from Dwight Krehbiel

Dear MCC administrators, board members, and other concerned persons,

As a former MCC volunteer (Teachers Abroad Program), I have been distressed to learn about the numerous cases of abusive treatment perpetrated by MCC on its own employees and volunteers. Although I did not always agree with the actions of MCC leaders during my time as a volunteer, the kinds of abuse reported in recent years (https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/) seem utterly foreign to the organization we knew in those days. However, we experienced examples of authoritarian behavior among MCC leaders then too, which in retrospect might have been warning signs. The steadfast exclusion of LGBTQ+ persons from MCC (https://www.bmclgbt.org/2018/03/30/time-for-this-to-stop) also indicates the limitations of MCC's commitment to its own stated vision and mission (https://mcc.org/about/vision).

It is the clear inconsistency between MCC's response to survivors of abuse on the one hand, and the vision and mission that MCC claims on the other, that is so jarring to us who have thought of MCC as a leading voice for peace and justice. MCC's voice is ostensibly for all, but it is clearly not for survivors of abuse at the hands of MCC. The refusal to allow an external investigation or to make all findings of an investigation public, as well as the frequent reliance on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs -- about 20% of cases -- https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/), indicate a cover-up rather than a willingness to be held accountable. One naturally asks, what are you trying to hide? Considering the evidence for financial mismanagement, NDAs, and complex legal maneuvering (https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/survivors), MCC donors are in effect asking themselves, "Does MCC even measure up to the standards of secular humanitarian organizations, and why should I believe that these misdeeds are outweighed by the good works that MCC claims to do?" (https://canadianmennonite.org/readers-write-august-2024-responses-to-involuntary/). Is abuse only wrong when perpetrated by people we think are bad?

My belief is that the abuses such as those described on the MCC Abuse Survivors Together (MAST) website are wrong no matter who perpetrates them and that no amount of good works excuses such behavior. Refusal to be held to account for the abuse only worsens the harm to survivors, not to mention the lack of respect for the truth that it demonstrates. Thus, I endorse without reservation steps recommended by MAST:

• A transparent, external, independent third-party investigation, the results of which are reported in full to the public

• An end to the use of NDAs and a release of all MCC abuse survivors from NDAs that they have signed.

I also urge the approval by MCC boards of the external facilitator's parameters for a conversation between MCC board members and Anicka Fast and John Clarke, who as leaders of MAST have been special targets of MCC ire. This conversation is of particular importance because if we allow MCC to escape accountability for harm done to these leaders we have little reason to expect a better outcome for the scores of other survivors who have reported their abuse (and surely many more who have not).

The response to this abuse crisis is a critical test for MCC. The financial threat alone appears significant. However, a much more fundamental challenge is at stake, for surely an organization that is willing to deny and cover up behavior that is so clearly at cross purposes with their own vision and mission has adopted a perilous path. People will know, and your words that proclaim your own good deeds will ring hollow. The truth matters, and MCC is in danger of being undone by its own failure to be truthful about these abuses.

Dwight Krehbiel

Bethel College Mennonite Church

North Newton, KS 67117

P.S. I consider this a public letter; I give MAST permission to post it online.

from Lynda & Rod Hollinger-Janzen

October 4, 2025

To: Leadership of Mennonite Central Committee

Dear MCC leaders,

We are both alumni of your organization.  Our work with MCC directly led to our calling in mission and development work focused on Africa, work that continues to this day. We are grateful for MCC, and for your desire to serve Christ and to contribute to shalom in our world.

We are also aware that not all is well with MCC, particularly in terms of how some of MCC’s own workers have been treated over the last number of years.  We have been saddened to learn that MCC fired workers who were suffering and in need of medical care, and then, presented them with an NDA to hide those actions from public view.  This appears to be a sign that MCC recognizes that some policies and decisions are causing pain and distress rather than shalom.

MAST (MCC Abuse Survivors Together) has identified 67 individuals who have experienced bad endings and associated trauma at the hands of MCC staff and leadership.  We, personally, know of others who have not yet had the courage or energy to speak out.  Most of those identified cases have occurred between 2010-2025.  This suggests more than occasional problems but points to systemic issues that need healing.

We want to believe that MCC can continue to play a vital and life-giving role in the Mennonite community and beyond as we move into the future.  But this is dependent on maintaining the trust of donors, volunteers and other supporters. You have lost our trust, and we have withheld support to MCC, including participation in relief sales. This is unfortunate in a world that desperately needs the services that MCC offers. However, we choose to give to organizations that don’t trample on the rights of some for the benefit of others. “When one part of our body suffers, every part suffers with it “ I Cor. 12:26.

Thus far, MCC appears to be choosing silence and obfuscation rather than transparency and vulnerability.  Such an approach may seem prudent now, but it is a result of short-term thinking, and it is an ethically compromised approach that is doing great damage both to MCC and to the victims of abuse.

We urge you as MCC leaders to take concrete steps to re-establish trust by:

1. initiating an independent, third-party led, victim-centered investigation into all alleged cases of abuse;

2. accepting the mediation team’s proposed parameters for facilitated conversation with John Clark and Anicka Fast.

The fact that you have not yet taken these actions makes it seem that there is too much unhealthy denial- or fear- in the decision-making process.  Are you truly aware of the heavy weight of responsibility you are carrying for the ongoing pain, suffering and trauma of these victims and their families?  If, on the other hand, you do not feel that you are responsible for what has happened, and that the accusations of abuse are unfounded, to clear your name, why not agree to a third-party investigation?  That will help us all to come to the truth- and we are promised that the truth will set us free.

We have given MAST permission to publish this letter on its website.

We are praying for you, MCC decision-makers, that you will have the courage to respond to this crisis with humility and with a desire to promote healing for all involved.

Lynda and Rod Hollinger-Janzen

from Sylvia Shirk

10/2/2025

To the Boards of Mennonite Central Committee:

Greetings to each of you as you prepare for your October 17-18 meetings in Akron.

I am writing in support of MCC Abuse Survivors Together (MAST), with deep concern about unresolved issues of harm to 70 former workers who have come forward to make reports. (see https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/) I write as a district pastor in Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference whose local congregations include some of the abuse survivors.

I write also a daughter of parents who met and married in 1948 when my father was an MCC worker and my mother an MCC program participant. Without MCC, our family would not exist, and I truly wish for MCC to thrive as it carries out its mission. I believe the best way forward is to directly address the concerns raised by MAST.

Specifically, I urge you to commit to an independent external investigation into MCC’s handling of abuse allegations. Such a process can provide the credibility, transparency, and impartiality needed to begin rebuilding trust. Work with MAST on the choice of the firm and the mandate of the investigation to produce public recommendations about accountability of perpetrators and reparations for survivors.

I also urge you to give serious attention to the case of Anicka Fast and John Clarke by accepting the proposed facilitated conversation parameters that will allow this family to move toward healing and repair. This is a public letter, and I have given MAST permission to post it online. May God send you wisdom and courage as you tend the work of MCC in the coming weeks and months.

Sylvia Shirk

Portland, OR

Copies to: MAST, Anabaptist World, Canadian Mennonite, Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference

from Kim Thiessen

Dear MCC Canada and US leadership and board members,

My name is Kim Thiessen. I am a former MCC staff person, having worked with MCC Alberta from 1997 to 2016. I have seen and experienced the best of MCC in my work in Alberta, as well as internationally, visiting MCC partner work in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, US, Canada, and Kenya. And I have also witnessed first hand how poorly MCC has handled far too many terminations of both staff and volunteers, local and international. I am writing this letter as a supporter and advocate for all of those whose lives have been devastated by the actions of MCC leadership. And I am writing this letter as a supporter of MAST (MCC Abuse Survivors Together). If you are not aware of MAST and the open letter they released in June 2024, please visit https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/ The open letter, survivor stories, letters of support, and press releases, are all available to read.

I have written numerous letters to MCC Canada and US leadership staff and boards regarding the open letter, and the call for an independent external investigation into MCC's handling of abuse allegations. Only an external process can provide the credibility, transparency, and impartiality needed to begin rebuilding MCC into the organization it purports to be. The call for an external investigation is not based just on the illegal termination of Anika Fast and John Clarke, rather, it is a call in support of all survivors who have been wrongfully terminated by MCC. MAST has collected more than 70 survivor stories of abuse, terminations without cause, gaslighting, harassment, intimidation, and more. Attached is a chart that details the types of abuse of people who have come forward. The abuse dates back to 1970 and is on-going.

As board members of MCC, I believe that you are committed to the values of peace, justice, truth-telling, and service in the name of Christ. I am deeply concerned about the lack of any meaningful and engaging response to survivor stories of harm. I am troubled that those values have not been front and centre in far too many employee/volunteer terminations. I am disappointed and frustrated that MCC public communications and responses to the open letter and the singular focus on Anicka Fast and John Clarke, and that the communications have consistently implied that they are to blame, and that they are difficult and uncooperative. Their lives have been upended, and the severing of ties that happened so fast and so harshly, is a trauma that Anicka and John and their children continue to deal with. Multiply that experience by the more than 70 stories collected from couples, individuals, and families, and by many more people who have not come forward. There are many cases that happened long before John and Anicka's "bad ending" with MCC. I ask that as a board you learn all that you can about the survivor stories, ask hard questions of senior staff, and please connect with and listen to those who have publically come forward about the hurt and abuse they experienced in MCC. Their stories deserve to be heard and acknowledged. Reparations need to be made.

I do not ask these things of you lightly. I believe in the work of MCC. I believe that national and international staff do critical work often in very difficult and sometimes dangerous situations. The partnerships I have visited are a testament to this. Please take actions to hold senior leadership, HR, and PLDR accountable to MCCs vision, mission, and values.

There are three requests that MAST has put forward to MCC, but have had little to no meaningful response to:

1. Accept the facilitated conversation parameters proposed by facilitators Cory Lockhart and Rus Funk on June 21, 2025 (attached), for conversations with Anika Fast and John Clarke. Agreeing to this reasonable request is a necessary first step toward repair.

2. Commit to an independent external investigation into MCC's handling of abuse allegations. An external investigation process can provide the credibility, transparency, and impartiality needed to begin rebuilding trust with survivors and donors. The choice of firm and the mandate of the investigation must be approved by the MAST steering committee. The investigation must include binding public recommendations about accountability for perpetrators and reparations for survivors.

3. Release survivors and former staff from non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that prevent truth-telling. This would be an act of restorative justice. The only thing the NDAs are protecting is MCCs reputation. Please consider reading this link and taking the pledge https://www.ndafree.org/pledge/

These steps are not sent out of hostility, but out of a deep commitment to seeing MCC's mission fully realized, and to see MCC embody the values it proclaims.

I will end with a plea for transparency from MCC leadership and boards. Please pressure MCC leadership to be transparent about cases highlighted on the MAST website. Ask leadership to provide: detailed financial information about the fees that have/are being paid to lawyers when dealing with "problem" staff or volunteers; a copy of an NDA that leadership ask staff or volunteers to sign during a termination process; financial details about NDA payouts; financial information about staff or volunteers who refused to sign an NDA (was the payout drastically reduced if they refused to sign?); detailed financial information regarding travel costs, local, national, and international, to "deal" with "problem" staff and/or volunteers. As board members, you deserve to see those numbers, and more importantly, MCC donors deserve to see those numbers.

I am not writing this letter because I want to "bring down MCC". I am writing this letter because I believe in MCC. I have since I was a young child. I believe in the work that so many good people carry out around the world in partnership with local communities and organizations. But I also believe that MCC can and must do better in relation to its staff and volunteers. Service in the name of Christ is a high and worthy goal. I hope that MCC can find its way back to living out that goal.

Sincerely,

Kim Thiessen