Dave Feick

Dave Feick, executive director of The Micah Mission, has spent his life meeting people wherever they are and walking along with them for a bit. In these spaces, which he often views as holy moments, he recognizes the importance of breaking down walls and learning to build bridges with one another to achieve reconciliation. Dave believes that the purpose of reconciliation is to live compatibly with one another and to not put people into a mold that society wants them to be. Dave has challenged these molds many times in his work as a prison chaplain and reintegration chaplain. He has witnessed that, “Our prisons today are very much the residential schools of yesterday. We are still finding ways to oppress people, we are trying to make them fit into a certain type of mold that society wants. And it’s just not working.” He challenges us to work towards reconciliation by visiting those who are or have been incarcerated. “Treating them with respect and understanding their situation goes a much longer way than to ignore them and reject them.” We invited Dave into our house and around our dining room table to have a conversation around these five questions: 1. How would you define reconciliation? 2. What experiences have defined this understanding? 3. Where have you seen grace in the reconciliation journey? 4. How would you invite other people into understanding reconciliation? 5. Why is reconciliation important to you? Then we recorded his reflections. ****************************************************** Links from the episode: Micah Mission TRC Calls to Action Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools’ by Nancy Macdonald, Feb 18, 2016 Broken system: Why is a quarter of Canada’s prison population Indigenous? by Vicki Chartrand, February 18, 2018 For indigenous women, prisons are the adult version of residential schools by Carol Finlay, March 28, 2016 Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. Project Coordinator: Heather Peters Recording and Editing: Joel Kroeker Music by A Northern Road to Glory