I turn 70 in October, about a year after I retired. We sold everything and bought a motor home. What’s next for me? Where is God calling me now? Jimmy (Reader, my husband) and I decided we’d attend Peace Camp—partly to see if we belonged there, if BPF(NA) was a part of our future. I needed to know if I “belonged” there. No space left in my life for inhabiting places I don’t belong!
We didn’t know what to expect. In another time of significant transmission, did the BPF still have the call and commitment to follow God into the troublesome parts of our world to foster transformation and healing?
For those who attended, we were a bit chilly inside!! But the temperature of the room had little effect on the quality of programming and the importance of focus. I have studied trauma since I was a young girl, feeling called to participate in God’s desire to heal the world. How important for us to focus on First Nations and the impact of Western Christianity in the harming of such a great population of God’s children. The programming was excellent, from the lectures, interactions, visiting a government Residential School for Indigenous children and the stunning suffering inflicted upon children ripped away from their families and culture, the abuse, the humiliation—so important to be experienced and acknowledge, and traumatizing to some, especially those with indigenous roots. I think all were impacted with the need to commit ourselves even more to peace and justice for all, and awareness that we have much to learn from our Indigenous sisters and brothers. I came away with a more informed understanding and deeper concern and commitment for my role in the healing of the world.
Connected, loving and joyful camaraderie nurtured a sense of belonging—the first crucial step of true community. Deep conversations and sharing, belly laughing, and caring for one another describe the quality of our time together.
Trauma has been my study and professional focus since elementary school, I already knew so much of the story, including the history of Indigenous people. It is one thing to know about it, another to experience it. Nestor Medina filled in so many of the details of the impact of Western Christianity on Indigenous people around the world, but especially the First Nations in the Americas. Visiting the government Residential School offered the studied knowledge of this horror into physical, emotional and mental experience. For not a few this experience connected with trauma of their own lives. For me, it was an experience of doing my best to carry in positive and healing energy from the perspective of journeying alongside people with trauma. I toured the school by myself, pausing to pray for those injured in the past and those who carry their ancestral wounds forward.
I’ve always had an attraction to more Indigenous thinking through my life, which our experience deepened for me—and then I discovered my own Indigenous heritage. My grandmother, born in 1877 in Sweden, was a baby left on her parents’ doorstep, believed to be the product of a young Swedish girl and…was it Romani? Or Sami—the Swedish Indigenous? What a gift to learn that my grandmother was likely half Sami, as that has appeared in our genetic testing. Reading How Western Christianity Got it Wrong, by Randy Woodley, along with the profound experience of Peace Camp, and other things bubbling up along the way, together, is impacting my sense of myself, my history, my theology and my present call in life. Attending Peace Camp was an amazing time of connecting with others carrying the same deep convictions and desires for our world, and fit perfectly into the timeline of this new part of my life path.
We immediately started to figure out how we could get to Ecuador for Peace Camp next year. It will take some interesting maneuvering for us, but we are doing our best to get there, hoping to join many of you BPFNAers and many new ones. We have so much to learn from our sisters and brothers from other cultures and more Indigenous heritages, necessary for us North Americans, especially of the United States, to understand the devastating dysfunction we are a part of. Jimmy and I have a renewed commitment to BPF(NA) as a result of the inspiring experience of this summer, and perhaps as did nearly all or all of the other attendees. If the quality of the camp next year compares to this year’s camp, you’ll want to be there. The work of understanding our times and how to be positively attending to the needs of people is more important than ever.
