Skip to content

Donate now

Choose province

Set your location

Tell us where you are so we can show you news from your area.
Visit MCC U.S.
Canada Go to U.S. site
Mennonite Central Committee

Relief, development and peace in the name of Christ

Search form

Learn more Get involved Centennial Contact us Donate
Get involved Current openings What we do
Learn more Centennial Contact us Donate
Menu

Mennonite Central Committee

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) shares God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice.

About MCC​

  • Message from the executive director
  • Vision and Mission
  • Leadership and Board
  • Annual reports
  • Funding and reports
  • Coalitions
  • Historical records

COVID-19 response

  • COVID-19 stories
  • Resources for a time of uncertainty
  • COVID-19 provincial updates
  • How you can help

Publications and resources

  • A Common Place magazine
  • In Touch newsletter
  • Intersections quarterly
  • Education resources

Stories

Virtual visits

Podcasts

What we do

  • Relief
  • Food
  • Water
  • Health
  • Education
  • Refugees
  • Peace
  • Restorative Justice
  • Canadian Programs

Where we work

Donate to MCC

Give a gift that changes lives, supporting MCC’s work around the world. Donate now.

Events

  • Relief sales
  • Canning

Make kits or comforters

Advocate

  • Peace & Justice Office
  • Advocacy in Ontario
  • UN Office

Fundraise

  • Host a fundraiser
  • Donate now
  • Legacy Giving
  • My Coins Count/Penny Power
  • Giving Registries

Serve

  • Work with us
  • Volunteer locally
  • Young adult programs

Alumni

Thrift Shops

Looking for more information?
Get in touch with a representative from your region here.

Happy Birthday, MCC! 

It's been 100 years since we first started responding to basic human needs in southern Russia (present-day Ukraine). Now, we continue to work for relief, development and peace all over the world. 

Engage

  • 100 Stories
  • Alumni reunions

Give Back

  • Our Faith. Our Future.
  • Legacy giving
  • New roots

Advocate

  • Advocacy campaign
  • Send a message to your MP

To mark 100 years of sharing God’s love and compassion, and your generosity and partnership through the decades, we invite you to explore stories from MCC’s decades of work around the world.

Looking for your local office? Tell us where you are so we can show you locations and news around you.

MCC Canada
MCC Canada
134 Plaza Dr.
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5K9
Canada
Office: (844) 732-2346
Toll Free: (877) 684-1181
Fax: (204) 269-9875
canada@mcccanada.ca
News media contact: Media coordinator
134 Plaza Drive
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5K9
Canada
Office: (844) 732-2346
media@mcccanada.ca

Contact MCC

  • General contacts
  • Media contacts
  • Contact Human Resources
  • Send us your questions

Find a Thrift Shop

Manage your subscriptions

  • A Common Place magazine
  • In Touch newsletter

Where needed most

A gift to where needed most supports the breadth of MCC’s work – meeting urgent needs and building stronger, healthier communities. Give today.

Donate

  • Current disaster responses
  • Share Your Table
  • More giving projects

Giving Registries

Other ways to give

  • Make kits and comforters
  • Legacy Giving
  • My Coins Count/Penny Power
  • Support a service worker

More information

  • FAQs
  • Annual reports
  • Privacy policy
  • Security information

You are here

  1. Home
  2. Stories
  3. From hand to hand to hand
DPRK

From hand to hand to hand

The journey to North Korea

December 2, 2017

By Julie Bell

PYONGYANG, DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea) – It’s been a long trek for these eight small bags of medical supplies. They have been packed and re-packed, crossed an ocean, passed through three countries and numerous airport security checks.

On this day the bags have reached their destination – a small medical clinic on a farm near Pyongyang.

Julie Bell, MCC Canada senior writer and Chris Rice, MCC representative for Northeast Asia, with medical staff at clinic near Pyongyang. MCC photo/Jennifer Deibert

As I watch my MCC colleague, Chris Rice, hand one of the bags to the medical staff, I am humbled by the significance of this small gesture. Rice and I, and two of our MCC colleagues, are in DPRK at a time when tensions between this country and other parts of the world are running high. On this day, U.S. president Donald Trump is in the region and most people, including the people of DPRK, are aware of that.

And yet, the story of how the medical kits came to be is what matters most in this moment. Through translation, we tell the medical staff we have come to DPRK to visit some of the projects supported by MCC; including providing canned meat and soybean products to orphanages and schools and agricultural support on their farm. But their faces light up when we tell them that it was a conversation during a previous visit to the farm that prompted a collaboration of people around the world. 

A farm near Pyongyang, DPRK, where MCC has provided agricultural support. MCC photo/Jennifer Deibert

During that visit, medical staff told MCC about accidents on the farm – everything from cuts and scrapes to sprains and broken bones. Word of the need for medical supplies travelled through MCC’s regional office in South Korea and on to MCC offices in Canada and the U.S. We decided to put together medical kits and consulted with medical experts, both in and outside MCC, on what the kits should contain. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we were able to buy the supplies and they were delivered to our material resources warehouse in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

That’s where Natalie Gulenchyn, a long-time volunteer at the resource centre got involved.  She cut the fabric and sewed the bags, complete with MCC’s iconic dove logo.

Natalie Gulenchyn, who is in her eighties and volunteers at MCC’s material resources warehouse in Winnipeg sewed the medical kit bags that were transported to DPRK. MCC photo/Rachel Bergen

Everything was packed into a piece of luggage, which travelled with me from Winnipeg to Beijing, China. 

A suitcase of medical supplies.MCC photo/Jennifer Deibert

In Beijing, we checked to make sure everything was okay and re-packed the luggage.

Julie Bell, MCC Canada senior writer and Chris Rice, MCC representative for Northeast Asia, with medical supplies in Beijing. MCC photo/Jennifer Deibert

The luggage crossed its last border when we travelled to Pyongyang in DPRK. In yet another hotel room, we moved the supplies – from bandages to surgical tape and disposable gloves – into the eight bags lovingly sewn by Natalie. 

Julie Bell, MCC Canada senior writer and Chris Rice, MCC representative for Northeast Asia, along with medical staff at a farm clinic near Pyongyang, DPRK. MCC photo/Jennifer Deibert

Now, as the nurses and a doctor at the clinic thank us for the supplies, I am so grateful for all the hands and hearts involved in bringing these simple gifts here. Donors, volunteers, MCC workers and their families – these people made it happen.

On this day, the hostilities and harsh rhetoric of current times are irrelevant. I think about the many references in the Bible to “do the work of God’s hands.” The call to carry gifts of comfort and words of peace is the only truth that matters.

Share this story
Share
Tweet
Plus 1

Donate today

Every gift makes a difference

Please enter your donation amount

Sign up for our e-newsletter

Stories and photos from MCC delivered to your inbox once a month.

Connect with MCC

Like us on Facebook
View on Instagram
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe on Youtube
  • Learn more
    • A Common Place
    • Where we work
    • What we do
      • Relief
      • Food
      • Water
      • Health
      • Education
      • Refugees
      • Peace
      • Restorative justice
    • Privacy
  • Get involved
    • Employment
    • Events
    • Kits
    • Advocate
    • Volunteer
  • Donate
    • Donate now
    • Legacy giving
    • Donation FAQ
    • Giving registries
Mennonite Central Committee
© 2023 Mennonite Central Committee
CRA #: 107690877