When they got the call to go to the remote Cariboo-Chilcotin region of British Columbia, they hesitated. Rev. Shannon Bell-Wyminga and her husband Rev. Jon Wyminga had always thought they were destined for ministry in the inner city. Instead, they got dense bush, deep snow and long drives between house churches.
Iroquois peoples, the Haudenosaunee, members of the Six Nations Confederacy, entered into some of the earliest treaties in North America with European settlers. These treaties were recorded symbolically in wampum belts. The Guswenta wampum belt of 1692 records the treaty known as the Covenant Chain. A silver covenant chain was fashioned with three links representing peace, friendship and forever — the key concepts of the treaty.
Before settling in Calgary, Marple served on several summer mission fields in various provinces, and three different pastoral charges in Nova Scotia. He has been moderator of presbytery and of the Synod of the Atlantic Provinces and is presently clerk of the Presbytery of Calgary-Macleod. He has served on a number of presbytery, synod and General Assembly committees including a Rural Ministry Consultation, the Senate of Knox College and Assembly Council. He has been active in areas of social justice including advocacy for refugees as well as being involved in the establishment of a local chapter of KAIROS in Calgary. Ecumenically minded, Marple has always been involved in inter-church relations. He currently serves as president of the Calgary Council of Churches and is a Presbyterian representative on Calgary’s Muslim-Christian Dialogue.
I stood on the Saskatchewan prairie on a silent, crystal winter day. Rev. Stewart Folster had brought Montreal visitors to the Wanuskewin Heritage Park just north of Saskatoon. We had seen the videos and mock tipis and eaten bison burgers and wild rice salad. We had heard the songs and stories of people seeking shelter and sustenance in this place for 6,000 years. We had seen the massive stones waiting patiently, and felt the spirit of this ancient place.
Burrrrrrr! Where did that cold come from?” I was just in from a foray into the frozen expanses of our lakefront lot to a steaming hot cup of Linda's coffee. “It's -30 Celsius out there! How can a winter that has been so unseasonably warm turn on us like this … and so close to spring too?”
Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, DeWolfe was ordained in 1983, and has served numerous congregations since that time, including two ordained missionary appointments at Knox Listowel, and in a team ministry in Palmerston and Drayton with his wife, Rev. Janet Allan DeWolfe. He came to his current charge in 1999. For the past seven years, he has also served as Lecturer in Homiletics at the Atlantic School of Theology.
The Presbyterian Church has its very own ambitious, aggressive human rights activist in David Kilgour, a member of parliament from 1979 to 2006, who has advocated for global social justice and peace issues throughout his time in public office. On a recent 10-country European tour he drew attention to the alleged organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners in China. Along with human rights lawyer David Matas, Kilgour conducted a two month investigation into this practice, uncovering evidence that Falun Gong practitioners (a banned spiritual movement in China with about 70 million members and founded in 1992) are being wrongfully imprisoned, killed and harvested for their vital organs which are sold to local and foreign patients.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” He said “Put your hand into the hand of God; it shall be to you better than a light, and safer than the known way.”
According to a native adage, you have to walk a mile in another person's moccasins before you can understand them. No one said how far you have to walk to understand their pain if you take their moccasins away. • Our cover story, Sharing the Pain, is an attempt to reveal some of the pain caused by residential schools and some of the ways the church is trying to address it.
1866 Work begins among aboriginal peoples led by Rev. James Nisbet. 1875 The Presbyterian Church in Canada is formed. In 1876, the Women’s Foreign Mission […]
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.
The scene is nothing new for Rev. Stewart Folster. On the street outside his small downtown Saskatoon location, the blue and red lights of a police car are flashing once again. Some sort of physical altercation has just taken place; apparently a scruffy-looking man struck a woman as she walked past him and his dog. Various versions of the story are fed to the officer; the man denies the charges. A crowd gathers.
The present practice of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is to place retired ministers of Word and Sacrament on the appendix to the roll of presbyteries. As members on the appendix to the roll these persons have the right to speak on matters before the court but do not have the privilege of moving or seconding motions or of voting.
What we need is to find a way that we can offer all of these programs in one place,” said Rev. Stewart Folster, who became one of the PCC's earliest Native ministers when he was ordained in 1996. He is currently the director of Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry. “We need a healing centre in all major centres of Canada that offers addiction services, parenting and life skills, Native spirituality, Bible study, shelter, worship, child care, help with education and employment, with Native elders on staff as well as counsellors, therapists, parish social workers, and native artists to help in therapy. It needs government, church and aboriginal cooperation.”
ENI – Australia's religious communities have united to call for urgent action on climate change at a time when the country is facing its worst drought.
ENI – Church officials say the resurgence of ethnic fighting in Sri Lanka has stalled the tsunami reconstruction. “The situation is very frustrating,” said Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, general secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka.
At the close of a service, I was shaking hands and greeting members. I was delighted to hear in words what I have felt as I visited in many of the congregations within our church. The member said to me, “Since our new minister came a few years ago I wish everyday was Sunday so that I could come to church.” I could tell from the look on his face how sincere he was.
Smoking cigarettes, it is said in advertising and on pamphlets, is the most preventable cause of death. It's an absurd statement of course: there is no way to prevent death; unless you take the virgin birth route. And I wouldn't suggest anyone take that path too lightly, the responsibility is too heavy.
ENI – Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has urged his government to reconsider a decision to close its borders to refugees from neighbouring strife-torn Somalia. “At times of emergency, it is important to be humanitarian,” said Nzimbi after the January announcement by the government that it was closing its border with Somalia and deporting refugees who had crossed to Kenya. “We should not allow them to remain where they will be killed,” said Nzimbi.
Cynthia Chenard spent her formative years in Manila, Philippines, where her parents were missionaries. She worked as a radio announcer and a teacher prior to entering pastoral ministry. Ordained in 1991, she served West St. Andrew’s in St. Catharines and First Church in St. David’s, Ontario, before moving to Iona in 1996. Serving also as a police chaplain for the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police, Chenard was a front line pastoral presence during the Swissair tragedy and its aftermath.