In this episode we speak with Bert Adema, Executive Director of Indigenous Christian Fellowship in Regina, Saskatchewan. Bert shares about 32 years of ministry, fostering a vibrant community by addressing spiritual and social needs. He emphasizes an incarnational approach, tackling the "messiness" of the world and advocating for right relations, not just reconciliation. Bert also reflects on finding hope and abundance amidst scarcity, powered by prayer, community, and trusting God's provision.

This is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 5 of Season 10. 

Chris: Well, hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Do Justice. My name is Chris Orme and today I'm excited to have Bert Adema joining us. Bert is the Executive Director of Indigenous Christian Fellowship in Regina, Saskatchewan. Since 1993 he has encouraged Indigenous people to claim, develop, use, and celebrate their individual and cultural gifts from the Creator. Bert collaborates with Indigenous staff and community members in developing and delivering activities serving the spiritual and social needs of First Nations and Metis people in Regina. Now that their four daughters have moved out of their family home, he and his wife Ruth have started to wonder about what to do with the rest of their lives. We might get into that question, too, Bert, but first let me just say: welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.

Bert: You're very welcome, Chris. Thank you for the invitation.

Chris: Let's dive right in. For those listening that might not be familiar with Indigenous Christian Fellowship, could you share a bit about the work that you do?

Bert: Well, it's always a challenging question because now that I've been here for 32 years, we've done a lot of things with a lot of people over a few years. You read some good words, there. I know who wrote those texts. Indigenous Christian Fellowship—originally Indian Metis Christian Fellowship—was established by the old Council of Christian Reformed Churches in Canada in response to what members of the church at that time perceived as the needs of Indigenous people across Canada. It's quite interesting because they said, "As an immigrant church we're doing pretty good. This is a beautiful country. Why are the original inhabitants, the Indigenous people who are our neighbors here now, why are so many of them not doing well?" They determined that they were going to actually do some consultations and not just do all mission work. They wanted to, of course, because they were reformed, do word and deed ministry. They consulted with a lot of people and they concluded that a lot of the traditional mission work done by well-meaning churches was kind of just focused on saving souls and perpetuating a colonial identification of the Gospel, with European approaches, European structures, European leaders within the Christian Reformed Church. 

In the Navajo land, there were not many Navajo leaders at that time. I have no idea how many there are now, but across Canada a lot of the leadership in missions and churches for the Indigenous people was non-Indigenous. They said, "We want to do something different." They said, "We want to do it in a way that helps Indigenous people respond to the gift of Christ with their own gifts, not take on the gifts of European culture. Not that we want to deny them the use and the blessing of European things, but we want to respect their capacity as free agents to respond to the gifts of the Creator with their own cultural gifts. We don't need to assume, and it's evil to assume, that they have no gifts." Indeed, our Indigenous brothers and sisters, whether on Turtle Island or around the world, also have gifts. We were made by the Creator, in the image of Creator, and we come in spirits, minds, hearts and bodies. There's a lot there in terms of who we are. It's a matter of saying: how can Indigenous people use their gifts to serve and follow the Creator, in the way of Jesus Christ? That's a simple question but it covers an awful lot of territory, certainly in Canada. 

Over the last number of years, we had the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples back in 1995 with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, then we had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was in some ways sparked by Stephen Harper apologizing for the residential school legacy. Then we had a commission. It's really hard for Canadians who aren't aware of the fact that Indigenous people have been done poorly by. We've had a great flourishing now of Indigenous expressions of their culture, but alongside that, then, there's been a lag in terms of identifying for or helping Indigenous people say, "These are my cultural gifts and I'm going to use them this way in service to the Creator, to follow his son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit." Coming to [unclear] there were Christians here! There were Indigenous Christians across Canada, but a part of what I focused on was helping Indigenous Christians claim their gifts and use those gifts in holy ways through creating a Christian Indigenous community. 

Interestingly, I don't know the precise numbers these days, but for a long time 3/4 or more of the Indigenous population in Canada lives in urban environments. Regina has one the highest percentages of Indigenous people. There are more Indigenous people in Toronto than in Regina, but percentage-wise, the percentage is higher in Regina. So we had that mandate from the Christian Reformed Church, to build Indigenous communities, serving spiritual and social needs. That really ties in with the whole Truth and Reconciliation Commission in that we're looking at reconciliation. We're trying to have right relations, right? We can't just talk about reconciliation, because in some ways we're starting over and not rebuilding. We're saying, "There's a lot of garbage in the way, so we have to clean out the garbage so that we can have right relations." Adrian Jacobs can speak to that much more effectively than I can, but it's simply true. We need to talk about right relations and how to start off on that. But some of the ways are just service. I was thinking about that a little bit in preparation for today's discussion. 

You're aware of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's kind of hard to talk about reconciliation with Indigenous people if they have no food. The priority is not to think about, "Well, how can we reconcile, my brother?" [laughs] And have a conversation about that. No, we need to put some food on the table so people could feed their families and themselves so that we can move on in that. Today is Thursday. Every Thursday, these days, for the last few years, we have a community sharing time and we get donations of furniture and clothing and bookshelves and beds and the list goes on. When people say, "What do you need for that?" I say, "Well, just about anything that you can put into an apartment." All kinds of stuff comes in, all kinds of stuff goes out, but it's so that people who are Indigenous—and non-Indigenous, as well, because we serve everyone—can live a comfortable life, a good life. We share a lot of food. Food is just so central to living a healthy life, and so we try to share good food. 

Then, there's just the support for people all of the time. We just had another wake and funeral here at the ministry. A long time ago, before I came here, Peter Swart from the old CRWRC days said, "I don't know why I can't do this? All you do is get a piece of paper and you write down how many people came in the door." So we always collected numbers here in this ministry. The wake on Sunday night and Monday morning—the funeral was on Monday—was number 299 in 30 years that we've either supported or participated in somewhat or participated in a lot. Most of them have happened here at the ministry. I have done graveside ceremonies just at the graveside, but that service for people has given the ministry a bit of a reputation as being a place of support and encouragement for Indigenous people. From good to hard times. And the service that was held here Sunday night and Monday was a non-Christian service. The people used the fire pit. They were so pleased that they had a respectful place to have a fire for the wake, so grateful that we could provide that service. So it's been a Romans 12 thing: weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. It's just walking with people, trying to be whole-hearted, willing neighbors to people. We're called to love our neighbors, right? If you know your neighbors are hungry, you don't say, "Oh, my. That's so sad," and then sit down to your steak and don't worry about them, that's hardly loving your neighbor. We have tried to love our neighbors well. 

It's important to have healthy boundaries in that service. I like my little summation lines, sometimes. I've learned to say to my staff and volunteers, "We're called to serve, not to be doormats." Because I can tell you that—I'm laughing a bit, because a woman came in yesterday and she was quite demanding. She saw a table, but we don't usually give out stuff until Thursdays. She uses a wheelchair sometimes, she's in and out. So we said, "Okay, we'll help you." She didn't have money, but I said, "We'll deliver it to you on Friday." Well, then she comes in today and it's like twenty minutes til two and I've got this podcast on my mind and I'm trying to get stuff out [laughs] and she says, "I'm under a time crunch!" And I said, "Well, I am too! [both laugh] Find someone else to help you, at this point. There are lots of people." Someone else did help her. I called someone else who I saw. But when you do serve, and you try to serve faithfully and you get a reputation for serving faithfully, people are going to be quite demanding! 

When I compare this ministry—when I preach, on occasion, I preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan. I go to the churches who support the ministry. I thank them for their support and I say, "You guys need to understand this very, very clearly. You are the Good Samaritans. I'm the innkeeper. I'm here to collect my money" [both laugh]. So we will provide the best inn keeping service we can, in Christ's name. But the Good Samaritans, whether it's the Christian Reformed Church or the Evangelical Living Church in Canada or individually, whatever, my staff and I, we are called to be the best inn keepers we can be. I don't think the Good Samaritan would have brought the person to the shoddiest hotel in town! I just don't see that. You might not have brought them to the Royal York, either [laughs]. We try to do things well. We have two grandmother groups that meet here, one on the second Friday of each month, the other on the third Friday of the month, and one of the grandmothers on my council says, "You know, the grandmothers really appreciate that you've got nice dishes and good cutlery that you serve everyone with." I could have a lot of cheap cutlery. I could just get cutlery from the Salvation Army and just have mismatched ones, but I got it from Walmart and the cutlery, it just looks a little better. Because you're doing a service in Christ's name, I'm not going to the Royal York, but I want to do things well and not as cheaply as possible.

Chris: It paints a really good picture of who you are and how you and your team do what you do, and a really cool picture of the community that has been built. I want to move the conversation outside of that, a little bit. I'm sure that in your role you talk to folks who you want to invite to be part of what you're doing. You want to draw them in and get them into the work and get them to be supporters and partners in the work that you're doing. What do you do when you have that conversation with someone or you're talking about what you do and then someone says, "Argh, you know what, I don't want to get involved. This is just too political. This is just too political to make a difference." How do you respond in that situation?

Bert: As a child of the Christian Reformed Church, having gone to Georgetown District Christian School through grade six and TACH and then Dordt, a semester in Chicago at Trinity College, graduated from Calvin, working overseas in the Christian Reformed Church in Sierra Leone for six years with CRWRC (World Renew's precursor), it's simply the truth of the matter that if you want to be a member of the Reformed tradition, you have to acknowledge that all of creation belongs to the Triune Creator: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I would dare say that Christ didn't half-leave heaven. I do believe the Creator could have just said, as he promised to do with Moses, "Just destroy those Jews and we'll start over again." Like, "Woah! Woah, don't do that!" But the Creator is powerful! And instead we have the Christmas story. The Christmas story is about incarnation. Jesus could have said, "Come on, really? You know how ugly it is down there? Do you know how mean those sheep are? Why don't we just start over again?" Instead, Christ came down and took on human flesh, took on the frustration of being human. It talks about how Jesus wept when Lazarus dies and a couple of times Jesus groans and it says: you guys don't get it. They are sheep! I think that if we think that Christ is exemplary for us, then we have to think: what does it mean to be incarnational? What Scripture says in the Order of Melchizedek—prophet, priest, and king—I don't think it's joking. And I don't think it's just rhetorical. We have that fully formed rule of being prophetic, being priestly, and also being kingly! 

I guess neither of you know who Dr. Cynthia Lobeda is. I had to look up her name because she gave a lecture here a couple of years ago and she's a Christian ecologist out of Washington State, a Lutheran seminary there. When she talked about concern for the environment, she said, "You know, we understand the call to love our neighbor not to be just the people we can see." Because certainly, like with the work of World Renew, most people never see someone in Bangladesh or any of the other countries we work in through World Renew. But we believe, most of us, that they are our neighbors. We believe that, though they look differently than us, they speak different languages, but they are our neighbors—and they're far away. But the other thing that's interesting: we understand neighbors to be people who are influenced and affected by our actions or our inactions. Like in the parable of The Good Samaritan—two people walked by, and their inaction is a death sentence for the guy on the side of the road, but the Good Samaritan stops and acts to help the person. When we don't act for environmental justice, we are affecting the well-being of our children, our grandchildren, and generations to come. It is environmental legislation that takes care of future generations. Indigenous people say, "For the next seven generations, what are you doing?" How we then engage in the political process determines what is going to happen in the next seven generations. Do I want a society that has doctors for a public health system? Do I want a society that has schools? Do I want a society that has police? Do I want a society that has guidelines for police, so that if there is police abuse there are procedures in place to hold those people accountable? That's participation in the political process. I'm sorry, but Christ has called us to be incarnational, not watch on the sidelines. 

There's this book called The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander. You can look up the name of the author, but a woman who was a nun became a mother and did some good work. But a lot of bullies get away with a lot because people sit on the sidelines. I just think that it's so important to speak up because that's our prophetic role. I am told by Ray Aldred that Stephen Harper apologized for residential schools because of pressure from Canadian church leaders. That is phenomenal that that happened and it's been a huge watermark in our country! I was having a conversation with a Catholic woman and her eyes started to glaze over when I talked about the legacy of the residential school. We have residential school denialism in my community and across this country. But you cannot deny what Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for, and that's because church leaders in this country were willing to step up and say, "We've got to address this." But in my city of Regina, we're finally getting some stuff done around recycling because people stood up and said, "Recycling is important." If we think this is true, what's the first commandment we have from the Creator? In Genesis it says: take care of the garden. And that command has never been compromised or rescinded.

Chris: [laughs] You had me going through the ten commandments. I'm like, "How does this connect?" But you're right, though. Have dominion, take care of it. Care for it. We've used that word interchangeably.

Bert: Yeah, stewardship's probably a better word.

Chris: Stewardship is a better way to say it, yeah.

Bert: But my point is, right at the beginning, we're asked to take care of the garden. I would submit to you: if you're gardening, you get dirty hands. If you're taking care of the sheep, you get dirty boots and dirty gloves [both laugh]. So, anyone who wants to follow Christ and have clean hands doesn't know what they're talking about! Christ expects us to get into the messiness of this world and try to be salt. We're not called to be [unclear], we're called to be yeast. How can you be yeast in a society if you refuse to engage in politics? You're telling Christ, "Don't bother me, just save my soul." But Christians who justify inaction because it's messy... Well, yeah! That's why Christ became human—because he loved us in our messiness. If you read the Gospel of Matthew, who gets into heaven? Those who love their neighbors! Not just those who say, "I believe in Jesus." It never says that at all. There's a promise that if you believe in Jesus you'll go to heaven, but it comes with huge, huge requirements. If you think your faith is going to get you into heaven and you have no works? Change would like to have a conversation with you.

Chris: My grandma had this saying, and it wasn't her saying, you've probably heard it. It's something along the lines of, "You can be so heavenly-mined you'll be no earthly good."

Bert: A Lutheran minister had a sermon with that title: "What on earth are you doing, for heaven's sake?" [both laugh] Reverend Dean VanKeiser, if you want to know the name. "What one earth are you doing, for heaven's sake?" So it is messy. I get that. There's one Triune Creator and the creation was created by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit working together. I think we need to think about how much the Creator is involved in the ongoing development of creation. Maybe the Creator didn't create something stagnant and static, but actually created something that's organic and changing. I think that's much more dynamic.

Chris: I want to move to: we talk about our God as a God of abundance. I want to ask you a question on abundance. How have you seen hope and abundance emerge in situations that, through your years of ministry, may have seemed defined by scarcity or crisis? What's the hope and the good news in that?

Bert: It's a difficult subject to address. It's going to come off as a little Paul [unclear]-ish. There's a good section in his book. He always talks about the faithful who got terrible consequences for their life of faith, for being faithful. That's just a simple reality: martyrdom is not something to be sought out, but it is a reality of faithful Christian life and we still have martyrs to this day, around the world. Christians in Canada are not persecuted, regardless of what some people may suggest. We can worship in freedom. So getting past that, with that caveat, hope and abundance in crisis insecurity, I do think that for Christians a lot starts with prayer.

 I've compared it, on occasion, to how we still have nice rural roads here in Saskatchewan that are far away from help. We had storms and blizzards—we've had blizzards here in Regina like I never saw in southern Ontario. A couple of years ago I drove to the outskirts of town on my way to Costco and had to stop and go back because the road conditions were that bad in the wintertime. And I'm pretty foolish on the roads, so it was quite something. But I think prayer is a bit like the cell phone. If you slide off the road and you're quite a distance from somewhere and you call the towing company and they say, "We're coming," all of a sudden you wait with hope. To me, that's a huge difference. If you're sitting there and you have no hope at all, you're really, really in a difficult situation. I think prayer is really, really important. And then when we pray in community, when we gather with others and we say, "We're going to seek the Creator's help for this." A Palestinian preacher gave a lecture a couple of years ago and he talked about how some people think that the Creator magically pulls us out of situations. The good news is that just as Christ became incarnate, the Creator walks with us through difficult times. But I think that once we get together as a community and we pray and we seek wisdom—but hope leads to patience, and then we have the courage and encouragement and wisdom to say, "What can we do together?" 

It's like the old stone soup story. You know the stone soup pot? When we sit together as people, we say, "What can we do together?" And then it's surprising what does come up, time after time after time. A lot of creative things can happen because people wait for inspiration. Then, even though things look scarce and things look hopeless, all of the sudden patience and prayer, asking that question of what can we do together—solutions start happening. Then there's a funny thing that happens, that power of attraction. People who are just sitting around moping about what has all gone wrong, they don't attract much hope! They might get some pity, you might get some crumbs. But people who are saying, "We're starting this journey and this is our initial step. We hope for these steps." That brings others along. The increase in community resolves the challenges that are presented by scarcity and crisis because the power of prayer and community say, "The Creator will bless us and we will start doing what we can. I don't know what I'm all going to do tomorrow, but I do know if we're faithful and we're patient and we try to do things in a good way, things keep happening in a good way. It does sound a little Pollyanna-ish.

Chris: It doesn't sound Pollyanna-ish, it sounds like someone who has lived it and experienced it. I guess maybe to be a little more pointed: what has been one of those stone soup moments in your thirty-two years of ministry? Where have you seen—is there a story of someone in your community? What has that looked like? Because I believe that to be the truth. That's been my experience of community in all the various circles that I am blessed to walk among, but I'm sure you have several of those moments. What's kind of your hallmark, signature stone soup moment along the way?

Bert: You're right, there are several different stories. One is an unfinished project. We have a family breakfast on Saturday mornings and this gentleman looks out the window and says, "Well, you should have that lot!" And I said, "Well you should get me the money for that!" [laughs] He started knocking on it! The money started coming in. It was a vacant lot—well, it was two condemned buildings—and now we already have eight foot high walls with art going on them all the way around and it's quite a beautiful place. That was something that looked unattainable and it's happening. The other thing is, we had a wheelchair come through. It wasn't working so we checked out the battery, bought new batteries for it. Someone came in who needed a wheelchair, and we could give them a wheelchair. We didn't know we were getting the wheelchair ready for him, but this guy came in who needed a wheelchair and we had it there for him. This is another more recent one, actually. We had a hospital bed. One of those beds that has the three different poles and is battery-powered and all that stuff. We got it and we said, "Well, this is a good thing because we give away most of the beds that come in but a powered bed, well, I'm not just going to give it to anyone." And they're heavy! And they're expensive. But a guy in my own church, Sonlight Christian Reformed Church, he was in a terrible accident and then, it's a longer story, but we were able to get that hospital bed to him so he could have it at his home so he could rest well on a hospital bed in his own house that he could not have purchased on his own. Just taking things, being prepared was a sure answer to their prayers for: well, where do you get a hospital bed at the drop of a hat for no money? I can't say I sort them and I don't schedule them, either! It just came in and we waited. I had been asking around, and then this person needed it so we were able to bless him with a bed. I guess, Chris, that's because we keep receiving all kinds of weird things here at this ministry—I don't go around looking for hospital beds or wheelchairs that are powered, right? We just receive them with the idea that somehow we will be able to pass it on to somebody who needs it. We trust that that will happen. We just try to make sure that we're ready to pass it on. So the inn keepers who pass the beds on when they're needed.

Chris: Bert, I just want to say thank you for spending this time with us, for sharing your heart and your passion. We are grateful for you and the thirty-two years of ministry that you have offered back to the community, and for our small party, we're just really grateful that you took the time with us today. I appreciate it. Folks, our guest today has been Bert Adema. We'll put links in the description of this show to find out more about what he's up to. We're really grateful for you, Bert. Thank you so much for spending the time today.

Bert: If I can add one thing, Chris?

Chris: Absolutely.

Bert: I'm just grateful that the Christian Reformed Church has supported me by employing me for almost four decades now. Six years in Sierra Leone and thirty-two years here, that's a total of thirty-eight years. I've been paid to be in surprising circumstances and had wonderful experiences. That's quite a privilege: well-paid to be on the front lines of interesting things and watching the Creator Spirit move powerfully. Thank you, people of the Christian Reformed Church and others for supporting me all this time. Be blessed. Be a blessing. Thank you.