Canada

“Grace is bad arithmetic”--famous words from my pastor Dave Vroege in a sermon just over a year ago. He continued, explaining how grace is nonsense.

“Grace is bad arithmetic.”

Nonsense! Why? Because it is given to us regardless of whether we want it or not.

I’ve always understood grace to be an action word. An invitation on how to behave and act. It’s the absence of anger and the presence of love and peacefulness.

Hard words to hold when one is full of rage.

From the very beginning of God’s walk with his people, the blessings they enjoyed because of their relationship with God were meant to overflow. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” God promised Abraham.

We're excited to welcome Jeremiah Damir Bašurić as a Do Justice columnist! Jeremiah lives in Edmonton, where he pastors a multi-cultural Reformed church plant called mosaicHouse Church, works at The Mustard Seed, and hikes with his wife Sarah. 

Ever since I realized my name was in the Bible, I wanted to get acquainted with the book and the prophet Jeremiah. I read Jeremiah 4:23-27 the other day looking for inspiration:  

During the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission it was often said that the journey of reconciliation is long. Colonialism has a long and lasting legacy that requires continual commitment to the hard work of reconciliation. Therefore, we urge you today to continue the work as a matter of honouring God’s image in Indigenous people in Canada, to keep striving towards the high bar that Christ set for us: that we become reconcilers, following the example of the Great Reconciler, Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:11-21).

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Why not use the month of February to further expose yourself to not only the accomplishments and achievement of Black Canadians, but also the past and present struggles of our community? It may give you a deeper appreciation for why some of us value the month-long party.

I've gathered a list of films, books, historical figures, key locations, and more. Let's dig in!

About 700 women die each year in the U.S. as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications.¹ This rate of pregnancy-related death is higher in the United States than the rates in other industrialized nations.

But when the time came for her to leave the community, she didn’t want to leave. Not only did she not want to deliver alone far from her community, but she also had 5 young children that she didn’t want to leave behind. I remember the daily stress of worrying that she would deliver the babies before leaving the community.

This is the first post in Pro-Mama, a 4-part series reflecting on God's gift of life in the first 1000 days of a baby's life--from conception to age 2.

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Eager “hellos” rang in my ears as I greeted my Fulani friends. I had been absent for over a year during which I gave birth to my third child, a daughter, with a midwife in a birthing center.

The Coastal Link pipeline and the planned Kitimat LNG terminal was heralded as the biggest private sector investment in the history of Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau and B.C. Premier Horgan celebrated this investment milestone in a major news conference in October 2018 as an example of getting resource and economic development right - in collaboration with resource and pipeline companies and First Nations along the route.   

Last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested peaceful participants of a blockade of a road on traditional Wet'suwet'en nation  territory, based on an injunction order that was issued last month to TransCanada Pipelines. The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs were blocking access to the land because they have not given their consent to the natural gas pipeline, or two other proposed pipelines coming through their lands. The land is unceded by the Wetsu’wet’en.