Mennonite Weekly Review

I agree with Cal Redekop’s comments regarding the restructuring of Mennonite Central Committee and would add some personal observations and recommendations. These are the result of more than 40 years of working in international relief and development programs.

When the humanitarian agency CARE went international, it encouraged the creation of sister agencies in Canada, Europe and Australia and probably others that I have forgotten. Through an international committee it selects a lead agency for a given country program. In Angola, it was CARE-Canada. In Mozambique it was CARE-US. But the operations, if memory serves, were referred to as CARE International.

World Vision chose a different setup. It created national agencies, as did CARE, but created a separate operational body, World Vision International. My late wife and I worked with WVI from 1986 to 1991 in Sudan and Mozambique, developing a commodity management and accounting system, and trained its staff to enable it to track its commodities from U.S. (or other) ports to the beneficiary.

There are now World Visions in the United States, Canada, Europe, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand working as fund- raising agencies. There are also World Visions in a number of the countries where they have programs and Christian churches to provide a counterpart agency. Each national World Vision has its own board and has representation on the WVI board. This arrangement works quite well, or did during the time that we were there.

It should not be necessary for MCC to invent a “new wheel.” There are wheels aplenty to be studied, but not necessarily to be copied exactly. I agree that it is time for MCC to internationalize, and I agree with Redekop that the international headquarters should probably be placed in Europe. I recommend Geneva, Switzerland, because of the non-governmental organizations and U.N. agencies present there that have interests similar to MCC. The Mennonite World Conference office in Strasbourg, France, is just a short flight or train ride away. The Canadian and U.S. MCCs might wish to retain the MCC name because of its familiarity to constituency.

This new structure and the European location of Mennonite World Service (Redekop’s suggested name) would encourage European Mennonites to organize officially and become full partners. Membership on the international committee should then include representatives from Ethiopia, Congo, India, etc.