Indiana Mennonites Help to Rebuild Mississippi Homes

Indiana Mennonites Help to Rebuild Mississippi Homes

MERIDIAN, Miss. — Mennonite volunteers are helping rebuild homes in a Mississippi community damaged in a 2018 tornado. The Meridian Star reports that Mennonite Disaster Service arrived last week.

Kim Waters, a member of a disaster recovery committee, said some residents still haven’t returned to their homes or are living in houses with damage such as leaky roofs. She said older people with fixed incomes have had trouble affording repairs.

“The MDS is one group of volunteers that volunteered to provide free labor for these people that need help,” Waters said.

The volunteers are from Indiana and came to volunteer using their own vacation and holiday time.

The tornado, with top winds estimated at 115 mph (185 kph), damaged as many as 200 homes and business overall when it hit Meridian and Lauderdale County Larry Miller, a member of the Mennonite Disaster Service, said the relief efforts the group provides are unique.

“Historically we’re different from other Protestants because we don’t do war, we like to do peace,” said Miller. “It’s our response to doing something very important for the country in lieu of doing military stuff that would violate our conscience.”

According to Miller, the Mennonite Disaster Service is exceptional because of its large pool of volunteers and its ability to delegate 90 percent of funds to actual service, and only 10 percent toward administration. He said not many relief efforts can duplicate those numbers.

“Our national office has a hotline to recruit volunteers,” said Miller. “We draw the funds and chip in free labor.”

Although the service has done valuable work in Meridian, there is a still a need for volunteers and donations to help pay skilled electricians and other workers.

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Texas Woman Killed in Tennessee Park

GATLINBURG, Tenn. — A woman from Texas was killed while shielding her son from a tree knocked down by high winds in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee last week, according to her family.

Laila Jiwani, 42, was hiking with her husband and three children on Porter Creek Trail on Thursday when the tree fell, park spokesman Mike Litterst told the Dallas Morning News.

Litterst said one of her children was injured. The spokesman said the 6-yearold was airlifted to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Jiwani’s husband Taufiq reported that their son suffered a broken leg and superficial head injuries during a “simple/safe” hike, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Jiwani said doctors told him his wife — who the New York Post identified as a pediatrician at Cook Children’s Northside Neighborhood Clinic in Fort Worth — took most of the impact and saved her son.

He wrote that part of the tree “fell from the sky.”

Funeral services are scheduled for Wednesday in Dallas.

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Arrests Made in 2017 ‘Road Rage’ Shooting

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis police announced arrests Saturday in the “senseless” and fatal road rage shooting of a 2-yearold girl 18 months ago.

Laylah Washington was riding in the back seat of her mother’s Nissan Maxima on June 13, 2017, when shots were fired into the vehicle and one bullet struck her in the head, police said. Police charged Tylan Mc-Cray, 21, with murder, saying he was the person who fired the shots. A cousin, Brandon McCray, 19, was charged as an accessory to the murder.

“For more than a year, our investigators have worked long and hard to ensure justice for Laylah,” the Memphis Police Department said. “The Washington family and all Memphians affected by this senseless killing can find some level of comfort in knowing that those responsible have been arrested and will answer for their actions.”

A call to a police tip line on the first anniversary of the murder led to the arrests, police said. Laylah’s mother, Leslie Washington, told officers that a black Impala nearly hit her in a parking lot while she waited for her sons to leave work. The Impala and its occupants then followed Washington and shots were fired.

The charges against Tylan McCray, 21, included firstdegree murder, employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony and possession of marijuana, according to arrest reports.