March 19, 2025

Hello Lisa,

MDS is mourning the eternal homecoming and celebrating the life and legacy of Lowell Detweiler, who died on March 1, 2025.

He was an influential and beloved member of the MDS community of leaders. His career spanned decades of service with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and MDS. Lowell served as director of MDS from 1986 to 1998.

After my wife, Karen, and I returned from volunteering in Jamaica with MCC from 1987 to 1991, my first administrative job was working in an office at MCC in Akron, Pennsylvania.

Lowell was one of my three three bosses in 1992 as part of a team called “Constituency Ministries.”

Lowell was not only my boss but someone I looked up to as a spiritual and life coach. His late wife, Ruth, was also a dear friend of my wife, Karen, as well. There were simple things that impressed me for a lifetime…his desktop was always neat. Straight rows of paper with paper clips neatly fastened on the top left counter. Neat handwriting. A steady hand and voice leading a meeting or a conference call.

We know that decades before Lowell entered MCC and MDS leadership work, he worked as a block layer. Block layers use a plumb line and I truly believe Lowell had an internal plumb line to serve his neighbors near and far. No matter where Lowell served, he built community resilience on Christ’s solid foundation reaching far beyond his neat desktop.

Part of Lowell’s legacy was authoring the beloved book, “The Hammer Rings Hope: Photos and Stories from Fifty Years of Mennonite Disaster Service,” published in June 2000 for the 50th anniversary of MDS.

Lowell was a mentor to me. In 2003, Tom Smucker, then Executive Coordinator for MDS, suggested over a breakfast meeting that I apply for his role, as he was soon retiring. So Karen and I went to Lowell and Ruth’s house for advice. I remember pouring out our hearts in their basement. I asked if I could I perform this role because I felt so small and inadequate. And if i said yes, I would be standing on the shoulders of giants.

The Detweilers assured their full support to Karen and me—and I and all of MDS remain grateful to this day.

I am grateful for Lowell’s life here on earth as I extend my sympathy to the family.

Kevin King

Executive Director, MDS U.S.

From California ashes, sense of unity arises

Snowdrifts of ash, an acrid smell, a lung-burning toxic cocktail hanging in the air. After the Eaton Fire devastated communities in California’s San Gabriel Valley, the interior of the Pasadena Mennonite Church building was unrecognizable.

“Piles and piles of ash—ash on every horizontal surface,” described church member Dan Sharp.

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People of Planada start to smile again

“It started raining, and at first the water was just up to the curb,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave—I had my mother here, two cats, my mother’s two cats, and Charlie. He is my best friend.”

She tried to sleep but by the wee morning hours, the sheriff was knocking on her door: they had to get out.

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MDS has produced two new books in celebration

of our 75th Anniversary.

Click here to learn more or to order your copy.

Building back better

Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers rebuilt a house for Owen Collings and his wife Patsy Gessey in Lytton, British Columbia, last year. It was unlike any house MDS volunteers had built in Canada before.

Volunteers worked with a customized house plan and upgraded building materials to meet an updated local building code and to construct the new home in a “spirit of fire resiliency,” a commitment made by the couple and MDS Response Coordinators.

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