Towards a Deeper Understanding
CURRENT WORKSHOP: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY
Your Global Engagement Team will be providing a series of workshops called “Towards a Deeper Understanding“, covering topics such as intercultural competency, indigenous settler relations, anti-racism, and more. These workshops will serve as introductions to these topics and will include work sourced from topical experts, guest speakers, and resources for further learning.
Indigenous/Settler Relations will be offering the Introduction to the Doctrine of Discovery workshop this spring. We have a great lineup of Indigenous speakers who will lead us towards deeper understanding. This workshop will help us better understand the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery on our nation, the church and its influence on our ministry. Join us in this important conversation as we strive for a more culturally sensitive and compassionate future in our ministries.
We are asking that you watch a 1hr-long documentary (required before the workshop). The link will be provided upon confirmation of your registration.
DATE: March 14, 2024
TIME: 11:00am – 4:30pm ET
For more information, contact Steve Hildebrand.
Guest Speakers
Alvina Jones
Alvina Jones, from Rolling River First Nation grew up in Selkirk MB. Her experiences within a low-income, urban Indigenous context came with complexities of identity and loss of culture. She has been on an ongoing journey of reconciling what it means to be an Indigenous woman. She experienced the love of God in a way that healed deep wounds associated with her identity, and through His grace she has seen the beauty of her culture that He loves and cares for. Her ability to embrace her culture has been slow and patient, but she is allowing the Father to continue to shape her view of herself and her people.
Alvina attended a drop-in centre at YFC Selkirk as a youth, and it was there that she got to experience a safe, loving place with healthy adult role-models. She gave her life to Christ at 14 years old and continued to grow in her relationship with the youth workers at YFC. Spending time with her youth worker’s family she had an example of what a healthy home life can look like, and saw so many Indigenous youth like herself that never got to experience that growing up. From that point on God put the desire on her heart to give Indigenous youth Christ-like, unconditional love that her and so many others didn’t have, and allow youth to be proud of their culture.
Alvina is now a wife to David and a mother to Cedar. She is currently working at Youth Unlimited in Abbotsford, B.C, and striving to transform the lives of vulnerable youth through the love of God.
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Mark Charles
Mark Charles is a speaker, writer, and consultant. The son of an American woman (of Dutch heritage) and a Navajo man, Mark teaches the complexities of American history regarding race, culture, and Christendom in order to help forge a path of healing and conciliation for the nation. In 2012, Mark hosted a public reading at the US Capitol of the buried apology to Native peoples in the 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill given by the 111th Congress.
He is the co-author of the book, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, and he authors the blog Reflections from the Hogan. He is a co-founder of the Would Jesus Eat Frybread? college-conference series and has served on the boards of the Christian Reformed Church of North America and the Christian Community Development Association.
In 2020 Mark ran as an independent candidate for the presidency of the United States, advocating for a Truth and Conciliation Commission – a formal and national dialogue on issues of race, gender, and class.
Patty Krawec
Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe and Ukrainian writer from Lac Seul First Nation. She is the cohost of the Medicine for the Resistance podcast and cofounder of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation, which collects funds and disperses them to Indigenous people and organizations.
Her work has been published in Sojourners and Canadian Living. She is active with the Fort Erie Native Friendship Center and the Strong Water Singers. Krawec is a member of Chippawa Presbyterian Church and lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY - Preassignments
The preassignment video will be made available upon confirmation of registration.