Canada

My favourite part of my job is leading the Blanket Exercise. I love seeing a light go on for people as they learn parts of Canadian history that they never learned in school and realize how we came to the broken place we are today. I love learning from participants in the sharing circle afterwards, especially when they speak about Indigenous people that they know. I love how it helps our intellectual, brainy denomination to learn with our hearts as well.

Under this red dress is a sign that reads “Who is She?” It is this sign that truly compelled me to read about and pray for the people who are represented by these red dresses that many Canadians have seen in their cities over the past few month.

Over the years, God has placed ministry to and with the First Nations peoples on the hearts of several people in our congregation (Emo Christian Reformed Church). As a direct result of our involvement with God’s Great Outdoors, three men from our congregation asked the question, “How can we have a shared ministry with the First Nations people living all around us?” Last winter, Larry, Richard, and Dan contacted Adrian Snowball, one of the Elders of the Naicatchewenin people, living at Northwest Bay Reserve.

There is a lie that our culture continually perpetuates. It is the lie that life is only as valuable as its circumstances. We see it in films or books that romanticize assisted suicide and euthanasia, that reduce abortion to a decision over whether one can afford a child, or that imply that people with disabilities are burdens, or that some people are more violent than others because of their race or ethnicity. These lies are deeply offensive on a variety of levels, but they are also all around us.

I personally witnessed my assistant superintendent wipe tears from her eyes as she watched video footage of survivors speaking. That powerful learning significantly shifted the culture of our school.

I’ve cried a lot this Advent. Watching video clips of Syrian refugees arriving in the Toronto airport gets me every time. (Watch this one from Vancouver. I dare you to stay dry-eyed.) I watch them with awe; I still can’t quite believe that Canada has done such a 180 degree turn and chosen to welcome more than 25,000 of these beautiful children of God.

We’re happy to say that we’ve rarely been more hopeful after almost a decade of partnership, research, education, mobilization, and advocacy for reconciliation and justice.We’re happy to say that we’ve rarely been more hopeful after almost a decade of partnership, research, education, mobilization, and advocacy for reconciliation and justice.We’re happy to say that we’ve rarely been more hopeful after almost a decade of partnership, research, education, mobilization, and advocacy for reconciliation and justice.

To me, being pro-life means lamenting the disproportionate number of Indigenous women who are missing and murdered. 

As a Canadian living in Latin America, I would like Canada to be more known in the region for its donuts than for harmful foreign policy. Now is a good time to ask for change that upholds the right to a dignified life for all. 

Could the long, slow work of voting and political action be thought of as a spiritual discipline?