Most Presbyterians have probably heard of native residential schools and the various abuses suffered by children who attended them. Most probably know their church had a hand in running the schools and has accepted responsibility for the abuses committed. But do you know about the church's native ministries and the work being done by the people on the front lines? Or how deep the wounds of residential schools are and how the abuse still affects people today?
Those working on the front lines believe few Presbyterians know what the church is doing among native communities in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. They also believe church members have a duty to fulfill a responsibility to get involved and to build bridges between the church and Canada's First Nations Peoples. Did you know this was even a possibility? Well read on, because this special report aims to inform you, challenge you and maybe even surprise you. Hopefully, it will inspire you take a step towards reconciliation with your aboriginal brothers and sisters.
They used to call him The Enforcer. With a steely gaze and a stockey 250-pound frame, he was his gang's go-to guy for persuading procrastinating narcotics clients to pay up. For 25 years, Lenny McKay usually got what he went for.
“I hurt people in a lot of ways,” says the soft-spoken 45-year-old, whose family name turns up regularly in crime stories that appear in Winnipeg newspapers. “But the guilt caught up to me, and I'm trying to make up for it,” adds McKay, a 'survivor' of a residential school in Manitoba.
McKay's road to recovery led him to the Anishinabe Fellowship Centre, located at the heart of Winnipeg's violent, largely native north end. The centre provides a food bank, meals, counselling, employment and housing help and regular Sunday worship. The centre has helped McKay, and others like him, turn his back on his bad boy ways.
“You're walking a fine line all your life” when you're in a gang, says McKay, his long black hair pulled into a ponytail. “The temptation is always there. It's the money, the lifestyle, the girls, the cars, the fame, people being afraid of you. It's the only way to get respect.” Once, he was cracked over the head with a baseball bat, putting him in a coma for four days. “Every time I feel the pain from that, I think about what I was putting myself through.”
When asked what he thinks about the church and its connection to residential schools, McKay, who says he's “not religious” has few words. “They will take the pain to their graves.” But in his next breath, the man who now volunteers at Anishinabe acknowledges a debt to the church and, in particular, to the workers at the fellowship centre. “I know the church helps a lot of people. I would have been in prison or dead if I hadn't come here. It's like a refuge for me.”
Anishinabe is one half of Winnipeg Inner City Mission: along with Flora House, which caters mostly to children and youth. Together, they are one of seven Presbyterian native missions dotting the Canadian map. The others are: Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry, Mistawasis Memorial Church located on a reserve near Prince Albert, Sask., Anamiewigummig or the Kenora Fellowship Centre, Edmonton Urban Native Ministry, Hummingbird Ministries in Vancouver and the Cariboo House Church Ministry in British Columbia.
As director of the Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry, Rev. Stewart Folster experiences the heartening breakthroughs and crushing breakdowns of doing life-altering outreach work that, despite its intrinsic value, still begs for funding and pleads for greater involvement on the part of non-Natives. Because of financial constraints, Folster basically runs a one-man show; helped occasionally by volunteers and an aboriginal elder at Sunday worship and a Monday healing circle. Despite the potential for his healing ministry, his time is severely limited as he is often kept busy monitoring the centre's comings and goings.
Folster's strengths are relationships; his native heritage a big plus when it comes to building bridges between the church and angry aboriginals in downtown Saskatoon.
His calm demeanour, quiet voice and warm eyes hide his own history that includes alcohol abuse, a dysfunctional family, and a son who committed suicide in 2005. It is a life that could have ended badly; instead, he discovered native spirituality and the teachings of the elders, and the admonition to respect all people. “And the more I thought about it,” says Folster, “I realized that the Bible was teaching me the same thing.”
Having a foot in both worlds helps Folster in his ministry. “I know all about the stories,” he says, sitting at a desk in his plain-walled, linoleum-floored office. “My grandparents went to residential schools, so I've suffered the effects of that through the generations. I know where they're coming from.”
Residential schools were a joint venture of churches and the federal government beginning in the late 1800s. Indian and Inuit children were taken from their homes, far from parental influence and traditional ways, to be educated according to non-native standards. There are stories of wonderful teachers and missionaries who treated the students with respect and encouraged their education. But there are many other stories of horrific physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered by young children, along with a steady erasure of language and culture that caused lingering trauma.
In a telling comment, prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald exposed the true intentions of residential schools when he wrote in 1887: “The great aim [is] to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with inhabitants of the Dominion, as speedily as they are fit for the change.” Debates rage over whether the attempt at assimilation was based on fear, ignorance or benevolence. Regardless, as hindsight shows, it didn't work.
“Their way of life was taken away,” says Folster, “and then to have the churches come in and take their children in the middle of the night — some never saw their parents again until they were 16. The sad thing is the mandate for the schools was to educate native people, but they even failed at that.
“My grandfather was in the Catholic residential school at Fort Alexander, Manitoba,” he explains. “I don't know exactly how they treated him there because he would not talk about it. I know that other students at that school were sexually abused. I do know that my grandfather developed an explosive temper which was like a person possessed by some kind of demon. My father was raised with that same uncontrollable, almost animal-like behaviour. When we misbehaved as children, my father would literally threaten our lives. I remember when my mother wanted to go to town, my father would reach for his rifle above the doorway and he would hold it against her head and all of my brothers and sisters and I would scream and cry until he put the gun down.
“I think we were affected emotionally, spiritually and mentally,” continues Folster, as his dark eyes settle on the passers-by beyond his street-front office window. “I have problems with relationships and with learning to love people and I don't know how to be affectionate and affirming. I had to go to counseling to deal with my own explosive temper. It was the way I learned to deal with things as a child.
“I have never called the residential school experience a legacy. I think it was a human venture and an attempt to educate people and it went terribly, terribly wrong and my people are now dying because of it.”
In Kenora, Ont., 95 per cent of people living on the streets are residential school survivors. The small town, whose population swells in the summer when vacationers and wealthy cottagers flock to its shores, is surrounded by reservations and still houses a remaining building from the Presbyterian Church's Cecilia Jeffrey Residential School.
On this cool May evening, the town's aboriginal community has gathered at the Ne-Chee Friendship Centre for the annual spring feast. Men beat on a large drum and sing traditional songs, women dance in jingle dresses, and a prayer of thanksgiving is offered to the Creator before dinner is served.
After a meal of battered fish, wild rice, berries and bannock, Jim Chicago, a residential school survivor who is now actively involved in homelessness initiatives in Kenora, sits down and tells his story. “Churches should teach their parishioners that it happened, and let them start their healing,” he says. Others in the room nod at the remembrance of being beaten for crying, and not knowing their own mother as they stepped off the train after finally being allowed to come home.
While he is speaking, Chicago's son wanders into the room. He is welcomed warmly, and is encouraged to sit down and listen to the discussion. It is in such circles — sitting amongst older family and friends while they talk about the past — where the next generation learns its most valuable lessons.
“What should churches do?” asks Chicago. “One word: nothing. Let natives do their own thing, practice their own ways. If the churches and government had allowed us to be 'savages' and 'Indians' then we'd still be here; we'd be allowed to practice our traditional ways.”
Whether it's here in Kenora or at Folster's mission in Saskatoon, many of the church's native ministries are struggling to keep their doors open. The issue is most often money, and many of those currently working in the church's aboriginal missions are frustrated that the Presbyterian Church seems to be shifting its focus away from their work.
“People on the front line see a crying need, and are wondering why the church is deliberately choosing to channel those resources to somewhere other than their ministries,” said Rev. George Yando, minister at Mistawasis, just outside of Prince Albert. “What would be wrong with channeling them through existing ministries? No one has given us a good answer.
“The national church gives a stipend and puts people there, but they're not given any tools. How do you make bricks with no straw?”
Just how much support the church gives is an issue that has drawn increasing criticism. The last two General Assemblies heard lengthy debates on the church's priorities when it comes to native ministries, with many commissioners calling for increased support.
The fuel that is firing the current debate is the church's new healing and reconciliation program called Walking Together — devised to help forge relationships between Presbyterian parishioners and aboriginal people following the fall-out from Indian residential schools. The idea originated with the Healing and Reconciliation Program Design Team and was approved by assembly last June.
The new program earmarked $400,000 for new initiatives and a one-year contract position for an animator who will help congregations and individuals reach out to aboriginal people and establish lasting relationships. Some of the PCC's native ministry personnel have called the animator's position “a hideous waste” of money, believing they could have put the money to better use in their under-funded and often under-staffed programs and could play an integral role in involving congregations in their work.
For its part, the church says it can't do any more. Gordon Haynes, associate secretary for Canada Ministries (the department responsible for funding native missions), said native ministries already receive nearly 23 per cent of the budget, making it the department's second-largest area of funding. And unless donations to Presbyterians Sharing increase, the amount given to native ministries will remain the same.
“I'm frustrated by hearing complaints of there being no money,” says Haynes, who wishes the church's native ministries could do more to promote the good work they do. “The needs are out there,” he admits, “but we also have to start new churches, fund inner-city missions and chaplaincies. I don't disagree with them, but we see it from different sides.”
The funds the ministries do receive are used to cover minister/director stipends, housing, rent and other incidental costs. The rest, said Haynes, has to fall to each ministry's board of directors, which should be staffed by people with fundraising interests who can find creative ways to drum up donations, government funding and congregational support. This policy is the same for other non-congregational missions supported by the department.
Aside from occasional grants for special projects and covering some expenses when directors go on deputation, Haynes says regular funding is based on personnel employed by the ministry, with grants covering anywhere from one to four people. He noted that presbyteries and synods should “take responsibility” in supporting and directing the missions that are within their bounds. Right now, he says, support varies, with some presbyteries giving money, others with members who sit on the ministries' boards of directors, and still others that have all but forgotten about their native ministries.
“Some are small and are overwhelmed,” says Haynes, “some have other priorities; others may not know how to do it. Fundraising is a new thing for presbyteries. There are different issues in different places.”
While those involved continue to wrestle over finances and responsibility, and congregations remain painfully slow to get involved, the people who rely on the ministries continue to struggle. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that helping aboriginal people along their healing journeys should be less about guilt or pitying those who attended residential schools, and more about what Christians are simply called to do.
“There are some very wounded people out there,” admits Haynes. “There is more need out there than the Presbyterian Church can ever hope to answer. The question is, what can we do and how can we do it well?”
I want to hold the church to the last sentence of its residential schools confession: the part that speaks of walking together,” says Rev. Margaret Mullin, Anishinabe's director, who accepts that the church has limited funds to give, but is frustrated by the new Healing and Reconciliation program. “Where is this happening?”
With the Ojibway name Thundering Eagle Woman, Mullin devotes endless hours to her ministry. Anishinabe regulars call her Reverend Margaret and those she's particularly close with call her Mom. With Ojibway blood on her mother's side, she has only recently begun to rediscover and re-claim her aboriginal heritage; something that was all but ignored when she was growing up. Her new-found pride for her traditions, customs, and her people has given Mullin the motivation to do all she can for the enhancement of her ministry.
And she is seeing the fruits of her persistent efforts. Outspoken and assertive, Mullin has been knocking on doors, writing letters and making phone calls to find alternative sources of funding for Winnipeg Inner City Mission, which was incorporated in 2003 as an umbrella organization representing Anishinabe and Flora House. Because of her ingenuity, the ministry has been able to increase their staff and programming. Her funding strategies have also made possible the $2.3-million Anishinabe Place of Hope, which will provide 20 housing units for single people ages 30 to 50 who have committed to changing their lives. It is to be completed in June.
“I haven't given up on the church,” said Mullin, who mentions the outreach WICM often receives from nearby congregations. “All of this stuff is really good and needed. But,” she adds, tears forming, “people are dying out here. The people I love don't have time for the church to catch up.”
Mullin's desire to “walk together” is what the PCC's new healing and reconciliation program is about — congregations and individuals being educated and given the tools to reach out, step out and make real connections with aboriginals in their communities.
This is what Lori Ransom is hoping for anyway. She's the person chosen to assume the new animator position, which falls under the church's Justice Ministries. She is a member of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, worked for Indian and Northern Affairs before joining the national office and is an elder at St. Andrew's, King Street, Toronto. This combination allows her to see the issues from various points of view. “I've had a few conversations with Lori, and I have the sense she wants to be sensitive to the issues,” said Shannon Bell-Wyminga, a minister with the Cariboo House Church Ministry.
Ransom sympathizes with the frustrations of her detractors, and is confident things will end well. “I'm not sure how much the average person in the pew knows about our native ministries,” she says, “and it is one of my hopes that with the increasing emphasis that the church as a whole is putting on aboriginal issues, it will lead to a greater understanding of what we're doing in our native ministries. It's not sufficient to just work directly with our native ministries to see real transformation in relationships. Non-aboriginal people need support in moving forward as well.”
The fact that Ransom only has a year in her contract to work towards her goals doesn't seem to faze her.
“One of the big emphases is to support local initiatives and get them going; to get stuff happening in the church at the ground level,” says Ransom, just days after moving into the national offices. “The goal is not to have this be one person or one team's ministry. The goal is to build a relationship with aboriginal people, and I hope this will be a catalyst for on-going action.”
Stephen Allen, who heads Justice Ministries, pointed out that the 2005 General Assembly made native ministries a priority, adopting a motion that healing and reconciliation issues should inform the work of every department of the Life and Mission Agency. The current program comes out of that focus. “I think it complements the work of native ministries,” says Allen. “This initiative is the third part of it.”
Allen highlights the work the church has been doing for decades on aboriginal issues in Canada, noting a statement made by church leaders back in 1987, when then-moderator Rev. Dr. J. Charles Hay covenanted to work towards constitutional recognition and protection of aboriginal self-government in this country on behalf of the PCC.
“My own read of the history of the church's recent efforts is not that things have been tried and failed,” says Ransom. “All the past efforts have been fruitful. The new ministry is a natural consequence of the faithful work of many who have gone before me.”
“In every gathering there is give and take,” says Rev. Rick Fee, general secretary of the Life and Mission Agency. “The important thing is to encourage people to keep offering their opinions so the best possible outcome can be reached.”
It is a fine balance finding this path and the ministries' role has not yet been fully defined.
“I'm not against focusing healing and reconciliation on Presbyterian congregations across the land,” says Rev. Henry Hildebrandt, director of the Kenora Fellowship Centre. “What we're trying to emphasize is that the missions themselves can be part of that awareness, but that doesn't seem to be the case.”
Mullin agrees. “We've already had the Journey to Wholeness,” she says, referring to the campaign launched in 1998 that raised money for healing initiatives. “The whole thing was about bringing the aboriginal message to the church. There were videos made, printed material mailed out, people visited presbyteries and participated in sharing circles. There are few people taking advantage of the material that is already there,” she adds, the frustrated tone rising in her voice. “People have heard; they just don't want to listen.”
People like Lenny McKay, the man formerly known as 'the Enforcer', are testaments to the work of native ministries and the difference that a few dedicated outreach workers can make.
“I just walked in one day and the rest is history,” says McKay, referring to that fateful day about five years ago when he first visited Anishinabe. “I wanted to change my life I guess.”
It is a complicated life to leave behind. “Guys come after me because they want to make a name for themselves to get into a rival gang,” says McKay, who now helps maintain the Anishinabe building where he meets again people from his former life, this time as somebody who can provide them some help.
Admitting that Mullin's words on forgiveness during Sunday worship make him think about issues of faith, McKay continues to work out for himself what redemption is all about. He knows that others are still struggling to leave a life of crime and hopelessness, and searching for someone who will help them find their own path to healing.
“In a way, I'm trying to make up for it. I don't know if I ever will, but I'm trying.”
