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Journey into the Past – A Time for Healing
NORQUAY, SK (June 17, 2005) - When Ken Neufeld was hired to be the bus driver
for a trip promoting racial righteousness in Canada, he didn't know that
it would be a personal journey of healing.
The Mamowe-et-tiak was held June 3-5 and involved 11 people from the
First Nation (native) community and eight non-natives, says former
Covenant pastor Dave Nelson, who organized the trip. Mamowe-et-tiak is
a Plains Cree word for "gathering" or "coming together." Tribe members
participating in the trip came from the Salteaux, Cree, and Blackfoot
nations.
Nelson says the idea for the journey began five years ago when he was a
pastor in Norquay and worked one day a week counseling in a Saulteaux
(Chippewa) community five miles from the city. "It struck me that there
was a lot of pain and distance between the two communities," Nelson says.
As in the United States, settlers in Canada repeatedly made and broke
treaties with the First Nation people, Nelson says. In the 1880's the
Canadian government embarked on a campaign to eradicate the First Nation
people, says Covenant pastor Paul Lessard, who also is Canadian.
Nelson became friends with Alan O,Soup, who had returned to his home
reservation to plant a church. O,Soup had attended Sunday school for 10
years at the Norquay Covenant Church when farmer Delwyn Anderson used to
pick him up and drive him to the church. Nelson worked with
denominational officials, O,Soup and other native leaders to organize
the journey.
The event included bus trips to different sites related to First Nation
history as well as two worship services. It was during these trips and
worship services that Neufeld reconciled with the past and looked with
hope to the future.
One of the services was held in the former Hyas Covenant church that
Neufeld's great grandfather, A.P. Anderson, had started. It also was the
church in which his parents had married and where he grew up. The church
had closed and was later donated to the First Nation community and moved.
Neufeld recalls the church was in disrepair when it was moved, but that
did not lessen the blow he felt. "When I first found that the church was
going to be donated and moved, I felt that part of me was being moved,"
Neufeld says. "Initially I was upset. My mother is buried in the
cemetery of the old church. I was just very distraught - almost like
somebody was trying to take my history from me.
"When we actually got out to the church and I actually stepped through
the doors of the building and I saw the banner 'You must be born again'
hanging there – it had been in the background of many family photos - I
was overcome with emotion," Neufeld says. "Tears started rolling down my
face. I had never thought I would be in that church again.
"As the service progressed, I knew that God wanted me to be a part of
that," Neufeld continued. He became even more involved when Pastor Alan
O,Soup invited him to help serve communion. "That was very gratifying to
me to be part of a service in my great grandfather's church. It was just
amazing to be part of something old and something new."
Other participants expressed the hope that the event would be the
beginning of the healing of the old and the creation of the new. "I
think there was a coming together," says Harold Spooner, executive vice
president of outreach ministries for the Covenant Ministries of Benevolence.
Participants say that it was the beginning of a long journey. "I think
it was a pretty profound starting place that maybe ended up raising more
questions than providing answers," says Canada Conference Supt. Jeff
Anderson, adding that bodes well for the future.
"There was just a lot of humor," Anderson says. "That was one of the big
things people came to realize was the importance of humor in the native
community. But during sharing time, it was very candid. It wasn't angry
but it was very direct."
"I was blown away about the horrible experiences they've had and yet the
hope they have," Lessard says. "There was a tremendous sense of hope.
The heart of the conference is that we must do something," Lessard says,
"but we don't ride in the white horse and solve things. We want to
empower a generation of First Nation leaders."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
