This year, close to 300 people commemorated The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation by attending a Broken Walls music concert in Belleville, Ontario. Broken Walls is an Indigenous Christian band dedicated to spreading a message of hope and healing throughout Indigenous communities across Canada and the U.S. The concert was organized by a multicultural…
A new documentary mini-series on Amazon Prime called Shiny Happy People tells the hidden stories of the Duggar family from 19 Kids and Counting, and it also draws attention to the problems with a particular type of cult-like homeschooling that became popular in evangelical communities in the 1980s and 90s – Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training…
I have spent years visiting art galleries and, for a portion of my career, I even had the opportunity to work in one. I am that person who stands and reads each label, curious to understand what the artist wants to express through their work. Because of this interest, one of my next steps in…
Justice, reconciliation and building relationships were at the heart of the Christian Reformed Church’s (CRC) Canadian National Gathering held in Ottawa in May. The four-day conference was an opportunity to hear from Christian indigenous leaders and elders who shared their stories and challenged the largely white audience to sit, listen and learn. Most of the…
Throughout Hearts Exchanged, participants encounter ‘hearts broken’ experiences as they hear first-hand stories from Indigenous people, and learn history from a new perspective. Hearts Exchanged offers the space and opportunity to discuss, reflect, and turn to right relationships – both personally and corporately. Jasper Hoogendam (from Coldsprings, Ont.) participated in Hearts Exchanged over the past…
Two months ago, I saw the post on Facebook about a missing woman. The name was vaguely familiar, and she was from my hometown, Kenora. I waited a couple of days before sharing the post on my page. She was still missing and there was no information about where in Winnipeg she might be. Then…
“What do [you Indians] want?” This was the question a church official asked a group of Indigenous ministers, working in Indigenous communities, over 20 years ago. There was some frustration behind the question since there were a myriad of complaints about unfair treatment of Indigenous ministers. Back in the 90s when this question was posed,…
“I think it’s just people being stupid,” one man says. “They’re drinking or whatever. Horse-playing. They end up falling in.” “I think there is a possibility that it was foul play,” a woman says. “I also think it could be just, you know, a result of being drunk by the riverbank.” Those quotes are from…
“Forget about Eddie Van Halen, forget about what the idiots on YouTube say. Learn your chords. Learn C, G and F – it all starts from there, the rest comes later.” Most amateur guitar players will chuckle at this comment made by Ray Mitchell (played by Alberta country singer-songwriter Corb Lund) to his 15-year-old guitar…
Lead Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Commissioner Murray Sinclair is known for speaking in memorable one-liners. Seven years after the TRC’s release, two of these have stuck with me: “education got us into this mess and education will get us out” and “reconciliation is a generational project.” Both of these zingers have inspired our long-term…
“You don’t belong” is a spoken and unspoken message most of us have heard at one time or another. We’re all familiar with that sinking gut feeling when we’re told that we don’t fit in. For many Indigenous people, this experience has been true even in the church, where they have received the message to…
Lisa Raven’s first reaction to hearing Pope Francis apologize on Indigenous land in Canada this summer was: “Wow. That was really powerful.” She did not expect to be moved to tears. Thirty-six years ago, Raven was a student at Saskatchewan’s Marieval Indian Residential School run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. When she first heard…
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