Mennonite Central Committee
Encyclopedia
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
, Brethren in Christ and Amish
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
bodies in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The U.S. headquarters are in Akron, Pennsylvania
Akron, Pennsylvania
Akron is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is a mid-sized town with two main roads going through it: Main Street and 7th Street Pennsylvania Route 272. The town is mostly residential with a number of small businesses...
, the Canadian in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
History
MCC was founded in Chicago, Illinois, and held its first meeting on September 27, 1920. Its original goal was to provide food for Mennonites starving in UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. MCC soon realized that it could not help only their Mennonite brothers and sisters and began to help anyone in need. MCC (Canada) was founded in 1963.
- 1920-1925: famine work in Ukraine.
- 1925-1930: inactive
- 1930-1937: colonization of Russian Mennonite and Bruderhof refugees in ParaguayParaguayParaguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
and BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. - 1939-present: relief work; initially in PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, then (1940) EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. - 1941-1947: administration of Civilian Public ServiceCivilian Public ServiceThe Civilian Public Service provided conscientious objectors in the United States an alternative to military service during World War II...
(CPS) as part of National Service Board for Religious ObjectorsCenter on Conscience & WarThe Center on Conscience & War is a United States non-profit anti-war organization dedicated to defending and extending the rights of conscientious objectors. The group is located in Washington, D.C., and attempt to find creative ways to support anyone who opposes participation in war. The group...
. - 1950s: administration of 1-W service, the replacement of CPS, for draftees classified as conscientious objectorConscientious objectorA conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
s.
Famine in Ukraine
Mennonites of MolotschnaMolotschna
Molotschna Colony was a Russian Mennonite settlement in what is now Zaporizhia Oblast in Ukraine. Today is called Molochansk with a population of under 10,000. The settlement is named after the Molochna River which forms its western boundary. Today the land mostly falls within the Tokmatskyi and...
sent a commission to North America in the summer of 1920 to alert American Mennonites of the dire conditions of war-torn Ukraine. Their plight succeeded in uniting various branches of Mennonites to form Mennonite Central Committee in an effort to aid these Russian Mennonites. P. C. Hiebert of the Mennonite Brethren Church initially chaired the organization, with secretary Levi Mumaw of the (Old) Mennonite Church and attorney Maxwell Kratz of the General Conference Mennonite Church
General Conference Mennonite Church
The General Conference Mennonite Church was an association of Mennonite congregations based in North America from 1860 to 2002. The conference was formed in 1860 when congregations in Iowa invited North American Mennonites to join together in order to pursue common goals such as higher education...
. Other Mennonite conferences joined later.
The new organization planned to provide aid to Ukraine via existing Mennonite relief work in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
. The Istanbul group, mainly Goshen College
Goshen College
Goshen College, is a private Mennonite liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana, USA with an enrollment of around 1,000 students. The college is accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities...
graduates, produced three volunteers, who at great risk entered Ukraine during the ongoing Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. They arrived in the Mennonite village of Halbstadt just as General Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
of the White Army was retreating. Two of the volunteers withdrew with the Wrangel army, while Clayton Kratz
Clayton Kratz
Clayton Kratz was a Mennonite relief worker from the U.S state of Pennsylvania, best known for his disappearance from the village of Halbstadt in the Russian Mennonite settlement of Molotschna during the Russian Civil War...
, who remained in Halbstadt (Molotschna) as it was overrun by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, was never heard from again.
A year passed before official permission was received from the Soviet government to do relief work among the villages of Ukraine. Kitchens provided 25,000 people a day with rations over a period of three years beginning in 1922, with a peak of 40,000 servings during August of that year. Fifty Fordson tractor and plow combinations were sent to Mennonite villages to replace horses that had been stolen and confiscated during the war. The cost of this relief effort was $1.2 million.
Voluntary Service
As Civilian Public Service was winding down in 1946, MCC began exploring a peace-time service program that would continue the types of projects performed by CPS. The new program, Voluntary Service, had several aims. It would provide young people a way to voluntarily perform Christian service for up to a year as a means of testifying more widely to the gospel and its way of love and nonresistanceNonresistance
Nonresistance is generally defined as "the practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised". At its core is discouragement of, even opposition to, physical resistance to an enemy...
. Projects were to help alleviate human need in a culturally sensitive manner. The program would be an internship in Christian service, developing the workers' service motivation, witness and religious conviction. It would provide Mennonite young people an opportunity to express appreciation for the material blessings, religious and other national liberties and to contribute to the well-being of the nation. Finally, it was hoped that some individuals would decide to devote their careers to full-time ministry or missionary service.
The first Voluntary Service unit started during the summer of 1946 in association with the CPS unit at Gulfport, Mississippi
Gulfport, Mississippi
Gulfport is the second largest city in Mississippi after the state capital Jackson. It is the larger of the two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. As of the...
.
Activities
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
through its Ten Thousand Villages
Ten Thousand Villages
Ten Thousand Villages is a nonprofit fair trade organization that markets handcrafted products made by disadvantaged artisans from more than 120 artisan groups in more than 38 countries....
program.
Funds for MCC's worldwide relief and service projects are raised through independent Mennonite relief sales. Around 45 sales are held throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, raising US$5 million annually. Many of these sales feature quilts handmade by Mennonite and Amish volunteers, auctions, artwork, crafted woodwork, homemade foods, antiques, crafts, plants, children's activities, and musical programs. Most of the goods and labor are donated, and 78.2% of the funds raised go directly into the field.
MCC focuses its development efforts in areas such as health, education, peace and justice, and fair trade. It responds to disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
situations, as well as focusing its efforts on the longer-term issues of economic and social policy.
MCC maintains offices in both Washington, D.C., and Ottawa to advocate to the American and Canadian federal governments, respectively.
Peacemaking
MCC also takes an active role in advocating for peace both in North America and around the world, seeking "to be a witness against forces that contribute to poverty, injustice and violence." In North America, MCC established the Mennonite Conciliation Service (MCS) in 1979 to encourage Mennonites and others to actively pursue peaceful resolution of conflicts. MCS was a pioneer in the burgeoning field of conflict resolutionConflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
in the 1980s and director Ronald S. Kraybill led early mediation workshops in Northern Ireland which eventually led to the establishment of the Northern Ireland Mediation Network. John Paul Lederach
John Paul Lederach
John Paul Lederach is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University...
took over MCS in 1989 when Kraybill moved on to South Africa, and in the years following, MCC moved active peace building into the forefront of its work abroad.
Responding in part to the establishment of active Mennonite-led peace centers that had emerged in the 80s and 90s, such as the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University
Eastern Mennonite University
Eastern Mennonite University is a private liberal arts university in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, affiliated with one of the historic peace churches, the Mennonite Church USA. Its main campus is on the edge of the small city of Harrisonburg, Virginia, about three miles from state-owned...
, the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in Lombard, Illinois, a group of peace builders at Fresno Pacific University
Fresno Pacific University
Fresno Pacific University also known as FPU is an accredited Christian university located in Fresno, California, United States. It was founded in 1944 by the Pacific District Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. The university awarded its first bachelor of arts degree in 1965...
, the Peace and Justice Network of the Mennonite Church and other activities, MCS was discontinued in 2004. But the Peace Office of MCC continues to advocate peace interests broadly in the US and in MCC programming abroad. Internationally, MCC partners with local organizations to reduce violence in the aftermath of conflict or war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
.
Perhaps one of MCC's more controversial activities is in advocating military exemption or alternative service for conscientious objectors in times of war. MCC runs a "conscientious objector registry" in Canada, taking statements from Canadians in the hope that they will be recognized by the Canadian government should the government restart drafting
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
citizens into the military.
Affiliated organizations
- Calgary Mennonite Center for NewcomersCalgary Mennonite Center for NewcomersThe Calgary Mennonite Centre for Newcomers was established in 1988 as a non-profit organization devoted to assist refugees and immigrants arriving in Calgary in meeting their settlement needs...
- Mennonite Church USA ArchivesMennonite Church USA ArchivesThe Mennonite Church USA Archives was founded in 2001 under the denominational merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church...
- Mennonite Disaster ServiceMennonite Disaster ServiceThe Mennonite Disaster Service is a volunteer network through which various groups within the Anabaptist tradition assist people affected by disasters in North America...
External links
- Official Web Site
- Mennonite Central Committee in Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online