A Canadian ministry that focuses on building relationships with the Indigenous community is looking forward to continual reconciliation in the season ahead. 

Todd and Krystal Wawrzyniak are the Director team at Indian Life Ministries. 

"Our mandate is to restore hope, healing, and honour to the Indigenous communities of North America through a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ," says Todd. "We do that in a couple of ways. We're a publication literature ministry and one of our main publications is called Intertribal Life Newspaper."

Every two months they publish a new edition and those then go out to every prison in North America, as well as treatment centers, band offices, schools, libraries, and churches. 

"What's unique about the paper is that it's 50 per cent positive native news and 50 per cent gospel truth," says Todd. "All were written by Indigenous writers for the Indigenous community."

On top of the newspaper, the ministry has published over 20 books that people can use as resources.

"The newspaper is one thing, the books are another, but getting into relationship with people, meeting people and hearing their stories and really just listening is something we're getting good at," says Todd. "I think people should do more of. Let's listen to people and hear each other's stories."

The couple share that as a ministry and in their lives, they're on a journey of reconciliation.

"God created us to be in relationship with people," says Krystal. "This is a ministry that God gift-wrapped and put in our lap as a result of something He did in our family using COVID. In my own journey, I have only found healing and freedom when I have been in relationship with others, myself, and learned to be in a healthy relationship with God."

A Night to Celebrate what God has Done

On October 15, Indian Life Ministries is hosting a banquet at The Meeting Place in Winnipeg that will include songs by Rising Above band and a message by Steven and Noemi Keesic. Grand Chief Scott Harper will also be in attendance. 

"We're looking forward to sharing with people what God has been doing in this ministry and the vision He's directing us in for the time to come," says Krystal.

People interested in attending can purchase single tickets or sponsor a table at their website. 

"The theme of the banquet is 'God gave the growth,' based on 1 Corinthians 3:6 where it says Paul planted the seeds and Apollos watered them, but it was God who gave the growth. We invite people to come and be apart of that." 

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