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About This Conversation

In this conversation and the third of our series, The Stranger Among Us , hosts Wendi Park and Lyn Dyck engage in a thoughtful conversation about the history of Mennonite settlers, their complicity in benefiting from the government's actions, and the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous communities. Lyn Dyck shares his personal experiences fostering Indigenous children and emphasizes the need for genuine relationships and understanding. They discuss the significance of learning from the past, taking actionable steps towards justice, and the importance of caring for one another. This thought-provoking episode encourages listeners to embark on their own journeys of growth, reflection, and reconciliation.

Timestamps

[06:11] Deliberate foster care choice for indigenous reconciliation.

[10:21] Supportive community and church for fostering children.

[13:32] Advocate for learning and build trust.

[15:26] Wondering about Mennonite history and intentions in Canada.

[20:13] "Systemic issues require personal growth and action."

[24:14] Inclusion of foster children recognized as impactful.

[27:44] Grandma and Jennifer share a special bond.

[30:53] Careful not to stay in the past. Learn and lead looking forward, build relationships.

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Editing and production by Johan Heinrichs: arkpodcasts.ca

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This is Journey with Care. We're in our series, loving the stranger among us.

Welcome to Journey with Care. We're in our series loving the stranger among us, and today we're diving into a topic that you might find really relatable. We're talking about the settled Stranger. I don't know if you've been following along. I hope you have. We have been talking about love and fear, stranger danger. We had Rahadi in, for our intro episode, and I encourage you to make sure you listen to those. But today, we're talking about the settled stranger, white settlers, those with European descent.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

So good to have you here. We've had some conversations in the past In this Shasta, for those who don't know where we are located, I have an office, a podcast studio, and we are, yes, in Winnipeg, Winterpeg. There's snow right around us, and you braved it. You're still in the studio, so welcome back.

Absolutely. Glad to be here.

We've had Some really interesting conversations in the past. But before we dive right into what it means to be a settled stranger in the land of Turtle Island, I wanted to just give you an opportunity to introduce yourself.

So my name is Lindeck. I'm married to my wife, Jennifer. We've been married for the last 33 years. Currently, I am in the role of executive director for the EMMC, Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference. But one of the things that I'm probably most proud about is the family that I have, and we are, we're a blended family.

Tell me more.

I have, 2 older daughters And now 1 son-in-law who has just entered into the family.

Congratulations. It's a boy.

Yeah. It's a boy. A bouncing baby boy. So they are our first daughters, you would say. And then in addition to that, we have 2 foster daughters who are 10 and 13 Who have been with us for the majority of their lives. Our 13 year old came to us when she was a day old and our 10 year old has been with us for 6 years, so We are tremendously blessed by them. They are indigenous, so we get to, we get to learn many different things from each other and with each other. So that's been a lot of fun.

And I think that's why our our conversations have gone on over these years because you have been wrestling or you have been walking through this Path of what it does it mean to be white evangelical, welcoming children that are of indigenous descent In your home, and can you tell me a little bit of what it's meant for you to walk into that path, into choosing to foster in the 1st place, Choosing to foster indigenous children, and some would say it's it could be controversial or There there must have been a lot going on your mind to to bring you down that path. I also wanna just say beforehand, why I love Having these conversations with you is because there's some integrity in how you are wrestling through it. But what brought you down that path? Can you tell us what that path looked like?

Yeah. We got into into fostering about 15 years ago. At the time, we had what we thought was the perfect little family. Right. It was myself and my wife and our 2 daughters and my wife had actually just in the last couple of years at that time gone back into the workforce, Right? Our kids were old enough to be in school and, she became an EA, and she loved the work that she was doing there. She was often working with People who had difficulties learning disabilities and stuff like that, and it was right about that time that there was getting to be more stuff in the news about the plight Of children who were in care and often finding that there weren't enough people who were able to take care of, of children that were in care And she started to come home and just say, Lynn, I think this is something that we gotta do. And I was a bit of a tough nut to crack because I was like, man, we're We're in a good place right now. Like, right? What is this gonna mean if we're gonna bring in other children into our into our home? But eventually, we started to do some respite, right, to give other parents some time, some breaks.

And, you know, we did that. That was almost like getting into the Into the child welfare system with training wheels on. Right? Yes. We can we can do this, but we'll do it for a weekend, and then we go right back to To life as we knew it. Right? But in time, you know, and especially the way that it tugged at my wife's heart, She just continued to come back and say, I think I need to quit my job, and this needs to be what we do. This this needs to become a ministry that we do. So that's what we ended up doing.

So your path into fostering was through respite, and you got a feel. And and, obviously, it tugged on your heart That maybe this is something that I could offer in a parenting role and and provide a safe and nurturing home. How was that leap from just general fostering to going cross cultural? With indigenous people being overrepresented In the child welfare system, what was it like for you to to go there?

Well, it that was actually fairly intentional on our part. When we looked at getting involved with fostering, we felt that we were being led to do this with indigenous people, with indigenous because we saw such a such a great need there and we wanted to learn. We already were looking at it at that time already as there's There's got to be something to this. There's got to be something that we as, like, now we're learning the term as settlers, But that we can do to start to build some of this reconciliation. Right? This was before the TRC was even was even a thing, But we just felt like God was saying to us, you guys gotta put yourself out there and and do something like this. So when we had our first Placement, it was it was like trial by fire. We had a 2a half year old little guy that came to to be with us, and he was just, wow, he was like, he was a whirlwind, right? Like he came in and Energy galore. He had some disabilities that arose from being FAS, so he was ADHD and different kind of things like that, And, you know, when you first go into some of these things, you have this idyllic thing of, oh, we're gonna really

Just love the child. Right?

Just gonna love the child, and it's all gonna be wonderful. And it was like, oh my goodness. We, we started to say that, You know, this little guy was was our spiritual exercise. Right? And and if you think about it, when you think of doing any kind of exercise, if you wanna build a muscle get stronger, you put resistance to it. Right? What do we learn through different trials? How does that how do we learn to be resilient in another area? And that was what we were learning here. This was, we were learning something here. We were learning about a family, about a situation. We got to be his His parents for three and a half years until he was able to transition back to be with his mother and with his other brothers and sisters.

It was a really neat process.

And did you learn a lot about his indigeneity, in that process?

Mhmm. I mean one of the things that it allowed us to do was to become part of the community. We got to learn and get to know the social workers who The majority of them were indigenous. We get to learn about his community that he was part of, go to the celebrations to the powwows Because one of the things that we wanted to make sure was we didn't want, I hope this sounds not too strange, but we didn't want him to become white. We wanted him to be able to be part of, you know, our lives, but To gain an understanding of who he was, what his heritage was, and that he could be proud of that, to to help him to learn those things. And in the process, we were learning as well.

And you just have a deeper appreciation and respect Oh. For the people of the land. Right? Yep. And I think that's beautiful, just what you said here. It wasn't about extracting them. It was about how do we help them be proud of who they are and what is our role. Because some people would say it's controversial To enter into foster care, particularly with indigenous children, is just the new residential school system. Now there's a lot of Things we could talk about that.

It's it's it isn't perfect. However, that's not the heart that you came into this as a white settler. We should add, you're living in Southern Manitoba, which is predominantly Mennonite land, settlers that came by invitation To the treaty land, the treaties that that were broken settled in that land. And so tell me a little bit more what was that like Having a multicultural family with indigenous children in your family and going to church, going to school, being that Family that is maybe growing that muscle at a more faster speed than others around you. Can you tell me the highs and lows of that?

Yeah. I think some of those things we're just very thankful that we had a community and we had a church That came around us in support very quickly. But we also saw that That it was a community and a and a church that was willing to learn about the children that we brought into our home. At times there were times when people would say things that you just kind of, oh boy, there's a little bit of grace that we got to give you here, because Sometimes people can assume that if you are a foster parent, they're just temporary kids. For us, they were never temporary kids, Even though we knew that at times we would have some children for 6 months, we'd have some children for a year and a half or something like that, We couldn't do this well if we didn't see ourselves as their parents. Right? If we didn't love them the same way as we loved our our bio kids. So that was something. Because we've been doing this now for about 15 years, we have been blessed by being in a school system where we actually have A school that our kids are able to go to, that's a k to 8 school.

And the thing that we have just found to be so special with that school is as they do any kind of teaching or anything like that, they ask us whether our children would be willing to share a little bit of their lives, Helping people to understand what it means when you say that you're Anishinaabe or when when you say that you're Ojibwe. What does that mean? For the kids in our area, just like you said, many of them are are white settlers, but they're starting to become more and more Newcomers from other lands that are coming into Canada now as well. One of the things that I often see from our kids is, While they understand that they have this history that is a little bit different than some of the other kids, they don't wanna be treated as different. And that is something that we have noticed with the school that we are part of. The teachers, the kids, the way that they come around our kids and befriend them, and they are able to be just who they are.

And I imagine that would take some intentionality On the part of school, on the part of yourselves, in a predominantly white area, there are other indigenous people. There your children are not alone in that. One of the topics that we will be having in our series, and I'll be talking with a neighbor of mine, is the estranged indigenous person. It's interesting. It's ironic actually that we're we're talking about the estranged indigenous who are of this land, but often feel othered. And so we're gonna hear firsthand from somebody that has had experience of feeling othered, and it it takes intentionality To change that for this next generation.

Yep.

So I imagine though as your children are finding their belonging in the school system and You are learning with them because you are their primary caregivers, and you are learning with them who they are Mhmm. And who they represent and the things they can be proud of.

One of the things that we have tried to do, and I think, You know, my my wife, Jennifer, has has done a really good job at this, which is to be their number one fan, but also to be their advocate. When it comes to looking at their learning plans, looking at what can we do to ensure that that they can come out with the best learning that that they can. Because sometimes with some of the disabilities that they may have, if you just meet them, you may think one thing, or you may have Some people may even have a stereotype about, oh, well, this is them. Right? And yet we have to continually say, no, some of these things, their shyness, they at times aren't going to tell you exactly what's going on in their life. That doesn't mean that they're trying to push you away or anything like that. That means that you just need to spend a little bit more time because you'll know once you get into their circle. You'll know when you're in. And when you're in, they know that they can trust you.

Right?

Kat, I'd love to ask you another question in a little different vein here. How have you learned about your roots, and what would you say your relation to the land is here in Canada?

Mhmm. So for myself, I have been a guy. I've always enjoyed history. I've been fascinated by some of our some of the books that I have even on my family Where I'm able to see back into right back into where they were where they were in Europe, where they got pushed from one land to another land, To the point where they were eventually invited to come to Canada to start to settle and and to do agriculture and stuff like that within our land. So that has always fascinated me. I even live in a house that has that kind of history. It's one of the first houses that was That was built. It's one of these old postbarn combination houses.

And I often think as because it's it's quite original on the inside. And I often wonder as I look at the different at the walls and stuff like that and go, what what stories could these things tell? Because the Mennonites who did come over, they came most of them came over many of them, I should say, came over in 18/74. My family, my wife's family, they all came over at about the same time, began to settle and to start to build their lives and and stuff like that. My findings, though, are that some of the things that we're learning today about what was done With the land, with the treaties, with many of those things, I'm not sure that that many of the people at the time really had any idea. Their intent when they came from Europe over to here was to build a better life for themselves. They were concerned about being part of Military conscription, they were concerned about the government being involved in their lives, in their churches, in their schools. They wanted to be able to teach and do those kind of things themselves. So once they came here, they were actually largely very separate from what the government did or wanted or anything like that, and they were what is often termed deemed to be the quiet in the land.

Right?

Yeah. And yet it's interesting as we we dig into it. Yeah. You're right. There's a lot of my ancestry also came through the same same ships. Right?

Same ships.

There was a lot of naivety, but also yet they were complicit with what the government was doing in taking the land. And there was shared power in owning land. The very first owners of land, of this treaty Land that was sectioned off square by square, and they were prospering off the land. And they were very, I should say they, we, our our ancestry was very proud of our ancestry and keeping to ourselves. So there was a a quiet Humble pride, so to speak, in keeping to ourselves and yet prospering and benefiting. And And often from the stories I've heard from my own family, there was innate racism that was passed on generation to generation that Thought of what the government thought of Terrenalius.

Mhmm.

Right? And when we look at the the TRC or the truth commission. There's a whole section there, relating to the church, talking to the church, calls to action, inviting the church. And when we often think of The TRC, we often think of something more political or something out there. Maybe the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans and the United, the the ones that were the early People influencing government and taking place in government, and we weren't those. Right? We were we were just kinda kept to ourselves. However, I'd love to read the call to action number 49 that is addressing the church, and how we as as Anabaptists also are complicit to these calls to action as well. We call upon all religious denominations and faith groups who have not already done so to repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty. That's what we were just relating to over indigenous lands and peoples, such as the doctrine of discovery in terra nullius.

So the doctrine of discovery and the concept of terra nullius was an international law at that time of colonization. So this was Sort of the atmosphere that our people too who came from Europe that that had migrated different places, they lived in this concept because they were white, because they were of European descent. They would've had that concept of terra nullius with indoctrinated within them. It was international law, the time of colonization Here on Turtle Island, which we refer to as this whole body of North America referred to as Turtle Island, and it provided a legal and moral framework That allowed European Christians to dispossess and lay claim to land on the presumption of racial superiority. That's a harsh thing for me to to even say on on something like this because it's not who I have understood myself to be in my ancestry, because I think there there is a lot of good, but racial superiority over indigenous peoples. And so I don't see it so much as a I'm not racist as an individual, but just a systemic racism that we as Anabaptist people have been complicit in, And that's touchy. Have you had conversations within your leadership roles or within your church experience within your community that is largely, Mennonite. Have you had experiences where people don't wanna talk about it, or it's It's a harsh thing to to come to terms with.

I think when we when we look at some of these things, and I think you you kinda nailed it when you said these are These are things that are systemic. Like, these are things that with some of the 1st immigrants that would have come over, this is what they would have understood. And I think we have to take that Personally, because there are things in our own lives that we come to learn that that are revealed to us that make us kind of go, oh, boy. Some of the things that I said or did 15, 20 years ago, I've learned differently now, and I think that's the same thing that happens within our people as well. I can vividly remember conversations that grandparents would have said that today would have made me cringe, But that was what they knew. That was what they understood. It's not an excuse, but that's where they were at at that time. And that I think is what we as a people need to continue to do, which is To learn and to grow, but now as you come to new learning, new understanding, it's like, what are we gonna do differently from here on in? My wife, Jennifer, was was reminding me of a of a course that I think it was last year that she had been in learning more about indigenous history and How that intersected with with we as settlers when we came, and the person that was that was teaching it or was leading it was saying, You know, we we have to get to the point where we're not trying to solve the thing.

That that's actually not what we're trying to do. You can't fix it. You can't go back and fix it, but we can grieve it. But can we grieve it together? Right? It's not just white people grieve this thing for what you did. It's like, No. Actually, there's there's stuff that we need to work on together here. Right? Can we grieve it? Can we live together in it? Can we care for each other? And then let's figure out a way of moving forward. Right?

Yeah. And it's not about Beating ourselves up and shaming has never brought great growth.

No.

It it actually causes us to retreat. In last episode, we talked about the love and the fear Parts of our brain, we want to go into that prefrontal cortex, that ability to love, to reason, to to be in there, and not live in fear. Like, oh, if I say something wrong, Then, whatever. It it's about learning. I love that you you mentioned learning. It's having that growth mindset. It's it's about repentance In the truest sense of turning away and doing a 180 from what now what that I know, bringing into consciousness, now that I know these things that are happening, or now that I know that I have assumed power in the room, or now that I know that these things have happened in in my past, These are some actionable things I can move forward. It's about moving forward in a good way.

What are some things that you would suggest For our listeners that are good actionable steps that helped you along on this journey, that are helping you along this journey As you foster, but also as you just lead, many churches through this.

I think one of the things that I would say is make it personal. For one of our foster daughters, her her stepbrother had passed away last year, so our foster daughter's bio dad had asked Her to be at the funeral at the wake and also said that it would be okay for Jennifer to be there along along with. Jennifer wanted to make sure that this was okay with the social workers and stuff like that, and they said, yeah. If it it's okay if the family is okay with it. Jennifer wanting to be respectful of of what was happening and stuff like that, she held herself back. She kinda stayed at the back of the room and and didn't want to Get in the way or anything like that. Our foster daughter's grandma as well as her dad looked over at Jennifer and said, why are you standing back there? They said to your family, you need to come up here and sit with sit with us. That was it it floored her.

Right? That

She was the Stranger, and they invited her in.

They invited her in, and I was like, oh my goodness. You know, it it was something that that we have. Not that it was a primary thing that we were striving for, right, our our striving has always been to care for our kids As if they are our own, we introduce them as our daughters, and, you know, our desire has always been to make sure that they have relations with with their extended family and to be proud of. As I said before, be proud of their heritage for The father and the grandmother to have said that, that made it feel like they recognized What we have been trying to do over all these years, we have not been keeping separate. We have not been doing any of those things. We've always been trying to see how do we Integrate together because I think that's a better way of of moving forward with with the system that we have. The thing that I mean about making it personal is as much as we can advocate for the government Or for different organizations or for denominations to take steps to reconciliation. It's gonna go a whole lot faster if we each make it personal.

Take the opportunity to become part of A indigenous person's life. Look for a way of making making a a friend. Right?

Go at the Speed of relationships. Right? Totally.

Right? Because if you think about it, when when we talk about truth and reconciliation, truth, truth is some of the stuff that's coming out now, right? Like, we're understanding the truth of the treaties, the truth of the things that have broken those pieces. We've understood the truth of Residential school. But the additional part, the part that we all can really take part in is the reconciliation part. Reconciliation takes 2 people, not just 1. You can be 1 person that forgives another. The other person doesn't need to accept it, But you've forgiven. That's 1 person. Reconciliation is an act that has to be followed through by 2 people.

So that reconciliation means that white settler, indigenous person, we need to look for ways of how do we bring those 2 together. And I think one of the things that I've noticed is with many of the people within our churches and within our denomination and stuff like that Is there's a lot of people that are really interested in in looking for how how do I do that? But a lot of times they can be a little freaked out, a little bit scared. I don't wanna say the wrong thing. I don't wanna do the wrong thing, and if there's anything that I can tell you, man, the people that we have gotten to meet are people who are just they're gracious and just like the funeral or the wake, that kind of a thing To be able to look at the white lady that's standing at the back just kinda trying to stay out of everybody's way and saying, come. Here, you sit with me on this front bench.

And what I love about that example is both this indigenous grandma and your wife We're not operating in a fear based brain that would've shut all of that down. No. They were both working from the a love based brain that allowed them to connect, that allowed them To grieve, it allowed them to be creative in how they work together and just love each other.

Ship that that grandma and my wife have had, it's a relationship that is built over the last 13 years. It's a relationship where Jennifer and this grandma have been able to listen to each other about their stories. She's been able to hear grandma's story. She's been able to hear the story of her being a residential school survivor. She's been able to hear about her own her own past, her own Times where she struggled as a mom getting into substance abuse and stuff like that, not able to take care of her own kids. In the whole process, So she's been able to hear how grandma has come to learn and to love Jesus as her savior, And that has just been beautiful. And I think the way that you said it is exactly right. This is a relationship that the 2 of these people had That if others looking in would have gone, why is she hauling white lady up to the front of this whole thing? She's my family.

Yeah.

Right? She's gotta be here.

And I think that's a really important message that we, as white settlers, Don't barge in out of good intention, because I'm gonna do reconciliation, so I'm just gonna get her done. If we're not willing to put in the time and the the heart And the love into relationships that take time. There's been a 100 and over a 150 years. Well, over a 100 but a 150 of our our history Of years of not necessarily walking in relationship, so we can allow time. That cup of coffee and and so many experiences to build that Trust and be invited in, not just barge in.

Yep. And and I think that's what many of the people would say. If you think back To it's really only been a couple years since we've been starting to find some of these unmarked graves and stuff like that. And it seems like then Many people within Canada became attentive to, oh my goodness, what has actually happened with these residential schools? And I so appreciate the posture that many of the indigenous people said, hey, look, we're not asking you guys to this thing. You you can't fix all this stuff.

We've known it for years.

We've known it for years, but you're now coming to to realize this. If it does anything, can you listen to us now?

Mhmm.

Okay. Let's hear the heart. Hear my heart. And I think when we do that, we go, oh, now I understand. Now we can care for each other. Now I understand a little bit more about some of the things that have gone on in your past, and how that has shaped you. I think that is something that We are constantly having to do. Right? Even as we go back into the white settlers' history, it's not one of these things of, well, let's leave the past in the past.

Can't really do that. Our past shapes us. Our past are things that we learn from. At times, they make us resilient. At times, there are things that that are there that we learned.

It's like our psychological records in a doctor's office. My husband is a psychotherapist, and he's like, It always makes sense once you hear their story. It always makes sense of, let's say, in a cultural group when you hear their story.

Yep. Now when we look back on our past, we also have to be careful that we don't just stay in that past. I'm gonna use one of your one of your brother's quotes. We learn looking back, we lead looking forward. So we learn about all kinds of stuff as we as we look back. Right? And we look back in our past both as indigenous peoples as well as as white settlers. We we learn about those things and there are some of those that we have to repent of. And yet, what can we learn from those things now as we move forward? Right? If one of those things is that we That we learn to build relationship with each other.

We start to learn about each other, and that's on Both sides understanding what are some of the beautiful characteristics of our indigenous brothers and sisters. And as we learn those things, some of the trappings of us as as some of the white settlers kinda fall away. Our neighbors can also see, oh, What can we actually learn from each other together? How how can we do this thing together now? How can we live? How can we learn? How do how can we be better people moving

Well, Lynn, thank you for being a brave white settler who is on this journey of reconciliation. Thank you for helping us Learn what it means to journey in a good way.

Wendy, I wanna thank you for creating a platform like this where the white settler And the indigenous person can share about where they're at. I would also like to thank our indigenous neighbors, Our brothers and sisters for the patience and grace that they have extended to us as we learn and come to grips with some of the things that have happened And as we look for ways of leading forward through this to be better people Together.