On Saturday October 29th, 16 people came together to participate in an educational workshop, including; St. James and St. John’s Anglican church members, the Village Church of the Nazarene members, one citizen, 2 PWRDF facilitators, and one Mohawk young man from Kahnawake.
In the workshop, entitled “Mapping the Ground We Stand On” we learned, shared and reflected on historical facts that were new to us, such as the Doctrine of Discovery which the Europeans used to justify claiming land in North America. We learned that there were nearly 800 different tribes in Canada when Europeans first arrived. The Land was definitely not empty. It was a hard but enlightening afternoon.
I would like to thank Pastor Randy Barrington, Ali Boyle, and Roberto Rubio from the Village Church of the Nazarene for their collaboration as well as PWRDF facilitators Karen Luyendyk and Audrey Lawrence, for their help in planning the event and Ohontsakehte Montour who opened, participated in and closed the workshop.
And I would like to thank all the other participants who were willing to take a risk, be vulnerable, see the past differently, form new relationships and who now plan to share this knowledge with others.
