#31 Waskaganish, QC: An Unforgettable Meeting

I had some preconceived ideas of what a group of Cree believers might look like in a small town on the Arctic Ocean at the end of a long dusty road.  A little huddle of the faithful trying to keep their flickering light from being snuffed out by the winds of darkness.  We arrived last Saturday afternoon and I asked the first locaI I ran into if he knew anything about the churches there in Waskaganish.  "Just go down the hill and you'll see the big tent they've set up for a week-long Jamboree."

We arrived at the tent at 7:30 sharp like we were told, but I forgot that we had changed time zones to Cree Standard Time.  No problem.  I saw a guy with a Winnipeg Jets jacket come in so I had time to find out the name of a fellow fan.  Kelly.  But he wasn't just another fan.  He had actually played for the Jets.  I looked a little closer at the logo.  Ahh. Waskaganish Jets.  No matter.  I had a new friend.

I once attended a church service in a little Nicaraguan village - only accessible by a long hike through the jungle.  The believers met under a roof on a dirt floor.  At one point during the sermon I noticed a kerfuffle one bench over.  A girl had apparently been stung by a scorpion.  She was attended to, the perpetrator was located and dispatched and then the service continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  The tent meeting in Waskaganish had the same element of the unexpected.  There was a seamless continuum from Cree to English to laughter to tears to stories of miracles to very loud worship.

The leader asked Sharpshooter Bert to come up and open in prayer.  There was a giggle across the audience.  The couple sitting in front of us - David and Cynthia as we would later find out - turned around and asked if we knew the story behind Bert's nickname.  "No."  (I'm not sure how we'd know the local lore having been in town for all of two hours, but we were happy to get in on the joke.)  So while Bert was rambling before his prayer, Cynthia showed us the YouTube video that explained why he was known as The Sharpshooter.


Before the worship started in earnest, a large yellow dog wandered up to the altar.  The leader introduced it as their Christian dog.  That caused David in front of us to turn around again and show us a picture on a pendant.  "This is my mother who passed away last year.  It was her dog.  She was the one who taught it to pray before every meal."  I was actually already privy to the faith of this canine.  There had been a goose meat and bannock feast before the service.  I was standing outside afterward when the same dog had walked up.  Someone threw it a goose bone and then unexpectedly turned to me and said, "Pray."  "Huh?"  "It won't eat until you pray."  So I obediently asked grace for the food that was about to be partaken of.  The Christian dog waited reverently till my 'Amen' and then gratefully tucked in.

The Holy Spirit was very much in control of the camp meeting.  I especially loved to see the elders being touched by His breeze.  All around, faces were radiant with the glory of God.  Again David turned back.  "Do you know the story of the church here?"  "Please tell us."  So David began telling the backstory that made sense of all we had seen.  In a community that was 90% alcoholic, David's grandfather, Johnny Whiskeychan, was the biggest drunk of all.  But then one day, returning home from a trip, he stepped off the airplane with a Bible instead of a case of booze.  His thirsty friends who had come to the airstrip to meet him were pretty mad.  Despite facing the hatred of the community, his windows getting shot out, and his family being treated as outcasts, Johnny preached the gospel.  Soon a group of three or four had embraced the good news of Jesus.  That was the start of something new in Waskaganish.  What we were witnessing today was the effect of fifty years of transformation.

A little before 10:00 the preacher got up.  We realized we were going to miss out, but Patty and I also knew that we needed our sleep to keep up our marathon journey so we slipped off to our motorhome for night.  I couldn't sleep though.  The sounds coming from the tent were too loud for that.  It was after 11 o'clock when the final repetitions of the closing song put another smile on my face:

You're worthy of it all, You're worthy of it all.

For from You are all things, and to You are all things,

You deserve the Glory.







Popular posts from this blog

#1 A Single Step

Image
Laozi said that ‘the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. In our case, the journey of 32,000 kilometers started with a date ... at the James Ave Pumphouse Food & Drink in Winnipeg. Adventures are my thing - not Patty’s. Her perfect holiday is visiting family at the end of a tried and familiar path. I thrill to the unknown. Our common ground is wanting to make our lives worthwhile. To walk by God’s leading. So when I get the idea for an adventure (and this happens regularly), the first litmus test to differentiate between a ‘Terry sparkler’ and ‘Divine calling’ is Patty’s response. I have learned that a good presentation doesn’t hurt my cause so I picked the setting carefully. The tables at the Pumphouse overlook a century-old collection of giant pipes and pumps – still covered in original grease. These were used to move Red River water to distant hydrants for fire-fighting. A restaurant with a combination of history (my love) and good food (Patty’s). P...
Read more

#2 The Forks, Winnipeg: Iau Descends

Image
It felt to me like we were standing on holy ground. Probably the same feeling I’d get if I was to visit the location where Moses saw the burning bush and where the tribes of Israel gathered around the base of Mt. Sinai to feel God descending with shaking and thunder and smoke. If I’ve put together the clues correctly, something very similar seems to have happened at the Forks. On the Mountains of the Prairie, On the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry, Gitche Manito, the mighty, He the Master of Life, descending, On the red craigs of the quarry, Called the tribes of men together. From his footprints flowed a river, Leaped into the light of morning, O’er the precipice plunging downward Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet. And the Spirit, stooping earthward, With his finger on the meadow Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, “Run in this way!” An indication that something special had happened here first came to light when an Anishinaabe elder approached Sid Kroker, the head archaeolog...
Read more

#4 Dominion City MB: That’s a Bit Audacious!

Image
A few people tagged along on the first leg of the journey from The Forks to Dominion City. We were hungry and I had promised a special lunch, but first I wanted to tell three stories from local lore. Countess of Dufferin In 1877, t ogether with her husband, the Governor General of Canada, the Countess of Dufferin was visiting Manitoba for diplomatic reasons. I hope she brought her rail-working clothes because she was roped into pounding in the first spike on the first railway in Western Canada. When finished, it would connect Winnipeg with St. Paul, MN. Having done the deed , the Countess and the Governor General boarded a paddlewheeler heading south up the Red River on their way home. En route they passed another paddlewheeler heading north and carrying the Countess of Dufferin. Confused? This particular C of D was a locomotive named after the lady in the other boat. They waved at each other (actually I’m not sure about that) never to see each other again. T he locomotive ...
Read more