Since being stationed in the town of Mindo for my service portion of SST, I’ve noticed a big cultural difference between U.S. Mennonites and Ecuadorian “Mindo-nites” – pun intended 🙂 approaches to life. There’s a palpable sense of serenity and...
News
First MDS Work Day!
May 06 2025
By Jaden Harris
Today marked our first day of service during our trip. My group – which consisted of Hillary, Lily, Jazmin, 2 other MDS leaders, and myself – were tasked with helping the Tolbert family with repairs to their ceiling. Since 2023 thousands of families have been operating out of damaged housing due to the tornadoes that touched down here in Selma. Today gave us a chance to help the community restore part of what was taken from them 2 years ago. Restoring Mr. Tolbert’s ceiling was more than just labor, it was a step forward in recovery. A step I’m glad to have taken.
The process started with us clearing out the rooms and placing Mr. Tolbert’s possessions inside a storage container. From there we began to disassemble the ceiling, removing excess nails, screws, and other materials that accumulated there. This process was honestly the hardest but most rewarding part of the process. It took around 4 hours and Mr. Tolbert was super happy with the result. We then installed insulation into the ceilings. This was definitely my favorite part of the job as it felt so real. Toward the end our group leaders, Maik and Lucinda, assigned Lily, Jazmin, and me to finish off the installing of the insulation and trusted us to complete this task on our own. When I heard this I felt so accomplished and proud of us that we were able to be counted on with such a task. I feel that just knowing a group of college students with little hands-on experience were able to do something so valuable for a family really speaks to the importance of MDS.
Mr. Tolbert and his family were just the best people we could’ve ever hoped to work with. Immediately upon arrival he was very friendly and opened up to us about his past and how the tornadoes affected him and the surrounding community. Mr. Tolbert is a big fan of television and enjoys watching the same shows as many of us in the group watch. Seeing him turn on a show called “Black Clover” and discussing it with us was so welcoming as we all enjoy watching it in our free time as well. I feel these small overlaps in our lives make the connection between us volunteers and those we’re helping that much stronger.
