“To say that the problem is not systemic is simply wrong. It would be laughable were it not so unbelievably tragic for all the people hurt by MCC, spouses, children, extended family, friends. Not to mention the relationships that have been built with national and international partners. I wondered how MCC will spin its way out of the Veritas findings, and the financial settlement, paid for by donors. MCC did it. And in the spin, MCC managed to hurt, again, John and Anicka, their kids and extended family, and all survivors, with your words of deflection and defense. Your latest statement will surely make others who have been hurt by MCC second guess whether or not they will speak out.”

“I am so disheartened that I gave 16 years of hard work into MCC, spoke to countless audiences in Canada, the US, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Kenya, about AIDS, and the justice and peace work of MCC, raised more than $1 million for an organization that so easily dismisses staff and volunteers, ignores corruption within international partner programs, ignores reports of sexual assault, gaslights staff and volunteers, and withholds resettlement money, or at least a significant portion, unless an NDA is signed.”

“MCC’s handling of whistleblowers and survivors testifies to an institutional culture more invested in control of procedure than justice. The biblical imperative is plain: true repentance involves dismantling systems of oppression and seeking justice, not institutional self-interest.

Anabaptists have traditionally been resistant to domination by hierarchical systems, yet MCC’s leadership appears to be using bureaucratic systems to protect leadership from criticism.

Without external scrutiny and institutional transformation, complacency will defeat justice.

MCC’s leadership stands at a crossroads. Will it persist in inertia, half-steps, and managed apologies? Or will it embrace the radical honesty that Anabaptist heritage and biblical justice call us to?”

If an organization pays a large sum out without an NDA days before a court hearing, it's a very clear indication of guilt. But if a few days later, they paint themselves having done it out of generosity and attempt to make the complainants look unreasonable, it does not show an organization that is attempting to come to grips with the wrongs that it has committed.

As a result, we will continue to withhold our donation from MCC until the situation is fully resolved and we'll encourage others in our community to do the same.

As one who has served in institutional leadership, I know how persons vested with institutional power sometimes do things that undermine their core commitments, and grievously harm persons in their care. And I know that when courageous truth-tellers, who’ve borne the brunt of that harm, step up to name the harm and show us how we can do better, we can and must listen. We can resolve to fairly investigate and learn what can be known. We can publicly share what we’ve learned. We can acknowledge and grieve our failures. We can hold people accountable. We can apologize. And we can revise processes and resolve to do better.

“The practice of termination without stated cause appears to have become so entrenched in the culture that is MCC. Folks that I know and trust from the 1960s up to only two or three years ago have been at the receiving end of that practice. And all of them have hit the velvet wall of silence and have not received answers or support when they were at their most vulnerable. And when talking to them now, again, the pain rises to the surface so quickly. The absence of answers and resolution decades later still sits so heavy for so many good people.

I said it in my [November 2024] letter to the CM, and I’ll say it again in this letter, the only word to describe this practice is cruel.”

A poem by Viola Fast Braun

from one who thought she knew what MCC did and stood for – a well administered organization carefully using its resources to go directly to people in need, and supporting projects that were directly applicable to the local communities. I thought MCC cared deeply for its staff…

IN THE NAME OF CHRIST

…How vastly different than the experience of John and Anicka over the past year or so. In response to their request for help in solving a problem they were fired. I couldn’t wrap my head around the behaviour of MCC, its administration arm, that is. This MCC was foreign to me. – Fired for ... what? Asking for help?

IN THE NAME OF CHRIST