‘Walking together, doing things together’
Although the focus was on the Roman Catholic Church when the Pope visited Canada in late July, Mennonites also have a role to play in promoting reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in this country. That’s the view of Norman Meade, 78, an Anglican minister and Métis elder-in-residence at the University of Manitoba, who directed the Aboriginal…
MCC volunteers worked at boarding school being probed
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) supported an Indigenous boarding home that is under investigation by the Saskatchewan RCMP. The Mounties say a complaint was made in 2020 about a death that potentially occurred at the Timber Bay Children’s Home at Montreal Lake, Sask., in 1974. At the time, the home was operated by the Brethren in…
An Indigenous woman’s journey and advice to Mennonites
She was born Danielle Dubois and placed in foster care at age three. She stayed in five different foster homes until, shortly before her fifth birthday, the Loewen family adopted her and gave her a new name. Now known as Theresa Loewen, she grew up on a farm west of Saskatoon and says she “was…
‘A monument for our resilience’
Janet Bauman recently participated in a 45-minute virtual tour of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont., with other people from St. Jacobs Mennonite Church; it fit in with the congregation’s worship series on unlearning racism. Carley Gallant-Jenkins, who currently works as the Save the Evidence coordinator for the Woodland Cultural Centre, served…
Building relationships with residential school survivors
“It’s personal, there are names and faces. It’s not just textbook information now.” That’s how Timothy Khoo, 16, describes what it was like to meet residential school survivors while volunteering with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) at the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford in July. Khoo was one of 13 youth and leaders from…
A must-see for all Canadians
Only in the last decade has the extent of Canada’s mistreatment of its Indigenous peoples been widely recognized. The most horrific example of this mistreatment was the residential school system that saw 150,000 Indigenous children taken from their families in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them into white Christian culture by driving out Indigenous…
How complicit are Mennonites in Residential School Abuse?
As the Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners begin their five-year sojourn across Canada to hear the stories of those who suffered under the Indian Residential School (IRS) system, Mennonites may well ask if or how they should be involved in this process. It was the Roman Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches that entered into a…
