I am a member of the Healing and Reconciliation Design Team and a Board member of the Winnipeg Inner City Missions. I am also a First Nation woman of Kenora, Ont., who is a residential school survivor of the Cecilia Jeffrey School.
After spending a year travelling across Canada with the design team on this very sensitive issue of residential schools and the negative impact it had on First Nations people, why has the Record put a picture of a residential school on its cover? That school was torn down as part of the healing process.
Editor responds: While the healing and reconciliation team and some others in the church have spent a great deal of time on this issue, it was clear at this year's General Assembly how little it is understood by most people in the Presbyterian Church. We put the school on the cover with the text stating Aboriginal Ministry a Priority to draw attention to this history that needs to be faced. The healing that has been achieved and the wounds that remain are a by-product of what happened at that school. The cover is a symbolic representation of the past with a declaration about the future.
The July/August issue headlined the fact that assembly declared aboriginal ministry to be a priority of the church. It also noted debate between the workers who wanted existing efforts to be strengthened and the denominational leaders who wanted additional structures to be put in place with additional money. For me it was déjà vu.
In 1975 in Montreal, General Assembly declared francophone work to be a national priority of the denomination. However, no one seemed to know how to go about making that priority a reality. Support for existing ministries would have been wonderful. Hiring secretaries, for example, to ease the administrative burden of the francophone workers already in place would have been a great help. But the Board of World Mission's administrators were convinced that what was needed was a national director of French work with appropriate funding. Also a couple of Sunday bulletins in French (with English subtitles!) were produced. The final outcome of that priority with the Toronto office staff of the time was to fire the best people, hire the worst and chase away about nine struggling fledgling francophone congregations who, with careful support and nurture, might have made a significant impact for the gospel in Quebec. However, it was not to be!
Yes, mistakes were made, but they do not have to be repeated! I encourage the workers on the aboriginal scene to stand firm and build on what is in place and working. Insist that money be put there and make it count for the gospel. Then "you shall go out with joy… the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you… and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree…"
