PETRA People

2025 Theme
Empowering People to Defeat Corruption--Developing Resilience, Virtues, and  Skills
Launched in 2020, Global Integrity Day (GID) is a positive day to reflect, teach, and collaborate on ways to integrate integrity in all we do throughout the entire year. It is a strategic day to promote a) cultivating lifestyles, cultures, and systems of integrity from the individual through the international levels; b) joining together to understand and address the causes and consequences of corruption in its many forms; and c) working towards just and equitable societies marked with wellbeing for all people and for the planet. See the many resources on the GID site for the years 2000-2025 including spotlight activities and events. Participate and spread the word!
-------
Corruption Perception Index 2024 (CPI), Transparency International (published 11 February 2025)
See also CPI 2024: Highlights and Insights
-------------------------------------------------

International Anti-Corruption Day (9 December 2024) Uniting with Youth Against Corruption--Shaping Tomorrow's Integrity. "Our world confronts numerous challenges, tragedies, inequalities and injustices, many of which are tied to corruption. With 1.8 billion young people in the world, fighting corruption is vital for the future of nearly a quarter of the global population. While young people are significantly affected by corruption, they also have the potential to become powerful agents of change in the fight for a future rooted in integrity....Therefore, the campaign for International Anti-Corruption Day 2024-2025 focuses on the role young guardians of integrity play as advocates, raising awareness about corruption and its impacts on their communities. They will actively participate in discussions, share their experiences and propose innovative solutions to combat corruption. The campaign will amplify voices of integrity leaders of tomorrow, allowing them to express their concerns and aspirations, with the hope that their appeals will be heard and acted upon. " (quote from website)

PETRA People Weblog
Staying Current--15+ Years
Updates, Analyses, and Resources
Don't be intimidated--live in integrity!

In route--August-September 2025: Searching for One Honest Person--Fear God, Repent, and Live!
New #88--June-July 2025: Empowering People to Defeat Corruption--Developing Resilience, Virtues, Skills
#87--April-May 2025: Wolves in Our Midst--Dealing with Psychopaths and Manipulators
Feb-March 2025: Speaking Truth to Abusive Power--Protecting Whistleblowers--Confronting Impunity & Retaliation
December 2024-January 2025: Defining and Futurizing Integrity--International Anti-Corruption Day (9 Dec 2024)
October-November 2024: Heart Treasures and Heaven Treasures--How We Live Reveals What We Love
August-September 2024: Discipling for Integrity--Being the People and Leaders that Our World Needs
June-July  2024: Fighting Human Trafficking and More! Global Integrity Day-9 June
April-May 2024: Recreancy--Repenting and Recovering from Cowardly Betrayal
February-March 2024: Death Industries--Putting Them Out of Business
December 2023-January 2023: Uniting the World Against Corruption  (Anti-Corruption Day)
October-November 2023: Being a Prophetic Voice--Integrity to Confront Corruption and Injustice
August-September 2023:  Sex Trafficking--Confronting Corruption in All Its Forms
June-July 2023: Faith-Based Champions Fighting Corruption--Global Integrity Day-9 June 2023
April-May 2023: Being True--The Loving Rebuke of Jesus: Repent and stop your duplicity
February-March 2023: Uprooting Corruption in our World and Lives--Plenaries from  the  IACC
December 2022-January 2023: Overcoming Evil with Good--Solidarity with UN Anti-Corruption Day
October-November 2022: Mocking God? Don't Be Deceived--You Can't Rob God--Sow to the Spirit!
August-September 2022: The Audacity of Integrity--15 years Calling for NCI Transparency and Acountability
June-July 2022: Being People of Integrity--Global Integrity Day 9 June 2022!
April-May 2022:  Staying on Course--Navigating Moral Disengagement
February-March 2022:  Getting Equipped!  Confronting Corrruption with Character and Competence
December 2021-January 2022: Refuse Corruption-Restore Integrity--UN Anti-Corruption Day etc.
October-November 2021: Be Righteous and Relevant: Speaking Truth--God's Word--to Ourselves and Others
August-September 2021: The Day of the Lord: Exposing All Forms of Corruption
June-July 2021: Global Integrity Initiatives: Global Integrity Day and Global Integrity Network
April-May 2021: When the Best Is Corrupt: Choose Integrity--Beware of Hypocrisy
February-March 2021: Stop Pilfering and Pillaging--Be Faithful in All Things
Dec 2020-Jan 2021: Taking A Stand: Integrity in the Lausanne Movement and UN Anti-Corruption Day
October-November 2020: How Leaders Lie: Exploring the Lure of Unethical Behavior
Aug-Sep 2020: Crushing the Serpent: High-virtue humans, institutional integrity, and co-workers with God
June-July 2020: Confronting the Corruption Pandemic (new resources, individual-international applications)
April-May 2020: Lessons from COVID-19: 19 Stories-Reports of Compassion and Corruption
February-March 2020: Corruption in the Church-Mission Community (living fully in the light)
December 2019--January 2020: What Is Your Integrity Worth? Lessons for Fighting Corruption
October-November 2019: Join Together! Support the Growing Efforts (upcoming conferences etc.)
August-September 2019: Join with Us! Fear God. Honor God. (FAST pods-posts summary)
June-July 2019: Tools for Integrity 5 (fight the frauds, confront the cover-ups)
April-May 2019: Tools for Integrity 4 (live in the light--speaking truth to ourselves/others)
February-March 2019: Tools for Integrity 3 (the light we will not see)
December 2018-January 2019: Tools for Integrity 2 (integrity and integroty)
October-November 2018: Tools for Integrity 1: (learning from history)
August-September 2018: Repentance 5 (tough love--confronting compromise)
June-July 2018: Repentance 4 (summary and summons; you are dead--wake up!)
April-May 2018: Repentance 3 (summary/summons; #CMCtoo -- #HealUsToo)
February-March 2018: Repentance 2 (summary/summons, restitution or retribution)
December 2017-January 2018: Repentance 1 (summary/summons; healing people and organizations)
October-November 2017: Summary and Summons (healing the broken body--again)
August-September 2017: The Essential Review (healing the broken body)
June-July 2017: Quid Clamabo--What do I cry out?--What do I decry?
April-May 2017: Cui Bono--Who benefits? (what are you going to do?)
February-March 2017: Willful Blindness (opening our eyes, hearing our conscience)
December 2016-January  2017: International Anti-Corruption Day (uniting against corruption and NCI)
October-November 2016: Ordinary Heroes (awakening the good in you)
August-September 2016: Cooperating with Corruption (complicity)
June-July 2016: Speaking Up ("double lives" and "moral disengagement")
April-May 2016: Good Fraud-day (rationalizing our responsibility to confront and protect)
February-March 2016: Transparency-Accountability Illusions (tricks for feigning good practice)
December 2015-January 2016: Good Practice Across Sectors (the best or the worst)
October-November 2015: Christian Integrity (transforming ourselves and our world)
August-September 2015: Lessons for "Leaders" ("we were wrong, we are responsible, we will change")
October 2014-October 2015: Responses to the Shine the Light-Together petition
(exchanges with four organisations--what people are saying and not saying)
August-September 2014: Going public with the truth (don't be intimidated--it's your world!)
June-July 2014: Don't be afraid (case studies in confronting corruption)
April-May 2014: Uniting against corruption (good principles and good practices)
February-March 2014: Using our brains (bystander effect and groupthink)
December 2013-January 2014, Wising up and rising up (accurate information and legal action)
October-November 2013: Going wrong (deception)
August-September 2013: PETRA People review (staying the course--two years of weblog postings)
June-July 2013: Until death do us part? (sacrificing and suffering to end evil)
April-May 2013: Betraying well (silence, passivity and neutrality)
February-March 2013: Defeating corruption (wake up!)
December 2012-January 2013: Live wrong ≠ live strong (duping and doping)
October-November 2012: Confronting Christian corruption
August-September 2012: Global shame or a good name (YWAM)
June-July 2012: Looking good and doing good
April-May 2012: Shining the light together--an international call for integrity and action
February-March 2012: Doing truth well--your task is to be true, not popular
December 2011-January 2012: Confronting corruption--insipid salt and illusory light
October-November 2011: Awakening virtue--missing money/missing action
August-September 2011: The whole picture and the whole truth
June-July 2011: Response to Christianity Today article on NCI, "Fleecing the Faithful--Again"
May 2011: Requests for assistance--healing the body
Issue 1--April 2011: Introduction and initial input 

Notes on Integrity and Corruption

--Integrity is moral wholeness—living consistently in moral wholeness.

--Corruption is moral rottenness, the opposite of integrity--the distortion, perversion, and deterioration of moral goodness, resulting in the abuse and exploitation of people and the planet. It is integroty.
--Global integrity is living consistently in moral wholeness at all levels--individual, interpersonal, institutional, and international; across sectors and settings; local through global; the systemic and structural. 

Note from the Global Integrity Day website
"Integrity is moral wholeness—living consistently in moral wholeness—with honesty, humility, and all the virtues--and with an awareness of one’s potential to deceive and harm oneself and others. Integrity needs external moral referents--standards of virtue with accountability--and not simply positive self-appraisals--in order to safeguard us all from both blind and willful hypocrisy." Defining Integrity. Kelly and Michele O'Donnell, Member Care Update (June 2023)Note: This is an expanded version of the above definition on the GID website. Note that it opens the door wide to the crucial discussion and clarification of "external moral referents" and "standards of virtue and accountability" as well as the process and accuracy of one's moral perceptions of self and others. 

Fraud and other forms of corruption are a fact of life. People get duped all the time. And even the financially
savvy can become the prey of experienced fraudsters. No one is immune to being exposed to fraud’s far-reaching toxins, including people and organizations in the faith-based community.

For example an estimated 86 billion US dollars are stolen around the world through “ecclesiastical crime” (Status of Global Christianity 2024 (International Bulletin of Mission Research, January 2024). The humanitarian assistance and other sectors fare no better. For example, consider the sobering conclusions from the July 2008 Report from Transparency International (TI) which reviews the widespread occurrence of corruption in humanitarian assistance. Corruption is extensive and as defined by TI, is primarily an ‘abuse of entrusted power for personal gain.’ It involves far more than just fraud.

For recent and ongoing materials on integrity and corruption see these websites:
Global Integrity Day 2024
Transparency International
Faith and Public Integrity (faith-based)
Global Integrity Network (faith-based)

Nordic Capital Investment, KB
Background

This company and its investment schemes began in 1992. NCI's Swedish founder was convicted of gross fraud related to NCI by a Swedish district court (Uppsala Tingsrrat) in October 2010.  People primarily within the international church-mission community collectively lost millions of dollars/euros. Personnel and others associated with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) have especially been affected.

The first appeal case went to trial in Stockholm in September 2011 (Svea Hovrätt). The verdict of 28 October 2011 upheld the Uppsala court's verdict (from October 2010) and sentenced the defendant to three and a half years in prison. This second verdict was appealed to the Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen) on 23 November 2011 (this is the final appeal possible in Sweden). The Supreme Court has made a decision concerning the appeal, dated the 21 December 2011, that it will not process the appeal at all. Therefore the verdict of the Svea Hovrätt (from 28 October 2011) is valid and will now be executed. Mr. Westergard (a former YWAM leader) will be serving a 3.5 year prison term (although in Sweden a person usually only serves 2/3 of the required term and hence Mr Westergard's prison term finished in mid-2014).  

Mr. Westergard's traceable assets are minimal and hence he is not able to repay several victims as required in the court verdict. Some of the NCI-related investments and money flows are in fact traceable, according to EBM/Swedish court documents, to organisations/foundations such as Mercy Ministries International, Le Rucher Ministries, New Generation Foundation, and YWAM projects/personnel. The church-mission community and victims continue to call upon those responsible in such entities (past and current) to fully disclose and to help return money.

 **Some of the attractive features of NCI included the promise that invested capital was totally safe, 15% per annum return was guaranteed, an additional 15% from NCI revenue would go to humanitarian projects, and the people promoting this special opportunity were respected Christian leaders. NCI however is alleged by the Swedish Prosecution to be an affinity-based ponzi scheme, that new money was never generated via investments, and that the money paid to investors/projects came from investors' own capital.

**The most disconcerting aspect of NCI is not simply the lost money. Nor is it simply the negative emotional impact on the lives of so many "investors" and their family members and colleagues. Rather it is the consistent response of individuals/leaders within the church-mission community: unwillingness to investigate or get informed, fear of reprisals, self-protection, and discrediting those calling for transparency and accountability, all at the expense of vulnerable people. It is time to change this course and to act with moral courage and united strength.

Overview of NCI
1. Fleecing the Faithful--Again (Christianity Today, June 2011 and online comments)
Note July 2021: Christianity Today would not post an update from PETRA People to share what is currently happening following a civil case in France and the continued effort to confront NCI and call people to assistance and account.
2. Information and Observations about NCI (some investors, roles, money flows)
3. Some Examples of NCI Money Flows (organized by year)
4. Suggestions: Going Forward (10 core points)
5. PETRA Statement 2011 about NCI and related concerns: A Call for Transparency and Accountability
6. PETRA Statement 2012: An International Call for Integrity and Action

Requests for Assistance
1. See the organizations and groups mentioned in the entry for 24 May 2011 on the weblog.
(also included in the "NCI Comments" section of this site)
2. Letter to YWAM leaders internationally, asking for assistance (5 June 2011)
3. Letters sent to church leaders in the Geneva-Lausanne area in Switzerland (2010, 2011)
4.  Exchanges with four organisations regarding the Shine the light-Together petition's request for assistance (Oct-Nov 2014 and January 2016)

More Key Documents and Efforts
1. Rand Geubert's 120 page Investigative Review (2008) was published online in August 2018.
Access it here: Loving Truth and Peace

2. Current updates, analyses, and resources are on the PETRA People Weblog. Part Two on each post is the essential review of NCI--what we need to know and do: Summary and Summons--Healing the Body.

3. See also the Into Integrity podcasts and the Into Integrity blogposts. "The purpose of Into Integrity is to call attention to and confront the lack of disclosures/independent reviews and wrongful dismissals related to the Nordic Capital Investment KB fraud. ..Corruption kills. It does not going away by ignoring it."

PETRA People
Petra means "bedrock" in Greek (πέτρα).
It is both a metaphor and an acronym.
Petra refers to the strong relational and work foundation that results
when people are committed to peace, transparency, and accountability. 

Header image: Slieve League, Donegal, Ireland--the highest sea cliffs in Europe
"A solid, rustic beauty to inspire our courage and strength."

 This site is moderated by Kelly and Michele O'Donnell in collaboration with the PETRA People Network and in support of all those who have been affected by corruption and fraud and who endeavor to live in integrity. The moderators' experience with NCI is summarized in the NCI Analysis section.  You can access many of Kelly and Michele's materials on integrity and corruption here: Global Integrity.

 Many thanks for the ongoing input/materials from colleagues, consultants, and NCI victims. Your feedback, suggestions for additional material, and comments are very welcome. People have a right to know the truth and a responsibility to act on the truth. email: petrapeoplenet@gmail.com   weblog: PETRA People Blog