Remember, Seek Peace, Renew Hope

Norm Dyck, MCEC Mission Minister - The mountains misty air was a refreshing reprieve from the heat and humidity of Davao.

Our Mennonite Church Canada Learning Tour to the Philippines (made up entirely of participants from MCEC) was on our way to visit the last of three indigenous communities who partner in peacebuilding and coffee growing with Peacebuilders Community Incorporated (PBCI), the international Witness ministry led by Dann & Joji Pantoja.

I wondered if this could be a glimpse of what heaven might be like. A place of deep peace, but also a place that carried a deep pain.

Traveling around Mt. Apo, and slowly making our way closer to the Bagobo Tagabawa ancestral lands, every turn provided a breathtaking view of mountains and valley’s covered in lush vegetation.

The van engine whined as we climbed the last steep entrance towards Balay Kasunayan, House of Peace. The clouds were there to greet us too, slowly rolling through the open air meeting place welcoming us to this “thin space.”

When asked to remark on what I was experiencing, I wondered if this could be a glimpse of what heaven might be like. A place of deep peace, but also a place that carried a deep pain.

An elderly woman stood before us to share her first hand account of the Rano Massacre, which brutally took the lives of 39 members of the tribal community, including her husband and four children. Immediately following her story, our group was invited to climb the steps to the memorial built to remember, to seek peace and to renew hope.

Witness Workers Dann & Joji Pantoja have been in Mindanao, Philippines for more than 15 years building relationships and sharing a model of peacebuilding rooted in Jesus. They have helped to broker peace agreements between warring parties and have built relationships with all sides of the conflicted region.

The ministry is now in a season of transition, as the Pantoja’s transfer leadership to young indigenous leadership.

The relationships that have grown with indigenous communities may yet hold significant learning for us as we wrestle with the pain and suffering being unearthed in Residential Schools across our country.

The mist hovered over the monument shaped as a dead leaf over a concrete cross. Reading the names of the dead etched in a memorial stone, I couldn’t help but wonder how many memorials like this one will need to stand in Canada before the story of our First Nations sisters and brothers can turn from pain and sorrow, to hope and a relationship of peace.

Together, MCEC is called to embody God’s reconciling ministry for all creation. May it be so.