Around the world in 80 days: Join Pastor Ceconi

On August 6, Pastor Ceconi’s interpretation of a special region in Canada aired as part of a project featuring spiritual-tourist areas. For 80 days the “Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg” showcases the contributions of more than 50 Evangelical and Catholic authors.

Read (in English below, translated by Iris Schweiger) or listen to his German report of the First Nations and efforts towards reconciliation after a history of disrespect and abuse by churches and the government.

Around the world in 80 days

Welcome to Toronto and welcome to the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit. For the indigenous people of Canada, the First Nations, as they are called here, had settled on this land long before the first Europeans and pioneers arrived. The First Nations are still here, they have never left.

Chief Ava Hill is one of their impressive leaders. She speaks at the Synod of the Lutheran Church. Outside, the sun beats down on the asphalt. Cars pass over the highway. The meeting room is cool – thanks to air conditioning. Chief Hill talks about the condition of her tribe. She leads a community of more than 25,000 people.

Her presence fills the room as she lets us take part in the bitter reality of her people: Contrary to the existing 200 year old treaties with the British Crown, over 90% of the land promised to Canada’s aborigines was expropriated. Attempts to claim these rights from the government failed repeatedly. The old contracts were and are not respected.

Even worse, First Nations children were sent to mostly religious boarding schools to educate them according to a western lifestyle or expressed in more brutal terms: to kill the Indian in them. Violence and abuse were commonplace. The children were deprived of their native language and their traditions. An education that left many traumatized people in its wake. The last boarding school closed in the 90s.

Change began in 2009. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up. A commission tasked to investigate the history of abuse and violence. To make it public. Hearings began throughout the country. Former boarding school students opened up and told their traumatic stories.

Slowly awareness rose: Only an honest dealing with history can open the door to the future. This includes listening and enduring as well as the willingness to make amends for wrong doings and to act differently in the future. That is why Chief Hill came on this occasion. To open a door to a future embedded in the spirit of reconciliation. Between those who have always been there and those who were new to come.

Ava Hill said at the end: “We, as Canadians, can only build a future in looking back at our history. We have to learn to live reconciliation. We will continue to walk in the spirit of reconciliation, because we are the same people who welcomed newcomers to our land and who shared it with them.”

May this path of reconciliation ensure that people and their relationships heal and reconcile!

In Canada as well as all over the world.