wfn.org | Tiny Canadian Fly-in community to host national Anglican church meeting

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Fly-in community to host national church meeting
Logistics are the challenge of gathering in Kingfisher Lake, pop. 411

Leanne Larmondin
Web Manager

Kingfisher Lake, Ont.
A national church committee will descend upon this tiny, remote First
Nations community in the diocese of Keewatin for its March meeting. The
gathering's setting is to inform the work of the committee which has a
strong focus on indigenous justice, organizers say.

Traditionally, the ecojustice committee (part of the Anglican Church of
Canada's Partnerships department) has tried to vary its meeting locations
to give members a sense of "diocesan realities," says Rev. Maylanne Maybee,
co-ordinator for mission and justice education and the national office
staff person responsible for the ecojustice committee.

"One of the unique opportunities of serving on a national committee is
getting exposed to the life in the Anglican church that we would not
normally see," said Ms. Maybee. "It gives members a view of the broader
church."

Until now, the committee's most challenging meeting location was
Lewisporte, in the diocese of Central Newfoundland. But at least there are
roads to Lewisporte - Kingfisher Lake is only accessible by air or a winter
(ice) road.

The invitation to Kingfisher Lake (population 411) came last fall at the
committee's first meeting of the triennium, from member David Ashdown, then
executive archdeacon, now diocesan bishop of the host diocese of Keewatin.
With the invitation came a good-natured warning that March temperatures in
that part of northwestern Ontario can range from 0 C to -40 C (average is
about -20 C).

Travel - always pricey for national committees - will cost more for the
Kingfisher meeting than the average church meeting held in Toronto.
Typically, the committee budgets $11,000 for travel to each of its two
meetings a year. That amount will increase to at least $18,000, depending
on how many committee members and staff attend. About 15 are expected.

Accommodation, however, will cost considerably less than it would for a
Toronto meeting, where corporate rates for even a modest hotel room run
about $100 a night. In Kingfisher, committee members will stay in shared
bedrooms at the local mission house - at a cost of $50 per room.

Committee members will fly from across Canada to Sioux Lookout in Northern
Ontario to catch a connecting flight to Kingfisher. They will likely take
two chartered planes from Sioux Lookout the day before the meeting begins.

The location has definitely determined the structure of the ecojustice
meeting, said Ms. Maybee. Rather than following a rigid agenda with a set
timeframe, the committee's work has been parcelled into modules with no set
times. One expected highlight is a confirmation ceremony of local youth.

"At our last meeting we decided we wanted to incorporate principles of A
New Agape," said Ms. Maybee, referring to the agreed-upon partnership
between indigenous and non-indigenous Anglicans in Canada. There are three
indigenous committee members (Rev. Douglas Highway, Ethel Ahenakew and
Willy Hodgson) plus two diocesan bishops from predominantly indigenous
dioceses (Bishop Caleb Lawrence, from Moosonee, and Keewatin's Bishop
Ashdown). One additional member, Canon Sue Moxley, is a non-native member
of the church's healing response committee, which co-ordinates the church's
response to residential schools issues. Ms. Moxley has attended several
national native convocations.

"We want to learn how to conduct meetings in a way that recognizes
indigenous processes," said Ms. Maybee. "Rather than meet formally, we'll
let the meeting flow according to what people want to say rather than by
the clock."

The committee is still in its infancy for the triennium but Ms. Maybee
predicts next month's meeting will see it begin to work in earnest in the
five smaller working groups which it formed last fall: global and economic
justice; peace and non-violence; indigenous justice; ecology and the
environment and Canadian social development.

_______

Links:

Kingfisher Lake community website

http://www.kingfisherlake.ca/

Diocese of Keewatin

http://www.gokenora.com/~dioceseofkeewatin/

A New Agape
Plan of Anglican Work in Support of a New Partnership Between Indigenous
and Non-Indigenous Anglicans

http://anglican.ca/acip/agape.html

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Leanne Larmondin
Web Manager
Anglican Church of Canada
600 Jarvis St.
Toronto ON  L5E 2G1
(416) 924 9199 ext. 307
ll@anglican.ca
http://www.anglican.ca
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