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Join us following worship in the Van Roon Community Hall for the He/SheBrews Café.
- The annual Girl Guide Cookie Sale will be this Sunday, September 28 and again on October 19. We are glad to support this wonderful organization and the members of our church who are involved with it.
- For news and events, please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, September 28, 2025.
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is this coming Tuesday. As a member church of the denominations who participated in the Residential School system, it is important for members of the United Church of Canada to be aware of this day and to recommit ourselves to learning more about the history of which we were a part. This year I am lifting up an aspect of that history which I did not know of until a few years ago and came to understand as a consequence of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And it has to do with proximity.
I grew up in River Heights. I went to school in River Heights. I presently live in River Heights. But it wasn’t until the TRC was raising public consciousness a decade ago that I came to realize that there was a Residential School in River Heights. It was called Assiniboia Residential School and it was at 621 Academy Road, within walking distance of my house and a building that I drive by every day that I go to the church. Assiniboia School was a Roman Catholic run residential high school (the first in the country) that opened in 1958. It closed in 1973. In the years that it operated over 750 students from 86 communities attended it. Assiniboia was one of a very few Residential Schools that was in an urban centre. And while a number of buildings that formerly made up its campus have been torn down, one building still stands, somewhat hidden from the street but clearly visible from the north side on Wellington Crescent or while crossing the St. James Bridge.
Following the TRC, former students of Assiniboia Residential School gathered to share their stories and begin a plan to honour this place in their, and our, history. One of the results of that effort was a small and beautiful memorial right on Academy Road filled with symbols, lessons, and the names of every student who attended the school in a circular pattern around a place for the sacred fire.
A short video of the memorial and the journey to create it has been created by the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group which you can view here: https://youtu.be/UPPBltQkE0c . To visit their website and learn more, simply click: https://assiniboiaresidentialschool.com/
Assiniboia Residential School has literally been in my backyard almost all my life but I didn’t know it until recently. If all Canadians would take the time given to us on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and simply learn something more about our history, something that perhaps has been sheltered in our upbringing and education, what a tremendous step forward that would be towards establishing the common ground upon which to build a more promising future.
Grace and peace,
Michael
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- Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Luke 16:19-31
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