CPTnet
July 7, 2004

ASUBPEESCHOSEEWAGONG: Bulletin-free Sundays--a call to inaction

The team in Asubpeeschoseewagong is calling congregations to bold INaction.
Churches normally type up a bulletin, photocopy it and hand it out every
Sunday. The inaction to which CPT is calling congregations involves not
bothering with bulletins for a few months. The paper most churches use on
Sundays probably does not come from Alex Fobister's trapline, at Grassy
Narrows, in the Ojibway nation where CPT works, but it does come from some
Indigenous Nation's land.

"The forest is my church," said Joe, an Ojibway citizen of Grassy Narrows,
when CPT was getting to know the community four years ago. Joe's people
pray and do ceremonies in the forest.
CPT members have since learned that the forest is the Ojibway peoples'
equivalent of supermarkets, where they hunt, trap and pick berries,
pharmacies, where they collect medicines, and recreational grounds.

Clear-cutting and a plethora of other factors related to newcomers'
colonization have been driving the Ojibway off the land for over a hundred
years. And it's not over. When sixty year-old Grassy Narrows citizen Alex
Fobister went out to his trapline, as he has done all his life, in January
2004, he met a clear-cut and piles of logs on part of his trapline where
old growth boreal forest had been alive a few weeks before.

In March 2004, CPT members toured the Abitibi paper plant where the trees
from Grassy Narrows traditional land are processed and over 99% of them
sent to the U.S.A.. They asked their tour-guide at the plant, "How much
paper does one person use?" The guide pointed to a roll of tightly packed
paper about three feet wide and five feet tall. "About one of those in a
year," he said.

CPT-Asubpeeschoseewagong is thus calling for bulletin inaction in the
churches to show respect for the trees God created and for Indigenous
Nations across the continent. The team would appreciate feedback from
congregations who participate. Send comments and responses to
guest.308627 [at] MennoLink [dot] org.