Mennonites Disaster Service rebuilding, re-roofing Newton
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

Newsboy photo/ Sharon Kerr AMISH YOUNG MEN remain clean-shaven until they are married.When two dozen of them swarm a roof, it doesn't take long to replace a blue tarp with fresh shingles.The Mennonite Disaster Service will be working in the Newton area until planting time in Iowa, when they need to go home to help their own families.

Less than a week after Hurricane Rita hit the area in September 2005, the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) had teams working in the Newton area clearing debris and repairing homes.

The lack of electricity wasn't particularly a problem for them, although the heat after the storm was hard on the men in plain clothes. They cleaned up and repaired more than 100 homes last time.

Now they are back again, this time concentrating on building new homes from scratch and reroofing old homes in Newton.

"We like this weather now," several of the boys remarked in their Pennsylvania Dutch accents. "It's much easier to work in the cool than the heat."

For more than 50 years, the Mennonite Disaster Service has been "responding, rebuilding, and restoring" houses and hope to victims of disasters.

There are about 30 volunteers staying in the East Texas Baptist Encampment south of Newton. Marlin Gingerich, project manager, said one reason they chose Newton over other hard-hit Gulf Coast areas was that they liked the rural atmosphere.

After a hard day in the cold wind atop steep roofs, the boys, mostly single young men, play games, sing and pray.

"About a month from now, we'll have to go back to Iowa and get the crops in for our families back home," Gingerich said. "Our families can run the farms most of the time, but we have to be there during planting and harvesting to help out."

He warned the boys would be shy about having their pictures taken. "We believe the glory should be God's, not ours," Gingerich said.

They consider it the highest form of service to do work for which there is no expectation of repayment.

Whether building a new home or re-roofing, MDS foots the bill or is funded by grants and donations. Owners are invited to pay back at least half, but it is never required.

"We try to help people who really need it and can't get help otherwise," Gingerich said. They look for people who weren't covered by insurance but whose income status doesn't let them get help from other agencies.

Most of their selections are referrals from people like Walter Diggles, executive director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments, or from local churches.

"I tell you an Amish worker is worth three regular people," pastor Joe Miller Jr. of the First United Methodist Church said. Then, after watching a swarm of them working on a roof in downtown Newton, he amended that statement.

"Four," Miller said, "every Amish worker does the work of four, women included."

Only a few women have come with the delegation. They spend their days preparing huge meals to keep the boys ready for high-energy work.

The MDS website says that 394 people have worked on 168 projects in the Newton area. They currently also have five projects in Louisiana, three in Alabama, one in Mississipi.