Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / A Settler's Path to Indigenous Reconciliation | Revisiting Our Conversation with Lyn Dyck

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A Settler's Path to Indigenous Reconciliation | Revisiting Our Conversation with Lyn Dyck · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

0:02
Hello. Johan here. Welcome back to Journey with Care. We're continuing our
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replay series as we count down to our exciting season 4
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launch on Feb. 14. Mark your calendars. The podcast
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is going with a new format, and this is a series that you won't wanna
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miss. And for those of you that like that sort of thing, there will be
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a new podcast cover and theme music, of course. So make sure you tune
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in to listen to what that's gonna be. But today, we're
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revisiting a powerful conversation from season two where Wendy sits
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down with Lynn Dick, executive director of the Evangelical
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Mennonite Mission Conference. Lynn shares his family's journey of
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fostering indigenous children and building authentic cross cultural
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relationships. Together, they'll explore what it means to be a settled stranger in
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Canada and how we can move forward in reconciliation through genuine relationships
0:49
rather than quick fixes. This is from the series loving the stranger
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among us. It was 1 of the most listened to episodes of that season.
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So whether this is your first time listening or you're listening for a
1:01
second time, you'll be sure to get lots out of this episode with some
1:04
timeless reminders of what it means to be a settled stranger. So let's dive into
1:08
this meaningful conversation with Wendy and Lynn.
1:13
Welcome to Journey with Care. We're in our series, Loving the Stranger Among Us. And
1:17
today, we're diving into a topic that you might find really relatable. We're
1:21
talking about the settled stranger. I don't know if you've been following along.
1:25
I hope you have. We have been talking about love and fear,
1:29
stranger danger. We had Rahadi in, for our intro episode,
1:33
and I encourage you to make sure you listen to those. But today, we're
1:36
talking about the settled stranger, white settlers, those with European
1:40
descent. And in studio today, we have Lynn Dick to talk about it
1:44
from his perspective. Lynn, welcome to the podcast.
1:48
Thank you. Glad to be here. So good to have you here. We've had
1:52
some conversations in the past in this Shasta. For those who
1:55
don't know where we are located, I have an office, a podcast
1:59
studio, and we are, yes, in Winnipeg, Winnipeg, and
2:03
there's snow right around us, and you braved it. You're still in the studio, so
2:06
welcome back. Absolutely. Glad to be here. We've had some really
2:10
interesting conversations in the past, but before we dive right into what it
2:14
means to be a settled stranger in the land of Turtle Island,
2:18
I want to just give you an opportunity to introduce yourself.
2:21
So my name is Lindec. I'm married to my wife, Jennifer. We've been married for
2:25
the last thirty three years. Currently, I am in the role of
2:29
executive director for the EMMC, Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference.
2:33
But 1 of the things that I'm probably most proud about
2:37
is the family that I have. And we are, we're a blended
2:40
family. Tell me more. I have, 2 older
2:44
daughters, and now 1 son-in-law who has just entered into
2:48
the family. I am. Congratulations. It's a boy. It's a boy, a
2:51
bouncing baby boy. So they are our first daughters,
2:55
you would say. And then in addition to that, we have 2 foster
2:58
daughters who are 10 and 13, who have been with us for
3:02
the majority of their lives. Our 13 year old came to us when she was
3:05
a day old, and our 10 year old has been with us for six years.
3:09
So we are tremendously blessed by them.
3:12
They are indigenous. So we get to, we get to
3:16
learn many different things from each other and with each other. So that's
3:20
been a lot of fun. And think that's why our conversations have gone
3:24
on over these years because you have been wrestling or you have been
3:27
walking through this path of what it does it mean to be
3:31
white evangelical, welcoming children
3:35
that are of indigenous descent in your home? And can you
3:39
tell me a little bit of what it's meant for you to walk into that
3:42
path, into choosing to foster in the first place,
3:46
choosing to foster indigenous children. And
3:50
some would say it's it could be controversial or there there must have been a
3:54
lot going on your mind to to bring you down that path. I also wanna
3:57
just say beforehand why I love having these
4:00
conversations with you is because there's some integrity in how you are wrestling
4:04
through it. But what brought you down that path? Can you tell us what that
4:08
path looked like? Yeah. We got into into fostering about fifteen
4:11
years ago. At the time, we had what we thought was the
4:15
perfect little family, right? It was myself and my wife and our 2
4:18
daughters. And my wife had actually just in the last
4:22
couple of years at that time gone back into the workforce,
4:26
Right? Our kids were old enough to be in school and, she became an
4:30
EA. And she loved the work that she was doing there. She was often
4:34
working with people who had difficulties learning disabilities
4:37
and stuff like that. And it was right about that time that there was
4:41
getting to be more stuff in the news about the plight of
4:45
children who were in care and often finding
4:49
that there weren't enough people who were able to take care of children
4:53
that were in care. And she started to come home and just say,
4:57
Lynn, I think this is something that we gotta do. And I was
5:01
a bit of a tough nut to crack because I was like, man, we're in
5:04
a good place right now. Like, right? What is this going to mean if we're
5:08
going to bring in other children into our
5:11
home? But eventually we started to do some respite, right, to give
5:15
other parents some time, some breaks. And, you know, we did
5:19
that. That was almost like getting into the child welfare system with
5:23
training wheels on, right? We can do this,
5:26
but we'll do it for a weekend and then we go right back to
5:30
life as we knew it, Right? But in time, you
5:34
know, and especially the way that it tugged at my wife's heart,
5:38
she just continued to come back and say, I think I need to quit
5:41
my job and this needs to be what we do. This needs to become a
5:45
ministry that we do. So that's what we ended
5:48
up doing. So your path into fostering was through respite, and
5:52
you got a feel and and, obviously, it tugged on your heart
5:56
that maybe this is something that I could offer in a parenting
6:00
role and and provide a safe and nurturing home. How was
6:04
that leap from just general fostering to
6:07
going cross cultural? With indigenous people being overrepresented
6:11
in the child welfare system, what was it like for you to
6:15
to go there? Well, that was actually fairly
6:19
intentional on our part. When we looked at getting involved with
6:22
fostering, we felt that we were being led to do this
6:26
with indigenous people, with indigenous kids, because we saw such a such
6:30
a great need there. And we wanted to learn.
6:34
We already were looking at it at that time already. There's
6:38
gotta be something to this. There's gotta be something that
6:42
we as, like now we're learning the term as settlers,
6:46
but that we can do to start to build some of
6:49
this reconciliation. Right? This was before the TRC was
6:53
even a thing. But we just felt like God was saying to
6:57
us, You guys gotta put yourself out there and do something like this.
7:01
So when we had our first placement,
7:05
it was like trial by fire. We had a 2
7:09
year old little guy that came to be with us, and he
7:12
was just, wow. He was
7:16
like, he was a whirlwind, right? Like he came in and
7:20
energy galore. He had some disabilities
7:24
that arose from being FAS. So he was ADHD
7:28
and different kind of things like that. And, you know, when you
7:31
first go into some of these things, you have this idyllic thing of, oh,
7:35
we're gonna really, we're
7:39
just gonna love the child and it's all gonna be wonderful. And
7:43
it was like, oh my goodness. We started to
7:46
say that, you know, this little guy was our spiritual
7:50
exercise. Right? And if you think about it, when you think of doing
7:54
any kind of exercise, if you want to build a muscle to get stronger, you
7:57
put resistance to it. Right? What do we learn through different trials?
8:01
How do we learn to be resilient in another area?
8:05
And that was what we were learning here. We were learning
8:08
something here. We were learning about a family, about a
8:12
situation. We got to be his parents for three and a
8:16
half years until he was able to transition back to
8:19
be with his mother and with his other brothers and sisters.
8:23
It was a really neat process. And did you learn a lot about
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his indigeneity, in that process? Mhmm. I
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mean, 1 of the things that it allowed us to do was to become part
8:34
of the community. We got to learn and get to know the
8:37
social workers who the majority of them were Indigenous. We
8:41
get to learn about his community that he was part of, go to the
8:45
celebrations, to the powwows. Because 1 of the things that we wanted to
8:48
make sure was we didn't want, I hope this
8:52
sounds not too strange, but we didn't want him to become white. We
8:56
wanted him to be able to be part of,
9:00
you know, our lives, but to gain an understanding
9:04
of who he was, what his heritage was,
9:08
and that he could be proud of that to to help him to learn those
9:12
things. And in the process, we were learning as well. And you just
9:16
have a deeper appreciation and respect Oh. For the people
9:19
of the land. Right? Yep. And I think that's beautiful, just what you
9:23
said here. It wasn't about extracting them. It was about how do
9:27
we help them be proud of who they are and what is our
9:30
role. Because some people would say it's controversial to
9:34
enter into foster care, particularly with indigenous
9:38
children. It's just the new residential school system.
9:42
Now there's a lot of things we could talk about that. It's it's it
9:45
isn't perfect. However, that's not the heart that you
9:49
came into this as a white settler. We should
9:52
add you're living in Southern Manitoba, which is predominantly
9:57
Mennonite land, settlers that came by
10:01
invitation to the treaty land, the treaties that were
10:05
broken, settled in that land. And so tell me
10:08
a little bit more. What was that like having a
10:12
multicultural family with indigenous children in your family
10:16
and going to church, going to school, being that family that is
10:20
maybe growing that muscle at a more faster speed than
10:23
others around you. Can you tell me the highs and lows of that?
10:27
Yeah. I think some of those things, we're just very thankful
10:31
that we had a community and we had a church
10:34
that came around us in support very
10:38
quickly. But we also saw that it was a
10:41
community and a church that was willing to learn about
10:45
the children that we brought into our home. At times, there were
10:49
times when people would say things that you just kinda, Oh, boy.
10:53
There's a little bit of grace that we got to give you here. Because
10:57
sometimes people can assume that if you are a foster parent, they're just temporary
11:01
kids. For us, they were never temporary
11:04
kids. Even though we knew that at times we would have some children
11:08
for six months, we'd have some children for a year and a half or something
11:12
like that, we couldn't do this well if we didn't see
11:15
ourselves as their parents, right, if we didn't love them the same way
11:19
as we loved our bio kids. So that was
11:23
something. Because we've been doing this now for about fifteen years,
11:27
we have been blessed by being in a school system where we actually have
11:31
a school that our kids are able to go to that's a K-eight school.
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And the thing that we have just found to be so special
11:38
with that school is as they do
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any kind of teaching or anything like that, they ask us
11:45
whether our children would be willing to share a little bit of their
11:49
lives, helping people to understand what it
11:53
means when you say that you're Anishinaabe or when you say that you're
11:57
Ojibwe. What does that mean? For the kids in our area, just like you
12:00
said, many of them are are white settlers, but they're starting to
12:04
become more and more newcomers from other lands that are coming into
12:08
Canada now as well. 1 of the things that I often see from our kids
12:12
is while they understand that they have this history that
12:15
is a little bit different than some of the other kids, They don't wanna be
12:19
treated as different. And that is something that we
12:22
have noticed with the school that we are part of. The teachers,
12:26
the kids, the way that they come around our kids
12:30
and befriend them, and they are able to be
12:34
just who they are. And I imagine that would take some
12:37
intentionality on the part of school, on the part of yourselves
12:42
in a predominantly white area. There are other
12:45
indigenous people. There your children are not alone in that. 1 of
12:49
the topics that we will be having in our series, and I'll be talking with
12:52
a neighbor of mine, is the estranged indigenous
12:56
person. It's interesting. It's ironic, actually, that we're we're
13:00
talking about the estranged indigenous who are
13:04
of this land but often feel othered. And so we're gonna
13:07
hear firsthand from somebody that has had
13:11
experience of feeling othered, and it it takes intentionality
13:15
to change that for this next generation. Yep. So I imagine
13:19
though as your children are finding their
13:22
belonging in the school system and you are learning with
13:26
them because you are their primary caregivers.
13:30
You are learning with them who they are Mhmm. And and who
13:34
they represent and the things they can be proud of.
13:38
1 of the things that we have tried to do, and I think, you
13:41
know, my wife, Jennifer, has done a really good job at
13:45
this, which is to be their number 1 fan, but also to be their advocate
13:49
when it comes to looking at their learning plans, looking at what can we
13:52
do to ensure that they can come out with the best learning
13:56
that they can. Because sometimes with some of
14:00
the disabilities that they may have, if you just meet
14:04
them, you may think 1 thing, or you may have, some
14:07
people may even have a stereotype about, oh, well,
14:11
this is them. Right? And yet we have to
14:14
continually say, No. Some of these things, their shyness,
14:19
they at times aren't going to tell you exactly what's going on
14:23
in their life. That doesn't mean that they're trying to push you away or anything
14:26
like that. That means that you just need to spend a little bit more time
14:29
because you'll know once you get into their circle. You'll know when
14:33
you're in. And when you're in, they know that they can trust
14:36
you. Right? Yeah. I'd love to ask you another question in
14:40
a little different vein here. How have you
14:44
learned about your roots, and what would you say your
14:48
relation to the land is here in Canada?
14:51
Mhmm. So for myself, I have been a guy. I've always
14:55
enjoyed history. I've been fascinated by
14:58
some of the books that I have, even on my family, where I'm
15:02
able to see back into, right back into where
15:06
they were in Europe, where they got pushed from 1 land to
15:10
another land, to the point where they were eventually invited
15:13
to come to Canada to start to settle and to
15:17
do agriculture and stuff like that within our land. So that has
15:20
always fascinated me. I even live in a house that has that
15:24
kind of history. It's 1 of the first houses that was built.
15:28
It's 1 of these old house barn combination houses. And I
15:32
often think as because it's quite original on the inside.
15:36
And I often wonder as I look at the different, at the walls and
15:40
stuff like that and go, what stories could these things tell?
15:44
Because the Mennonites who did come over, they came, most of them came over,
15:47
many of them, I should say, came over in 1874. My
15:51
family, my wife's family, they all came over at about the same time,
15:55
began to settle and to start to build their lives and stuff like that.
15:59
My findings, though, are that some of the
16:02
things that we're learning today about what was
16:06
done with the land, with the treaties, with many of those
16:10
things, I'm not sure that many of the people at
16:14
the time really had any idea. Their intent when they came from
16:17
Europe over to here was to build a better life for themselves.
16:22
They were concerned about being part of military
16:25
conscription. They were concerned about the government being involved in
16:29
their lives, in their churches, in their schools. They wanted to be able to teach
16:32
and do those kind of things themselves. So once they
16:36
came here, they were actually largely very separate from what the government
16:40
did or wanted or anything like that. And they were what is often
16:44
termed deemed to be the quiet in the land. Right?
16:48
Yeah. And yet it's interesting as we we dig into it. Yeah. You're right.
16:51
There's a lot of my ancestry also came through the
16:55
same same ships. Right? Same ships. There was a lot of
16:59
naivety, but also yet they were
17:02
complicit with what the government was doing in taking the land.
17:06
And there was shared power in owning
17:10
land. The very first owners of land, of this
17:14
treaty land that was sectioned off square by square.
17:17
And they were prospering off the land, and they
17:21
were very I should say they. We, our our ancestry
17:25
was very proud of our ancestry and keeping to ourselves. So there
17:29
was a a quiet, humble pride, so to
17:33
speak, in keeping to ourselves and yet prospering
17:37
and benefiting. And and often, from the
17:40
stories I've heard from my own family, there was innate
17:43
racism that was passed on generation to
17:47
generation that thought of what the
17:51
government thought of Terra Nullius. Mhmm. Right? And when we look
17:55
at the the TRC or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there's a whole
17:58
section there, relating to the church, talking to
18:02
the church, calls to action, inviting the church. And when we often think
18:06
of the TRC, we often think of something more political or
18:09
something out there, maybe the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans and The United the the
18:13
ones that were the early people influencing government and taking place
18:17
in government, and we weren't those. Right? We were we were just kinda kept to
18:20
ourselves. However, I'd love to read the call to
18:23
action number 49 that is addressing the church and how we as
18:27
as Anabaptists also are complicit to these calls to action as
18:31
well. We call upon all religious denominations and
18:34
faith groups who have not already done so to repudiate concepts
18:38
used to justify European sovereignty, that's what we were just
18:42
relating to, over indigenous lands and peoples,
18:46
such as the doctrine of discovery in terra nullius.
18:50
So the doctrine of discovery and the concept of terra nullius was
18:54
an international law at that time of colonization. So this was
18:58
sort of the atmosphere that our people too who came from Europe that that
19:01
had migrated different places. They lived in this concept because they
19:05
were white, because they were of European descent. They would have had
19:09
that concept of terra nullius with indoctrinated within them. It
19:12
was international law, the time of colonization here on Turtle
19:16
Island, which we refer to as this whole body of North America
19:20
referred to as Turtle Island, and it provided a legal and moral
19:23
framework that allowed European Christians to
19:27
dispossess and lay claim to land on
19:31
the presumption of racial superiority. That's a harsh thing for me
19:35
to to even say on on something like this because it's not who
19:38
I have understood myself to be in my ancestry because
19:42
I think there there is a lot of good, but racial superiority over
19:46
indigenous peoples. And so I don't see it so much as
19:50
a I'm not racist as an individual, but just a systemic racism
19:54
that we, as Anabaptist people, have been complicit in,
19:58
and that's touchy. Have you had conversations
20:01
within your leadership roles or within
20:05
your church experience, within your community that is largely,
20:09
Mennonite? Have you had experiences where people don't
20:13
wanna talk about it? Or it's it's a harsh thing to to come to
20:17
terms with? I think when we when we look at some of these
20:20
things, and I think you you kinda nailed it when you said these are
20:24
these are things that are systemic. Like, these are things that with some
20:28
of the first immigrants that would have come over, this is what they would have
20:31
understood. And I think we have to take that personally because there
20:35
are things in our own lives that we come to learn that are
20:39
revealed to us that make us kind of go, oh boy, some of the things
20:42
that I said or did fifteen, twenty years ago, I've
20:45
learned differently now. And I think that's the same thing that happens
20:49
within our people as well. I can vividly remember
20:53
conversations that grandparents would have said that
20:57
today would have made me cringe, but that was what
21:00
they knew. That was what they understood. It's not an excuse, but that's
21:04
where they were at at that time. And that I think is what we as
21:07
a people need to continue to do, which is to learn and to grow.
21:11
But now as you come to new learning, new understanding,
21:15
it's like, what are we gonna do differently from here on
21:18
in? My wife, Jennifer, was reminding me of a course
21:22
that I think it was last year that she had been in, learning more about
21:26
Indigenous history and how that intersected
21:30
with we as settlers when we came. And the
21:34
person that was teaching it or was leading it was saying, you know,
21:37
we have to get to the point where we're not trying to solve the thing.
21:41
That's actually not what we're trying to do. You can't fix it. You can't go
21:44
back and fix it, but we can grieve it. But can we grieve it
21:48
together? Right? It's not just white people grieve this thing
21:52
for what you did. It's like, no, actually, there's stuff that
21:56
we need to work on together here. Right? Can we
21:59
grieve it? Can we live together in it? Can we care for each
22:03
other? And then let's figure out a way of moving forward. Right?
22:07
Yeah. And it's not about beating ourselves up,
22:11
and shaming has never brought great growth. No.
22:15
It it actually causes us to retreat. In last episode, we talked about the love
22:18
and the fear parts of our brain. We want to go into that
22:22
prefrontal cortex, that ability to love, to reason, to to be in there
22:26
and not live in fear. Like, oh, if I say something wrong,
22:29
then whatever. It it's about learning. I love that you you
22:33
mentioned learning. It's having that growth mindset. It it's about
22:37
repentance in the truest sense of turning away and
22:40
doing a one eighty from what now what that I know, bringing into
22:44
consciousness. Now that I know these things that are happening or
22:48
now that I know that I have assumed power in the room or
22:51
now that I know that these things have happened in in my past,
22:55
these are some actionable things I can move forward. It's about
22:59
moving forward in a good way. What are some things that you would
23:02
suggest for our listeners that are good actionable steps that helped
23:06
you along on this journey, that are helping you along this
23:09
journey as you foster, but also as you just
23:13
lead, many churches through this?
23:17
I think 1 of the things that I would say is make it personal. For
23:20
1 of our foster daughters, her her stepbrother had passed
23:24
away last year. So our foster daughter's bio
23:27
dad had asked her to be at the funeral, at the wake, and
23:31
also said that it would be okay for Jennifer to be there along
23:35
with. Jennifer wanted to make sure that this was okay with the social
23:39
workers and stuff like that. And they said, Yeah, it's okay if the family is
23:42
okay with it. Jennifer, wanting to be respectful of what was
23:46
happening and stuff like that, she held herself back. She kind of stayed at the
23:50
back of the room and didn't want to get in the way
23:54
or anything like that. Our foster daughter's grandma, as
23:57
well as her dad, looked over at Jennifer and said, Why are you standing back
24:01
there? They
24:04
said, You're family. You need to come up here and
24:08
sit with us.
24:12
That was it it floored her. Right?
24:16
That She was the stranger. She was the stranger. They
24:19
invited her in. And it was like, oh my
24:23
goodness. You know, it was something that we have
24:27
not that it was a primary thing that we were striving for, right? Our
24:30
striving has always been to care for our kids
24:35
as if they are our own. We introduce them as our daughters.
24:39
And, you know, our desire has always been to make
24:42
sure that they have relations with their extended
24:46
family and to be proud of, as I said
24:50
before, be proud of their heritage For
24:54
the father and the grandmother to have
24:58
said that, that made it feel like they recognized
25:02
what we have been trying to do over all these years. We have not
25:05
been keeping separate. We have not been doing any of those
25:09
things. We've always been trying to see how do we integrate together
25:13
because I think that's a better way of moving forward
25:18
with the system that we have. The thing that I mean about making it
25:21
personal is as much as
25:25
we can advocate for the government or for
25:28
different organizations or for denominations
25:32
to take steps to reconciliation.
25:37
It's gonna go a whole lot faster if we each make it
25:40
personal. Take the opportunity to
25:44
become part of a indigenous
25:48
person's life. Look for a way of making making a a
25:51
friend. Right? Go at the speed of relationships. Right?
25:55
Totally. Right. Because if you think about it, when when we talk about truth and
25:58
reconciliation, truth truth is some of the stuff that's coming out now, right?
26:02
Like we're understanding the truth of the treaties, the truth
26:05
of the things that have broken those pieces. We've understood
26:09
the truth of residential school. But
26:13
the additional part, the part that we all can really
26:17
take part in, is the reconciliation part. Reconciliation
26:21
takes 2 people, not just 1. You can be 1 person
26:25
that forgives another. The other person doesn't need to accept it, but
26:28
you've forgiven. That's 1 person. Reconciliation is an act that
26:32
has to be followed through by 2 people. So that
26:36
reconciliation means that white settler, Indigenous
26:40
person, we need to look for ways of how do we bring those 2
26:43
together? And I think 1 of the things that I've noticed is
26:47
with many of the people within our churches and within our denomination and stuff
26:51
like that, is there's a lot of people that are really interested in
26:54
looking for how do I do that? But a lot of times they can be
26:58
a little freaked out, a little bit scared. I don't want to say the wrong
27:02
thing. I don't want to do the wrong thing. And if there's anything
27:05
that I can tell you, man, the people that we have gotten to meet
27:09
are people who are just, they're gracious. And
27:12
just like the funeral or the wake, that kind of a thing,
27:16
to be able to look at the white lady that's standing at the back, just
27:19
kind of trying to stay out of everybody's way and saying, come
27:23
Here, you sit with me on this front bench. And what I love about
27:27
that example is both this indigenous
27:30
grandma and your wife were not operating in
27:34
a fear based brain that would have shut all of that down. No. They were
27:38
both working from the a love based brain that allowed them to
27:42
connect, that allowed them to grieve, that allowed them to be creative in
27:45
how they work together and just love each other.
27:49
The relationship that that grandma and my wife have had, it's a relationship
27:53
that is built over the last thirteen years. It's a relationship
27:57
where Jennifer and this grandma have been able to listen to
28:00
each other about their stories. She's been able to hear grandma's
28:04
story. She's been able to hear the story of her being a residential school
28:08
survivor. She's been able to hear about her
28:12
own past, her own times where she struggled as a mom,
28:16
getting into substance abuse and stuff like that, not able to to take care of
28:19
her own kids. In the whole process, she's been able to hear
28:23
how grandma has come to learn
28:27
and to love Jesus as her savior. And
28:31
that has just been beautiful. And I think the way that you said it
28:35
is exactly right. This is a relationship that the 2 of these people
28:39
had that if others looking in would have
28:42
gone, why is she hauling white lady up to the front
28:46
of this whole thing? She's my family. Yeah.
28:50
Right? She's gotta be here. And I think that's a really important
28:53
message that we, as white settlers, don't barge in
28:57
out of good intention because I'm gonna do reconciliation, so I'm just gonna get her
29:01
done. If we're not willing to put in the time and the the
29:04
heart and the love into relationships that
29:08
take time, there's been a hundred and over a 50, well over
29:12
a hundred, but a 50 of our our history of years of
29:16
not necessarily walking in relationship. So we can
29:19
allow time, that cup of coffee, and and so many experiences
29:23
to build that trust and be invited in, not just barge in.
29:27
Yep. And and I think that's what many of the people would say. If you
29:31
think back to, it's really only been a couple of years since we've been starting
29:34
to find some of these unmarked graves and stuff like that. And it seems like
29:38
then many people within Canada became attentive
29:41
to, oh my goodness, what has actually happened with these residential
29:45
schools? And I so appreciate the posture that many of the
29:49
indigenous people said, hey, look, we're not asking you guys to
29:52
fix this thing. You you can't fix all this stuff. We've known it for years.
29:56
We've known it for years, but you're now coming to to realize this.
30:00
If it does anything, can you listen to us now?
30:04
Okay. Let's hear the heart. Hear my
30:07
heart. And I think when we do that, we go,
30:11
Oh, now I understand. Now we can care
30:15
for each other. Now I understand a little bit more about some of the things
30:19
that have gone on in your past and how that has shaped you. I
30:23
think that is something that we are constantly having to do,
30:26
right? Even as we go back into the white settlers' history,
30:30
it's not 1 of these things of, well, let's leave the past in the
30:34
past. Can't really do that. Our past shapes
30:37
us. Our past are things that we learn from. At times,
30:41
they make us resilient. At times, there are things that that are there
30:45
that we learn. It's like our psychological records in a doctor's
30:49
office. My husband is a psychotherapist, and he's like, it always makes sense
30:52
once you hear their story. It always makes sense of, let's say, in
30:56
a cultural group when you hear their story. Yep.
31:00
Now when we look back on our past, we also have to be careful that
31:03
we don't just stay in that past. I'm gonna use 1 of your 1
31:07
of your brother's quotes. Mhmm. We learn looking back. We
31:11
lead looking forward. So we learn about all kinds
31:15
of stuff as we look back. Right? And we look back in our past, both
31:18
as indigenous peoples, as well as white settlers.
31:22
We learn about those things. And there are some of those things that we have
31:26
to repent of. And yet, what can we learn from
31:30
those things now as we move forward, right? If 1 of those things is
31:34
that we learn to build relationship with each
31:37
other, We start to learn about each other.
31:41
And that's on both sides, understanding
31:45
what are some of the beautiful characteristics of our indigenous
31:49
brothers and sisters. And as we learn those things,
31:52
some of the trappings of us as some of the white settlers kind of fall
31:56
away, our neighbors can also see, Oh, what can
32:00
we actually learn from each other together? How can we do
32:04
this thing together now? How can we live? How can we learn? How do how
32:07
can we be better people moving forward? Well, Lynn, thank you
32:11
for being a brave white settler who is on this journey of
32:15
reconciliation. Thank you for helping us learn
32:18
what it means to journey in a good way. Wendy, I
32:22
wanna thank you for creating a platform like this where
32:26
the white settler and the indigenous person can
32:30
share about where they're at. I would also like to thank our
32:33
indigenous neighbors, our brothers and sisters, for the
32:37
patience and grace that they have extended to us
32:41
as we learn and come to grips with some of the things that have happened.
32:45
And as we look for ways of leading
32:48
forward through this to be better
32:52
people together.
32:56
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