Thunder Bayo to Winnipego

--- picture --- ...my goodbye card from the yc crew

Over the last two years I've had the honor of working as the full time cooridnator and then Director of 'New Hope Youth Centre' "NHYC to provide the best outreach for Thunder Bays First Nation Youth, empowering through life-giving relationships". Over this time I've fallen deeply in love with Native culture and people and thank our creator for the deep vein of gospel/cultural heritage and family I've found myself within. These New Hopers have given me a faith I can believe a salvation from consumer Christianity. In seeing lives being transformed, in knowing Matthew 5 - (beatitude stuff) is true and that GODs kingdom does grow like a weed or mustard seed .... naturally and unrelenting.

Video testament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nhXUuVOWbg\

Each of these peeps have had a real and intense touch of the spirit in their lives that I'd love to tell you about. So ask.

Now after my term of two years is up, my wagon heads west to Winnipeg.
I've spend the last 8 months tying up ends and training current staff (holla Jake) and I'll continue to be partially involved in what I can and fully involved in asking GOD's most awesome blessing on that place and people.

GOD, thank YOU very much for....
- Giving me my calling in Life (making a man out of me - and filling my heart)
- $$ blessings (near 30 grand from Grants/fundraising (some of which was to the dollar what I had brought forward in prayer))
-Lives being Bettered (only through you)

.... continued at..... http://scottinwinnipeg.blogspot.com

Thunder Bay byes

I'm sitting in my near empty apt and all I want to echo from my full and whole heart is...

Mikwec creator and
Mikwec families
for....
prayer
support
money
food


for the chance at sharing life and love with these most amazing people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nhXUuVOWbg....

I'll revise when I'm not so tired.

money makes me _____

Words to sponsors, GST receipts are out and if you don't already have yours please inquire.

A word to my sponsors. Thank you very much for helping me find and live in this best right place. In so many ways it's been clear that this is where I've be needed to be. That my heart is content being kind to those who are not overly accustomed to it.

Thinking back to the daily country road drive home I took when I was a kid, I can remember having random freak outs for no apparent reason, other than discontentment at the absurdity and monotony of life. Weird that a 10 year old would already find life so dull and disappointing. Not that every day was especially bad, it just didn't have the meaning or adventure that I was sure life should have. Anyway, by the time I was in China at 19 I realized that monotony didn't need to be a staple to life which I needed to bitterly swallow but rather...."that the core of mans spirit comes from new experiences" and that those experiences weren't just a passer by's view of earth existence but knowing hearing and helping others with heart issues. All this to say, thank you working class sponsors for your financial blessing and the culture of generosity I've been able to live within for the last two years.


Money's a crazy thing....
It's only worth as much as we believe. It's completely subject to what we believe about it with no tangible use at all. That is, bits of paper and stamped metal have are pointless unless it’s collectively agreed that they have a use. I don't have a problem with money or ppl with a lot or a little of it. It’s just interesting is all. It's completely societal, I'm thinking most present societies have had to adopt the use of money and the practicality of using it rather than trade goods. But there are gads of cultures (Anishinaabe for one) that by no means view frugality as a virtue, but would far rather spend their fiver on shared coffee then keep it in the old bill fold. That was one sizeable shocker for a Mennonite mind, It probably shouldn’t have been, after all relationships are a big deal for down homers too but just not putting free money down on relationships like I’ve seen so often up here. The culture shock might have been amplified due to the thrift store sub culture I grew up in, where a successful night consisted of sneaking into a show, scamming free coffee off of a friend working co-op and then soaking it all up on the high school roof top….. the life of the successful poor. There's a lot that I've learned about money since moving to Thunder Bay. Both in understanding how tough it is to run a charitable org on minimal donation base and in the view from the ground in a former pulp paper port town.

I’ve got a story of great injustice to tell you about. It’s about a friend of mine named Jack (Jack isn’t his name but whoever it is, did clear that I could write his story). Jacks mom you’sed to be addicted to drugs and in her addiction did some deceitful things, one of which involved using her sons name to take out a ‘pay day loan’. For those of you who don’t know much about those seedy “fast cash” scams that are polluting near ever strip mall and convenient corner, they are straight usury. They promise up to a $1,500 with no paper work and push the fact that they can get you money in your hand in a minute. It’s illegal in Canada to charge someone over 60% interest (which is already ridicules considering that in most American States the illegal interest rate hovers around 11 or 12%) but payday loans often end up charging obscenely large interest rates that begin within the legal percentage and climb up into the hundred percentile. Payday loans enforce regulations which aren’t easy to police or access knowledge or security within. So often what happens is when the loan gets to a large enough rate they start calling it in. Using terrible tactics (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/fast_cash.html). It’s illegal but systemized (and so tolerable) “loan sharking”. For the most part it’s taking advantage of individuals in a desperate disposition. And this is the story of my friend Jack….. thousands of dollars on a loan that was originally one hundred, all compiled within a short time and which was for the most part unbeknownst.

Government Canada cite on payday loans (http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-nouv/nr-cp/2006/doc_31900.html)




I’ve been processing the idea of getting a loan for studies and so money has been on my mind a lot lately (I’m not planning on getting a pay day loan just so you know).
I need to preface this next paragraph stating that I understand our current financial system works best with debt. I acknowledge that most everyone is in debt to banks etc through mortgages and other payments but I refuse to think that debt is inevitable and I must blindly accept it.

I’m also aware that debt can be a great enabler, putting down a temporal sacrifice in order to further long term opportunity. I want to acknowledge too that Jesus saw a great duty in financial responsibility. In the story of the talents where we are straight up told that…… of what we are given we must multiply…. Or Else! (Matt 25:28-31).

What I don’t want to do through debt though is treat it like like a drug. I’ve seen student loans originally intended for “breathing room” turn into financial false confidence and blatant unnecessary spending. And like a crack addict doing terrible things just to get a next hit, I’ve seen persons in debt forgetting the great gift of giving and placing “financial responsibility” as priority over people. I think that financial responsibility is good but I know that even in my meager means I’m expected to give radically; after all it’s not coincidental that after Jesus told us “we must multiply what we were give” in Mt 25:31 He said in vs 41 to 43 that we can expect hell if we see a need and ignore it.
Given to give blessed to bless…

So thanks sponsors for giving so I could give: countless cups of coffee, a few donations to grass roots orgs and rides to hockey games, hospitals and home.

I may sound like a simpleton, or a boy without a brain, or a man with too much heart but know that I am more than happy throwing coins at those who care for them but living all of me for the one that exposes the mysteries of existence, of which I’m a pioneer.

Act Act Act!!!!! Sun burst through

Sometimes it takes me a while to collect my thoughts and compose my tongue before I can write something worth reading. Other times my heart grabs the bit and pounds out of my chest onto paper and bleeds everything in my arms veins and atrium.

I hope this will be the latter.

When I was a kid I used to spend a lot of time outside. Partly because I would run out of patients with most anything that took 20 min of straight indoor concentration partly because my favorite sibling was our dog. Often when I'd indulge in my outdoor escapism I'd grab my moms camera on the way out. I'd normally take one or two pictures of the grass or our geese or something pointless like that and then take an endless amount of pictures of common clouds. Sometimes high lining stratus but mostly I'd hold out for exploding cumulus clouds that would tower and tumble into each other. I don't think any of the pictures on my moms old film fixed lens were great or even good but I'd always try to take the picture when the clouds would almost crash but let just enough light in between.

I know it's cliche but I never get sick of the 'sun bursting through'!

Whenever I move to a city I seem to retire this pass time.

Now for the blood...

It's so hard for me to count myself a city kid. I don't know if it's just some sort of suburban/rural superiority or city = sin complex or just the strange feeling of belonging I get in open spaces. But it's hard for me to stay in cities for long periods of time. Only turns out the sun busts through our cities concrete and contained trees too. Whether in ........
Bel-mo the young girl at my centre who joined and is helping form our 'Safe Streets' program because she's sick of street violence and her brother getting assaulted or in....
Lynda the community programmer in our poorer fort william core, fighting far passed her paid hours to keep schools and community services from moving to fringe city offices. Which would outsource our collective community and diminish the voice of many disenfranchised or in...
the after school drama team who wrote, directed, publicized their own 'anti drunk driving' drama after a student fell victom to a drunk driver or in....
the high school teachers at tbays Native high school working late at programming in order to try to off set the truth that Native students on average receive two thirds the funds urban white students receive or in...
Marty and the other 15, 16 and 17 year olds who make up the Regional Multicultural Youth Council who routinely write to the local papers trying to make the city aware of inadequate social assistance funding or in....
the countless others that live in and fight through clouds to bust brilliance!

If there's something primordial and spiritually right about connecting to GOD through the land and a rural life there's something unmeasurable spiritual in urban community voices raised like sun bursting through.

Swiss Mennoniteo!

It's time I wrote a word about my Swiss brethren....
Looking back on the many a road that this life has lead me down there is one thing I've realized will always be identified as... A Mennonite.
I'm not saying this with any distaste by any means but right now I'm sitting with a bit of a culture clash among my Mennonite family.

You see, I've been to Paraguay, Belize and back and can fit my way into which and whatever stream I'd like to identify my self as. But this last year I've come to know and love another break away baby of our dear Father/Mother Mans/Grebal. Although we were separated at birth this is my Swiss brethren.

There's a good number of roots radical Mennonites spread through out and within out great Northern Canada. At first glance I thought that many of them may be 'black bumper', Reindlander or whatever other sub sub break off church we might want to label our selves as. At first I was guilty of throwing down the broad label of 'conservative' Now I've come to know them as so socially conscientious and terribly sincere brothers and sisters who rigorously live to break barriers to make brothers and sister of those who need a want family. It's such a stupid thing to stigmatize a head covering and over look such solid individuals giving up their whole lives for a Northern people I've come to love. I'm not talking about or simple summer camps or legitimate MCC projects but rather giving up a life once known to build, contribute and plant redemption to a community where the wreckage of hurt and untrust linger.

There's some things a lot more innocent and honest about these Pennsyvana/KitchenerWaterloo Mennonites. It's ... its hard to say exactly what it is but I think it's just an honest love for GOD's heart and finding themselves in a place where GOD's heart is going out too. It didn't take years of suicide statistics or the occasional foster kid trickling down to our white south to call them to the north .....it was where GOD's heart was before during and after the evils of residential schools. So legitimate GENERAtions of Northern Mennonites have lived and loved in much of the farther north for so so long. Not in a stagnant colonial duplicate life but marring, sharing and just living till honesty and trust prevailed over systemic separation. It was an awesome day when one of the 'to my eyes' native kids was so stoked to find out she was distant cousins with a Swiss (Kitchener) Menno volunteer.

The Mennonite Game lives on through Apartheid!

Back to that pervasive honesty. I think it comes, in part, from being who they are and not trying or caring to be 'cool' or particularly relevant. I think the Church and Western (Russian) Mennonites particularly have been trying so hard to be accepted by common society that they've become slick and sterile and in many ways striped of what our defining feature is, our first Love! GOD and the truth of the gospel.

It makes far more sense, to me, to prove your love to someone by talking, sharing and honestly speaking from your love relationship (with Christ)than first putting on your cultural mask and demographic makeup and convincing one that you're a part of them and then talking about Christ and how great HE is.

That's what I think they've got ........... a strong personal/social Christ identity.

Do you love me?

"Do you love me....?"

"No, do you love me?"

"Yeah, but do you love me?"

Not how much do you love me. Not in what ways do you love me. Not even are you willing to learn to love me. Do you straight up love me?

"Yes"

"Yes, I love you."

"Jesus, you know all things you know I fricking love you"

"Then feed my sheep.
If you want to be a child the rest of your life go on. If you want to 'look good' and follow fashion like and infant mind, be my guest. If you want to span the globe to see places that amaze you like a spoiled kid with an attention deficit, go right on. But I will sincerely doubt your love for me if you don't feed those starving scattered sheep. The time has come to an end when you could do whatever you want.

My sheep and lambs need love and care."

John 21

Lets all hate Winnipeg!!!

Lately I've been noticing that a lot of people in Thunder Bay hate Winnipeg. Which I took as a simple jest and poke; as a little brother pokes fun at his "jerk" of an older brother, or as Manitobans treat and talk about Saskatcheweners. We, the proud Peg city dwellers, being unaware of the biases towards us treat the situation with indifference, because of the weak and hardly audible voices of our insignificant counter parts (ie Thunder Bay). Now if you're a proud Manitoban you'll still be hung up over how I refereed to Saskatchewan as the 'bigger brother' (not in pop. 'being the bigger man') which sits strange for me as well, but if you've ever conversed with those strange Saskers (ones that haven't lived in Winnipeg and had to grow a hyper provincial pride) it's the shaking of a fist at a stranger who knew no problem. Lately though I've been realized that these quaint home town rivalries don't parallel the Thunder Bay hate.

This past week my pastor had a sermon where he linked the wanderers laments of the Hebrews peoples Exodus through the desert to the desolation he felt on the banks of the red river. I was willing to hear his story out and wait patiently but when he started quoting the weakerthans in stateing..... 'I hate Winnipeg' I felt it was me time to interject, and so some gentle boo*ing set him straight and the sermon back on tracks. Its funny I had no trouble on minus forty nights walking down Portage or back up Spence from school singing that song that curses peg city, but as soon as others trash on where you're from the fists come up........ however I've been having a hard time raising fists to some of the last complaints on Winnipeg I've come across.

Almost ever kid (that I've met through the centre) that has some brief affiliation with Winnipeg has horror stories to tell. Seriously crazy shit! Brothers joining gangs and never being heard from again, guns being pulled on friends or near anyone, theft on full families, burning of houses with full families, abduction, rape and just this last week I listened to two different accounts of youths having witnessed their friends murders; all in Winnipeg. Straight up cliche stuff that you kind of know "happens" but your 'better' or 'convenient judgment' convinces you else wise. 'April Raintree' or 'Under the Ribs of Death' stuff; both the only books I know written about Winnipeg both with the greater theme being death.

My 'better' or 'sound judgment' is telling me to cut in and let you all know that I got clearance from the individuals who shared these events with me to share them with you all. However now I'm having a hard time communicating the bitterness of the concluding remarks of one of the last Winnipeg conversation I had... it ended along the lines of ............ "I'll never go back to that city".

I seriously still don't want to believe half of terrible things that I've heard about Winnipeg, and actually acknowledge the dichotomy that city has. I know that these things happen in all sorts of major urban centres, but to know that I lived in that city for a year and a half (not avoiding 'rough' areas but intentionally moving to them) and still haven't been able to crack the core of the city and help from within the hurt, seems rather sad.

I feel insulated by status or notoriety. Which I take as great blessings I've done little to nothing to receive. I'm not by any means trying to strip away all that I've been given to give (blessed to bless) in the order of an unbias sterile education of poverty, that would just be building an insincere mask of poverty in order to 'relate' and not give credence to the fact that I will probably always have consistent family/state of mind that will be willing to help me out of pockets of poverty I might reside in. I just want to help from within the hurt. Which I believe is a Biblical/Honest model.

I'm not sure when I'll be called back to Winnipeg again but it's something that sort of scares me. It's a complicated fear. Its the fear of urban dissidence. Spending my time entertaining myself or making money to entertain myself. It would just feel unnatural avoiding all of the issues that I know occur in Winnipeg. I'm not saying I'm the saviour for a city by any means, it would just feel, I don't know unnatural. Kind of like seedless watermelon or a developed shore line, there's something behind that's not sustainable, full or completely sincere.

Like I said it's a complicated fear. Its the fear of feeling like we all; living in the south end or being the fringes sitters of Winnipeg.... hex even those in our trendy downtown, are doing exactly as 'Sam K.' refers, and 'are' that golden business boy/girl watching the North end die. (Sam K. being the writer of 'One Great City'(song earlier mentioned))

I'm not trying to write as a judgemental outsider who sees all that's wrong with 'that place'. I'm acknowledging that I'm a Winnipeger that has played along with the apartheid that we keep with-in our perimeter.

I've been writing the word 'feel' several times throughout this entry and I don't intend to. What I'm trying to communicate is something beyond feeling -- that is meaning.

There was a random man that Jesus loved. He obeyed the commandments and Jesus loved him. Then Jesus said...... 'give to the poor'.

I'm assuming that you all who are reading this can understand with me that what is meant by 'give to the poor' is not a cop out for 'give to the poor in 'spirit' ' and skip the sacrifice so that I can go for a round at the links and witness to my friend at the country club.

I'm assuming that you can read Jesus' words for what they were.....

Your body your mind your emotion and soul ...... "give to the poor"




Mark 10 NIV
post script ... I got clearance from individuals to share these views/experiences 'on Winnipeg' before I wrote them down.