Native dispute prompts Christians to action
CALEDONIA, ON—As tensions began to mount in mid-April at the site of a native land claim protest in the southern Ontario community of Caledonia, Christian believers on all sides of the conflict began to pray.
Since February, native protesters from the Six Nations reserve have occupied a 40-hectare piece of land on the site of the Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia; a community of about 10,000 located 80 kilometres southwest of Toronto.
The Six Nations protesters say they have ancestral rights to the tract of land, which was being developed into a 250-house subdivision.
The conflict came to the attention of the national media, when the Ontario Provincial Police, acting in response to a court injunction that ordered the protesters to disperse, staged an early morning raid on the site in an attempt to remove the protesters.
But the police were unsuccessful. Blockades were set up, shutting down access to two major roads. Community tensions—which had been increasing as local businesses experienced significant disruptions—erupted following a community-organized rally, when non-native residents attempted to storm a police barricade separating them from the protesters.
But one local pastor, Ross Baxter of New Life Community Church, says the rally could have been much worse had it not been bathed in prayer.
"We had 30 or more people present at the fair grounds an hour before this meeting was to start," explains Baxter. "We walked the length and back of that fair ground praying God's blessing over it and claiming the land for Jesus Christ. And as people were arriving we were standing between the two entrances—everybody had to walk by us—singing the song, 'Peace Be to These Streets' and praying to the Lord to bring peace to our community.
"One young fellow…said he heard us singing and the whole atmosphere of his soul changed."
In the hours following the police raid, Adrian Jacobas, a Six Nations pastor and outreach worker with My People International, sent out a broadcast e-mail to 150 people asking for prayer.
He says he has been praying about the standoff individually, with his church and with a weekly intercessory prayer group and felt prompted to send the e-mail, because "I recognize, in humility, we are all sinners, and that given the opportunity, our sinful nature oppresses others and does hurt to others. So it's with humility that you go [before God] in prayer. But it's also with the thought of, 'God please intervene.'
"God works in the affairs of nations. I believe God gave us instruction to pray because He will answer."
After visiting the blockade, Dennis Hillis, district director for the Canadian Bible Society's south central Ontario district, began to pray for ways to get Scripture into the hands of the protesters. "The atmosphere was very tense," he says. "Our visit was just hours after the police had conducted their raid."
Reading a local newspaper story about the dispute the next day, Hillis learned of a native couple who oversee a Christian motorcycle ministry and lead a small church plant on the Six Nations Reserve. Hillis tracked the couple down and gave them a supply of New Testaments and other resource materials for ministry behind the blockade lines.
"I believe Scripture released can impact culture in crisis points. This community is in a crisis. God's Word can impact individual lives, and individual lives can bring peace to conflict situations like this," he says.
Prior to the police raid, Baxter says he "felt an urgency to put a call out to the pastors serving on the reservation and to community pastors" to gather to pray. From a variety of denominations, they've been gathering weekly for an hour to bring their concerns about the dispute before God.
Baxter is encouraged. "I am firmly convinced that God's hand is upon this and that He is raising up leaders to do His will."
Caledonia Baptist Church is located behind the blockade. Interim pastor Roy Hawkins says on the first Sunday after barricades cut off access to the church, native protesters allowed worshippers through so they could go to Sunday service.
Hawkins says he reminded his listeners "that the attitudes, values and priorities of the Christian community are not always identical with the world around us. We do not value land more than we value relationships. After the barricades come down, we need to be concerned that our relationships with the native people and the other people in the community are honouring to God."
One of the native protesters, who was not a regular attendee at the church, joined the service. According to a report in The Toronto Star, "a tear appeared in his eye as parishioners lined up to shake his hand and tell him he should feel welcome in their church."
The Star quotes the man as saying the experience "warmed" his heart and he felt a "unity of spirit" with the congregation.
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