al Ewert from Wichita, Kan. "I have never seen a group of high school students stay as focused on the work as they did for this project."

"See this blister," said youth volunteer Ben Schmidt from Tabor Mennonite in Goessel, Kan., "I'm not used to hammering."

In addition to framing the homes, the MDS youth moved rock, built stone retaining walls and poured concrete.

"I helped carry rocks for the bridge," said volunteer Hannah Klaassen from Grace Hill Mennonite Church in Whitewater, Kan. Klaassen's sponsor, Rob Schunn, admitted that moving the rocks was a difficult task under the hot Kansan sun. "There were times I had to challenge myself to keep going," said Schunn.

Unlike the rocks, the staff at Morning Star was eager to respond to the MDS youth with words of appreciation.

"What was most impressive to me was when [the youth] came up to me and said, 'What can I do next?' They had a time to play and a time to work. They discerned the difference."

Altogether, the volunteers represented twenty different youth groups from seven different states and Canada.

The Jon Buller Trio came from Winnipeg, Man., to lead youth worship throughout the weekend. The trio also performed and led worship on Sunday morning at the inter-generational service in Hesston which concluded the weekend of service and celebration.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org