Generosity of the church pushes MCC

Sometimes it’s difficult to spend money as quickly as the church gives it, Mennonite Central Committee is discovering.

The MCC binational board, meeting in Indiana June 9–10, responded to record fiscal year-end numbers by adopting a budget that projects $43,691,147 in cash expenses before March 31, 2007. That will be an increase of more than $10 million in just two years.

Several factors combined to give MCC its record financial year: responses to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the December 2005 tsunami; gains in the exchange rate between Canadian and US dollars; increased contributions for food aid in places such as Zambia and the Sudan; and significant increases in sales through MCC thrift shops and Ten Thousand Villages stores. The one area that did not show an increase in income was relief sales.

Need to talk

Even with record levels of assets to distribute, some relationships and activities are struggling. Mennonite World Conference leaders joined the meeting to talk about how the two organizations relate to other Mennonites around the world, especially in Africa.

By 2007, for example, MCC will reduce its staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo to one representative. Congolese Mennonites represent 20 percent of the approximately 1 million Mennonites and Anabaptists around the world.

“The general perception in the Congo is that it is being abandoned,” MWC’s associate executive director Pakisa Tshimika said. Nancy Heisey, MWC president, said MCC and MWC need to talk together when such relationships change.

Mennonite World Conference associate executive secretary Pakisa Tshimika (r) tells MCC members that Congolese Mennonites feel “abandoned.” From left: Karen Klassen Harder, Robb Davis, Amos Stolzfus, and Nancy Heisey. MCC News photo of Ron Dueck and leaders: Everett J. Thomas

Olympic champion joins MCC Canada

Cindy Klassen

The binational board also received reports from the two country MCCs. MCC U.S. executive director Rolando Santiago listed the response to Hurricane Katrina as his organization’s primary highlight, noting it has created a new partnership with Mennonite Disaster Service.

MCC Canada executive director Donald Peters highlighted two Canadian activities: a change in government policy for which it lobbied and a new relationship with Cindy Klassen, who won five gold medals at the Winter Olympics.

Until 2005, Canadian law required that 90 percent of Canadian-funded food aid be used to purchase Canadian commodities. Through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, MCC Canada lobbied the government to reduce that percentage to 50 percent. Contributions can then be used to purchase commodities from within the countries where MCC wants to provide relief.

Peters used his personal connection as Klassen’s former high school teacher to approach her with a proposal to “lend her voice to the poor of the world” without any compensation.

“I think it’s an answer to prayer,” Klassen said, according to Peters. “I’ve always wanted to do mission work. Maybe this is the way I can do it.”

Klassen will join other MCC staff members on a trip to Ethiopia and Nigeria as part of the HIV/AIDS education program called Generations At Risk.

New chair

Ron Dueck

Ron Dueck, former chair of the MCC Canada board and former MCC worker in Swaziland, was elected new chair of the binational board. He replaces Karen Klassen Harder of Bluffton, Ohio, who has resigned for family reasons. Dueck, ordained in the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, attends Charleswood Mennonite Church, Winnipeg.

—from reports by Everett J. Thomas for Meetinghouse and MCC News