With deep lament we receive the recent news of the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children found in an unmarked mass grave on the site of one of Canada’s largest residential schools. We grieve over the profound loss, and we grieve with the survivors and with the parents who never saw their children once they were taken to residential schools.

May the power of our grief renew our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, and to continuing to act on Recommendations 71 – 76 of the Truth and Reconciliation Report that deal with “Missing Children and Burial Information“. In the six intervening years that have lapsed since the report was published, this is the first gruesome discovery.

What parent can take the forceful abduction of their child, and then never see them again? Who could conjure up such an atrocity: children sent to residential schools where they would endure abuses of various kinds, only to find them killed by disease, abuse, or neglect, and then thrown in an unmarked mass grave—and so much of it done in the name of Christ!

We who follow Christ enter into His grief and His power to comfort. We who bear Christ’s name now are to be present and accounted for to be committed to reconciliation, and to all the costly and authentic ways that reconciliation brings healing. 

One step is to inform ourselves about Truth and Reconciliation:

• To learn more on the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Report go to: Truth and Reconciliation
• To learn more about Residential Schools go to: “They Came for the Children”

Another step is to be intentional in prayer for and with Indigenous Peoples, and to join others in prayer and action.

If you are interested in learning more, see Rusty’s series on “Truth and Reconciliation.”