Greetings!
Poem portrays MDS as ‘harbinger of hope’ after Sept. 11 attacks
Last week, on Sept. 11, 2021, I was in Louisiana helping to organize MDS’s response to Hurricane Ida. As I took some moments to remember those we lost and those who responded on that day 20 years ago, I recalled a poem Paul Unruh wrote when he visited New York City on behalf of MDS only a couple of weeks after the attacks.
Twenty years ago, MDS responded to people’s needs, working through about 23 local Anabaptist church congregations in New York and 21 in Washington, D.C.. Those needs ranged from roof repairs, to adding a Sunday School room, to pastoral and congregational retreats. A different, creative response from MDS, and one that many still remember today.
As Paul witnesses in his poem:
The pile that is still hot and smokes
while the jaws of the huge tracked vehicles tug at the fallen stories.
And his poem also tells us:
We are all called to be
HARBINGERS OF HOPE
especially now.
