Who We Are

Our Goals

• Work towards a mutual and better understanding and respect of each others spiritual teachings.
• To support the recognition of gifts and development of skills through training and work opportunities.
• Helping people to look for spiritual healing in relationships and their personal life.
• To enable people, in their journey, to help others find healing.
• To create opportunities for a community of spiritual healing and mutual caring to happen.
• Create opportunities for Native people and people of the Christian Reformed Church to interact with each other.
• To provide information and resources to the Christian Reformed Church and Native communities.
• To share our partnership with the Christian Reformed Church and Native communities
• To be presences which function as bridges between cultures; as safe sacred healing places; places where people can meet, plan, and have healing circles.
• To support the development of independent healing, self-sustaining, self-governing, self-helping, working and worshipping communities.

Our Values

As members of the Edmonton Native Healing Centre Society we agree to the following:

1. We believe that the Creator loves us and provides healing in oor lives, through the gift of Christ, the gifts of creation and the gifts of culture.
2. We have a desire to learn from and about each other.
3. We recognize different cultures with different gifts which are God-given and equally valid.
4. We recognize the need to give leadership collectively to work with the church and Native communities to promote mutual healing.
5. In our walk together as partners, we commit ourselves to be honest, and to invite each other to find healing from destructive and alienating behaviour. We will excercise equality, responsibility,commitment,interdependence, honesty,vulnerability and openness.
6. The Circle is the structure that we can, and prefer, to use in all settings such as worship, sharing, and governance.
7. We are committed to leadership training, always in consultation with potential trainess, and Native communities associated with the ministries.
8. The role of the Co-ordinator/Director encourages leadership.
9. We recognize the need for mutual support and wish to create opporrtunities for this to occur.

This agreement is a living agreement, open to constant renewal and carried wherever we go.

History

News from the Edmonton Native Healing Center

John Stellingwerg

The purpose of our Center is to develop and maintain a circle of urban Native people working and worshiping together in a spiritually, socially oriented way, enabling them to live a more dignified and harmonious life. The redeeming, renewing response of Christ through His Spirit of comfort and healing is recognized as an ever-present reality at the Center.

To plan and implement this ministry I have been blessed with a committed staff who are visionary and spiritual and who desire to serve our God. They are, from left to right: Randy Wood, myself, Darrell Brertton, Janalee (Wanda’s daughter), Wanda Pasap, and Debra Courtoreille (half-time remunerated position); Anita Hunt, not pictured here, has also recently joined us. Please pray for us that God will use us for his purpose in this ministry.

Presently various programs are being implemented to facilitate the development of a healing community. These programs are:

1. First Nations Freedom Network: a post release support program for aboriginal inmates and their families. The primary purpose is to develop a stronger family network system to meet the needs of aboriginal inmates being released from prison.
2. Women’s Sharing Circle: a weekly occasion for women to share spiritual, social and relationship concerns.
3. Men’s Sharing Circle: to deal with issues of sexual/physical abuse and neglect, and with relationships.
4. Pow Wow Practice and Celebration: to celebrate the gifts and the life given us by God, with about 25-35 participants and observers every Wednesday.
5. Pastoral Counseling and Referrals: I have been able to provide pastoral counseling to numerous individuals each month and thereby be used for healing and to be a witness.
6. A.A.: every Tuesday a group meets at the center.

In each of the above-mentioned programs we take time to give thanks to God and seek His blessings on our ministry.

During the past 12 months I have been working with a young single parent—Bill (not his real name). Bill comes three times per week to visit and to pray in the ceremonial room. After recently spending one month in jail followed by one week in the hospital he found an apartment near our Center. “I wanted a place near the Center,” he said, “so I can come to pray and visit; this place is important to me. I need to come here, it helps me to stay out of trouble.”

Our staff, as well as myself, can testify to the healing and spiritual growth we have received from God working through one another. Some testify to an increased sense of confidence and self-esteem, others to the security of knowing the Center is a place where they will be accepted for who they are; and others testify to the practical help and the insights gained from sharing hurts and struggles.

Unfortunately, most native people have experienced the WASP church as a tool of oppression and assimilation. At the Native Healing Center we are wrestling with these issues. We are always asking: What is the mindset and worldview of the people we are serving? How does the Word of God penetrate this system of life and thought? This process of contextualization is complicated and difficult to implement. We must keep in mind not only the toughness of this journey, but also see the Holy Spirit’s ability to lead people to see their source of hope in Jesus Christ.