 Amanda Koch uses a circular saw to cut a sheet of sheathing. |
September 11, 2008
A 2008 graduate of Hesston College’s Disaster Management program gained valuable leadership experience serving at two Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) project sites this past summer. And she says her participation in the two-year program has resulted in valuable academic, social, spiritual, and emotional growth.
Amanda Koch, originally from Colorado Springs, Colo., served as crew leader for five weeks in Pass Christian, Miss., and for five weeks in La Crete, Alberta, during the past summer. Her teams usually consisted of five or six short-term volunteers. “My job was to instruct them, show them what to do, and answer questions,” she said. “I also wanted to give them a good experience with MDS, so I made an effort to talk with them, which isn’t hard, when you’re working with them all day and relating with them in the evening. Befriending them was important during the time they were on site, which was usually for a week.’
“My project director stressed building houses or cabins is not the first priority,” she said. “The first priority is building relationships and glorifying God.”
Koch learned that if the homeowner or an MDS volunteer had a question, the important thing to do was to stop working, then talk and listen. “It didn’t matter if we didn’t get as much done.”
Knowing her responsibilities as a crew leader helped, since she served in that role during part of her MDS field experience in Toronto during the summer of 2007. “But I was a little out of my comfort zone, since I don’t know a lot about construction,” she said. “What I know about construction is what I’ve learned during two summers with MDS.”
High school and college-aged youth made up most of her crew members, which she says worked to her advantage. “They could identify with someone like me, rather than a 40 or 50-year old man who has done construction all his life,” she explained. “Working with me wasn’t as scary for them.
Koch admitted she hadn’t looked forward to giving up her summer, which meant not spending it with friends. “But I had a really good time because I was taken out of my normal reality,” she said. “I found it refreshing to have a different routine at a different setting. I loved it.”
Now taking at least a year off from school, Koch is working and living with friends in Corvallis, Ore. But she quickly adds, “I would like to be at least an MDS volunteer the rest of my life.”
In a reflection paper Koch wrote as part of the Disaster Management coursework, she says she’s not the same person she was when she came to Hesston College two years ago. She attributes that in part of her friends, her professors, her classes, and her experiences while at Hesston.
Koch wrote that the Disaster Management program played a large part in changing her, “because it forced me to turn my attention away from myself and my Hesston College experience to the people around me. Constantly, it reminded me that I’m part of a bigger world far beyond myself and my own little Hesston world. The program helped me experience service in a whole new, tangible way. It allowed me to live out part of my passion to help other people in a much more real way than I had expected, and far exceeded my hopes.”
The Disaster Management program began at Hesston College in the fall semester of 2005 in cooperation with Mennonite Disaster Service. MDS, a bi-national Mennonite organization based in Akron, Pa., assists disaster survivors in the U.S. and Canada. One component of the program calls for students to work at an MDS project site during the summer, for eight weeks after their freshman year of study, and for 10 weeks after their sophomore year.
Russ Gaeddert, director of the Disaster Management program, said six returning sophomores and 10 freshmen are enrolled this fall.
Hesston College Disaster Management Program