215

This past week I have cried often. As I shared in our service last Sunday, the horrific news of remains of 215 Indigenous children being found at a residential school in Kamloops is devastating.

We must weep. 
We must mourn.
We must consider the gravity. 
We must pray. 
We must learn.
We must listen. 

As our Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (CPC's fellowship of churches) General Superintendent David Wells said earlier this week, we must "revisit sins of the past, as though they happened just today." 

This week Laura and I have been privileged to speak with several people within our CPC family with Indigenous backgrounds in order to listen, care, pray and learn. One woman told us about her aunt who died at a residential school in eastern Canada. She showed us a black and white photo. Another woman told me about the immense pain and anger her family has had to revisit over the past week. Last week's news doesn't just impact Kamloops, or other sites of former residential schools. There is impact in our community and in our church. Let's not kid ourselves, racial sins and divides exist in our Comox Valley. On one phone call this week I was told of wounding racial comments the individual has heard made to them in our community.  No matter how subtle or severe, each comment --and each unspoken racially divisive view harboured within-- is damnable.

The implications command a response from each one of us. 

2 Corinthians 5.18 says that God has given us the "ministry of reconciliation." This mandate was not given to a denomination, church, or church leaders, but to each one of you and I. You have the ministry of reconciliation. It is one of the hallmarks of our faith. 

So, as your pastor, can I ask you: What can you, no, what will you do to contribute toward healing and reconciliation in our community? 

Pastor Mike