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A SELECTED "NORTHERN LIGHTS"
MAGAZINE ARTICLE
(from Issue #485)
NMTC: Time for Something NEW!
With emotion in her voice, Anna Braun told the group, "I really
believe the Lord wants to do a new thing there." She was referring to
the Slavey community she had just come to know and love.
Anna and her husband, George, along with their children, had spent a
month in a Northwest Territories fly-in community with the NMTC summer
program. It was at "Recap" in Lac La Biche (AB) that the Brauns and
other "trainees" met together to share their new experiences.
 NEW EXPERIENCES @ NMTC!
"New" and "NMTC" are really synonymous. For NMTCers,
everything is new ... the scenery, the people, their unique ways of
living ... even the food. "I was invited to go fishing, and to the
trap-line ... and they showed me how to snare rabbits," said George. "They even taught me how to barbeque fish heads!"
In another NWT community, Matt Dorie and Damien Beaumont lived beside
the MacKenzie, Canada's longest river. Damien, an Australian, said he
saw things "new to me ... and [heard about] animals I've still never
seen!" The fellows had plans to swim across the river, but for some
reason didn't make the attempt. "That was probably for the best,"
admitted Matt.
During their stay in another NWT community, Herb and Rose Burkhart,
with their two children, reported seeing "beautiful moose, wood bison,
bear, bush chickens, beautiful rivers, and lots of berries." In New
Brunswick, Tiffany Kidnew and Mary Beth Penner lived among lobster
fishing families.
Silas Wong, Jake Forsyth and Rutger van der Voort were stationed in
the Rockies foothills. Silas told of going along on a hunting trip with
four Native men who were "ready (and permitted) to shoot anything."
For these three trainees there was also the new experiences of swimming
in a mountain fed (i.e., "cold") river, and watching Indian cowboys
practising for a steer wrestling rodeo event.
Nikola and Regina Orlic's assignment was in what we might consider
less of an "exotic" setting. Being from Switzerland, though, and
without a vehicle for summer, made for a unique and somewhat isolated
situation.
SOMEONE'S NEW IN TOWN
Yes, these were all new experiences for the NMTCers, but for local
Native people, too -- after all, it did mean having someone new in
their community. Certainly the question, "How will we be received?"
was on the trainees' minds.
Mary Beth says, "We were astounded at how welcome we were!" Their
first week in New Brunswick the girls were invited to a home and the walk there, carrying
a guitar, turned out to be very long. On the way they passed many people
sitting on their front porches. They said they couldn't believe how
many smiled, some even inviting them in to sing!
"It was a big relief," says Mary Beth. "My deepest prayer
before the summer was that my skin colour wouldn't make a difference --
that people wouldn't judge me because I'm white." God answered
that prayer, she says. "Even though there has been conflict over
lobster fishing there, and people were really hurt by things that
happened, they were friendly."
In other locations, too, children were very accepting, but adults
were not so openly welcoming of the trainees. Nikola and Regina said
that getting to know adults in their community was hard-going. It was
hard to know why -- perhaps the Reserve's entrenched religious
beliefs made the people wary. The Orlics also wondered if, for some,
painful memories of church-operated residential schools remained a
barrier to anything "Christian." "The kids were nice to us,
though," they reported.
With God's help, and a deepened devotional life, Nikola and Regina
carried on. They mentioned some significant conversations with adults,
and one of their highlights was being invited to a birthday party where
they met more of the community.
PERSISTENCE PAYS
The Burkharts talked about struggling through their first few days. "As we walked around the community, people didn't look happy to see
us at their door," said Rose. "We did a lot of visiting for a while
on their porches, but it didn't feel right. Would it have been the
right thing to go on in? We didn't know."
Not long later, though, people began dropping in to their house. "We
had visitors just about every night," said Herb. "But I had to learn
to sit and listen, even if it took 15 minutes for somebody to say
something." By the end of the summer they felt quite accepted. Rose
got to share in making birch bark baskets, and was blessed by gifts of
moose meat and berries.
The Brauns, too, described the difficulties of getting to know
adults. But they are glad they persisted. Anna eventually found some
ladies who were believers, lonely for fellowship. George said that
hanging around the Band Office turned out to be helpful. That's where
the community men stopped for coffee.
NOT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
But missions isn't just about getting to know people in a "National
Geographic" sort of way! The NMTCers were there to share the love of
God -- they were representatives of Jesus Christ, sent with His
authority. They knew that, but how would the Native people perceive
them?
Anthropologists tell us that when a newcomer enters a community, it's
normal for people to assign him/her a role with accompanying
expectations. Even before getting to know the people, some of this year's
NMTCers were labelled "priests" and "holy men."
For trainees Matt and Damien, it was obvious that people expected
them to be children's workers. That would have been fine with them
but, as it turned out, a swimming instructor had already begun a program
that kept the village kids busy all day.
So they started contacting adults, inviting them to a Bible study.
But they kept getting the same response: "Okay, we'll send our kids."
It took some time for local people to figure out that the guys were
there to minister to adults, too. "We knew the Lord had worked it out
this way," says Matt, "but we found [adults] harder to get to know
... We were getting pretty discouraged about it, and then we just
started working alongside the people."
"What good is sweeping a gym floor?" wondered Matt. "But then
people started talking to us because we were making a contribution to
the community.
One woman, who was not too friendly at first, enjoyed a two-hour
Bible study with us after we had helped her with her garden. I'd never
done adult ministry before," he adds, "and I didn't think they
would listen to me ... but God gave us the words to say."
(Matt and Damien were also happy to report that one week, with so
many invitations, they only had to cook for themselves twice!)
TIME TO CHANGE
In some communities NMTCers are welcomed with open arms. Native
Christians, especially those without the support of a local church, are
happy for the fellowship. To others, though, the "new" message these
trainees bring is not gladly received. Just as in Jesus' day, when
long-held beliefs are challenged, there is resistance.
The Gospel always brings change - that is God's desire. When Anna
Braun mentioned "a new thing" at Recap, her words were inspired by
Isaiah 43. The prophet Isaiah, too, had observed people who seemed
spiritually blind and deaf to what the Lord was saying to them. As God's
spokesman, he preached, "Apart from me there is no saviour" (43:11).
Along with the efforts of the Brauns and the other NMTCers, let's
be praying for God to do a new thing among Canada's First Nations.
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