For the third year running, members of Willoughby Christian Reformed Church joined with other Langley, B.C., congregations on an interdenominational walk for reconciliation.
The “Walk in the Spirit of Reconciliation,” coinciding with the third anniversary of the publication of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its 94 Calls to Action, took place May 25-27.
Pieter van der Leek and Dennis DeGroot, both Willoughby members, serve on the planning committee along with representatives from the local United and Anglican churches and a Mennonite congregation.
Nine Willoughby members participated in the events. They were accompanied by Cindy Stover from the Office of Social Justice (CRCNA) and Langley Township’s mayor, Jack Froese, who joined the opening walk.
The 35-kilometer walk began at the colonizers’ historical fort and the birthplace of British Columbia in Fort Langley and ended at the site of St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in Mission, B.C.. St. Mary’s was the last residential school to close in B.C., in 1985.
Acknowledgment of the unceded land, prayer, readings, and drumming were part of the opening and closing for each day.
Anglican priest Paul Guiton, in welcoming those gathered for the Friday walk, likened the event to a pilgrimage, an invitation to consider each step as an inner and outer move and a sign of a desire for confession and reconciliation with our First Nations brothers and sisters.
Shirley Hardman, senior advisor on Indigenous affairs for the University of the Fraser Valley, in an opening address, expressed appreciation for the willingness of participants to embark on this long walk, symbolizing the slow work of reconciliation.
The walk ended with the sobering stories of two elders, Cyril Pierre and Joe Ginger, both residential school survivors. They attended St. Mary’s through elementary school and high school, and their stories, retold amid the remains of the school site, were heartbreaking and challenging for the audience.
Both spoke of humiliation suffered at the hands of teachers who forbade the speaking of Indigenous language and shamed students who wet their beds. No contact was allowed between older and younger siblings, and a large leather strap used for discipline became a way of life.
Both men spoke of the prolonged sexual abuse they suffered and how it became a dark secret, especially as they matured to adulthood and succumbed to addictions.
They wept for siblings who preceded them in early deaths as the ghosts of the past overcame them. For the two elders, the dark memories are embodied in each tree, each vista, and the shallow cement-block foundation that remains of St. Mary’s.
In the spirit of First Nations hospitality, the closing ceremonies ended with a late-afternoon feast of good food and fellowship. The committee, encouraged by each year’s increased commitment, is already planning for next year’s walk.