Isaiah 58:6
This is the kind of fast I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice
And untie the cords of the yoke,
To set the oppressed free
And break every yoke
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Why I chose to fast
The choice to fast was made at the core of my spiritual being. It was to express, with my entire body, in a language beyond words, my thirst for justice.
I had been pleading for justice through the avenues available to me within the Mennonite community for years, and for almost twenty years my requests for justice had been denied.
The sexual abuse that I suffered had been discussed as an open secret for years. My father confessed, in front of the family, that he had raped me. Under the guise of a “pastoral visit”, my pastor, Henry Wiebe, deceptively extracted some of the sordid details of the abuse from me before finally admitting, to my profound shock, that my brother-in-law, Ernie Wiens, had already informed him. Other pastors were also aware that I had been grievously wounded.
But my anguished request for the healing waters of justice was consistently denied.
Instead, their demand was that I – the victim – must absolve the perpetrator(s) of all accountability, that I must remain silent about the horrors I had endured, and that I must now accept and forgive the compounded injustice of their conspiracy of silence.
On the basis of my conscience, I objected to being raped as a child. I objected to the collusion by the family and clergy in the on-going cover-up that deprived me of any forum of justice. I refused to accept that the injustice of the sexual violence had disappeared simply because they wanted to cover it up. Using God’s Word as the precedent and offering Biblical principles as evidence to support my request, I telephoned, visited, and wrote letters to my family members, Mennonite pastors and church leaders – asking for justice for me as the victim in their midst.
But any and all of my requests for justice were denied.
I became aware of the many programs the Mennonites advocate to society and which they facilitate for victims and offenders outside the Mennonite community; programs like VORP, VOM, COSA. I read the accolades in the press, and on government web-sites, lauding the Mennonites as pioneers of Restorative Justice, and applauding the concept of a “genuine victim-centered restorative justice” as a superior alternative to the adversarial justice system.
In July of 2008, I sent a signed, formal letter of complaint to the members of the executive board of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren churches regarding the cover-up of my sexual abuse that had compounded the initial violation and denied me healing. Included was a formal request for a respectful process of justice for me, a victim in their own midst.
The provincial church representatives who had been contacted about the sexual crimes committed against me had consistently denied my request for justice, but I prayed that my appeal to the national executive would be recognized.
The silence from David Wiebe, CEO, and the executive members, was deafening. From July 11 to December 16, David Wiebe did not even grant me the dignity of a reply.
The message to me was unequivocal: my request would not move even the executive members of the highest offices in the Mennonite Brethren church in Canada to comply with the Ontario sexual abuse policy and to do justice for me.
Mennonites have a reputation around the world for their response to crises and catastrophes. They are said to be on the cutting edge of conflict resolution and “making things right” for victims, and they are often the first to conspicuously rush to bring practical assistance, protection and support – to victims of other people’s atrocities.
But the message to me was resoundingly clear: for a victim of an atrocity committed by their own Mennonites, in their own midst, justice would be callously denied.
I absorbed the devastating crush of their prolonged silence for five long months.
Then I purposed to rise up and take a stand.
Fasting is a time-honoured, non-violent, personal response to injustice. Some people have fasted to end the injustice of poverty, some fast to bring an end to violence; some fast to expose injustice that impacts them personally, others fast in solidarity.
Jesus fasted. Gandhi fasted. The prophets of old fasted.
Fasting individuals are expressing, with every fibre of their being, their thirst for change.
On December16, 2008, after a life-time of being forced to accept the injustice, I chose to begin my fast to expose and to end the Mennonite conspiracy of silence that covered up my sexual abuse.
