A small group of members of St. Andrew’s Church gathered this Friday mid-day, climbed the tower and tolled the main bell 215 times.
This was the week that the unmarked graves of 215 indigenous children were revealed at a residential school in Kamloops BC. These graves were of children aged 4-15 who were forcibly taken from their family, denied their community, language and culture. It is hard to fathom the suffering of those children, and the families who never saw their children again, without even the opportunity to bury them. It is hard to fathom the suffering of the children who survived, and the communities that had to deal with such generational loss. It is hard to fathom that this trauma was suffered by indigenous children, families and communities across this land known as Turtle Island.
The tolling of the bell was a personal gesture of solidarity in grief, acknowledgement of complicity, and commitment to reconciliation. You are invited to listen and enter into a time of reflection – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UUz7cPjDnUtMjPNvz1Bs6Yb-3-95CamU/view?usp=sharing
The Presbyterian Church in Canada has distributed additional resources for us to consider https://presbyterian.ca/2021/05/31/pcc-prays-for-the-lives-lost-at-kamloops-indian-residential-school/ and https://presbyterian.ca/2021/06/05/pcc-and-residential-schools/
