When wildfire smoke fills the sky and evacuation orders come, families in northern, remote, and First Nations communities have to leave quickly, often with only what they can carry. Here in Niagara Falls, families from Kashechewan First Nation have been temporarily living in our community after serious infrastructure failures forced them from home. We are also now welcoming families from Eabametoong First Nation, displaced by fast-moving wildfires in northwestern Ontario.

Families arrive needing food, shelter, rest, medical care, and safety. They also arrive carrying the grief of being away from home. What they should not have to carry is suspicion, resentment, or racism in the communities where they have been sent for safety.

We saw this recently in Niagara Falls when comments at city council treated Indigenous evacuees as a problem for the city’s “tourist image.” That kind of language causes real harm. It reduces people made in the image of God to a public relations concern and teaches others to view displaced families as an inconvenience rather than as neighbours.

My husband and I felt we needed to be present, rather than praying from a distance. We walked with local Indigenous people, allies, and members of the Kashechewan community to Niagara Falls City Hall. The walk carried a quiet weight as people prayed, sang, grieved, and spoke with strength. One phrase from that day has stayed with me: “The longest walk.” It was connected to a song, but it also named something true about the work before us. The walk toward truth, accountability, healing, and home is long, and churches must be careful not to treat solidarity as a single public moment.

At City Hall, Indigenous leaders, community members, and allies called for accountability, a public apology, and concrete action. They named the comments as anti-Indigenous racism. They called for cultural safety and anti-racism training for city staff and council, direct meetings with impacted First Nations leaders, a funded diversity and inclusion role, and an Indigenous-led advisory table on emergency response and displacement. They also corrected a harmful assumption: displaced Indigenous families are not “homeless.” They are away from home because of fire, infrastructure failure, and the long neglect of First Nations communities.

As a Free Methodist pastor, I cannot separate this from the holiness tradition that is forming me. Social holiness is the conviction that love of God and love of neighbour belong together, and that mercy and justice cannot be pulled apart. This call belongs to the whole Church. If we confess Jesus as Lord, then we must care about how Indigenous neighbours are treated when they are sent to our cities for safety.

Churches are often ready to respond to immediate needs. We collect blankets, serve meals, open rooms, pray, and offer practical support. These acts matter, and we should continue them. But Christian hospitality cannot stop at emergency charity. If our neighbours are fed and housed while being watched, judged, or spoken about as a threat, then we have missed the heart of Christ’s welcome.

This calls for a change in posture. Indigenous communities already have leaders, elders, workers, Friendship Centres, and caregivers who know what their people need. The Church does not need to take over. We need to listen, ask permission, support what is already being led, and offer resources without control. Sometimes faithful hospitality means giving money with no strings attached, offering quiet space for rest, prayer, ceremony, language, or song, helping behind-the-scenes, standing beside people as they speak for themselves, or saying plainly in public that racist comments are wrong.

Churches also have a role in guarding the dignity of our communities. Displaced families should not face suspicion in hotels, restaurants, sidewalks, or public spaces. They should not have to carry the burden of correcting harmful stereotypes while also carrying evacuation stress, family separation, illness, and uncertainty. When leaders, businesses, or neighbours speak in ways that dehumanize Indigenous people, churches should respond with humility, courage, and clarity.

Long after the fires are contained and public attention has moved elsewhere, families will still be living with the effects of displacement, and the work of repair will remain. Churches need to keep learning about treaty responsibility, colonialism, environmental racism, and the conditions that force First Nations communities into crisis again and again. A warm meal and a safe bed matter deeply. So does the harder work of building communities where evacuated neighbours are respected, listened to, protected from discrimination, and received as people bearing the image of God.

I keep thinking about that walk to City Hall, about the people who prayed, sang, spoke, and kept going. The longest walk is not finished. May the Church keep walking too, with humility, courage, repentance, and love.

A Prayer for Our Communities

Creator God, give safety, rest, and a clear path home to our neighbours from Kashechewan, Eabametoong, and all displaced communities. Teach our churches to listen before acting, to stand against racism, and to receive every person as one made in Your image.

In the name of Jesus, who knew displacement and teaches us the way of peace. Amen.