Mary Fontaine had been preparing for her Hummingbird Ministries since she was a little girl. Growing up on the Mistawasis reserve in Saskatchewan, her late parents instilled in her a love for the church, as well as respect for traditional native ways.
“My passion for the political and social healing of my people came from my dad who told me about the oppression and suffering of our people,” said Fontaine. “He believed in me and my God-given ability to learn. He said I could become educated and travel so that one day, I could help my people in some way. Hummingbird Ministries has become the way.”
It was her mother, a devoted Presbyterian (the Mistawasis reserve was first visited by Rev. John MacKay back in 1879), who taught Fontaine about the church. “My passion for spiritual and emotional healing comes from my mother, who loved Jesus but who also honored the culture to which the Lord had sent her to,” she began. “For my mother, the Lord was as present at the Sun dance as he was at the church she loved.”
Fontaine fulfilled her father's wishes when she received her Master of Divinity from the Vancouver School of Theology, and began Hummingbird in 2004, thanks to a group from the Women's Missionary Society who believed her work was “too important not to do.” The ministry was formalized by the PCC in 2005, when it was first funded for a six-month pilot project through Canada Ministries, the Synod of British Columbia and the Presbytery of Westminster.
The goal of the ministry is to encourage healing, build bridges between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people, and to instill sacred values of the First Nations culture in the hearts and minds of all people.
“The PCC has an opportunity to demonstrate genuine love, trust and acceptance of aboriginal people,” said Fontaine. “The various healing circle ministries offer aboriginals an opportunity to identify their own healing needs, and the church has an opportunity to respond to those needs.”
Fontaine conducts healing circles on various First Nations reserves, in churches and with community organizations. She hopes to work more closely with young people, and is currently on the Pathways Advisory Committee in Richmond, B.C., which is seeking out aboriginal athletes for the Native American Indigenous Games in Duncan, B.C. in 2008. She hopes to encourage youth to rediscover and reclaim their cultural heritage as well as be open to the church.
“I can tell people are being helped by the things that are shared at circles, and what people say that the circle is doing for them,” she said. “It's also the tears that are shed and the joy that is shared.
“I hope the fear and confusion about aboriginal cultures will diminish for both the church and aboriginal people.”
