In this interview, we check in with Dan Collado from Aboriginal Bible Academy and Mission Canada. Dan brings a wealth of experience in ministry to Indigenous Peoples and a fresh perspective on the great potential for Kingdom impact in Indigenous communities. He also cautions Canadian leaders to seek to understand the differences in worldview between our Indigenous Peoples and the majority Canadian mindset. This is such a great interview - We hope you don't just listen to the podcast, but really lean-in to the implications it might have on how we do ministry in these communities!
In this interview, we check in with Dan Collado from Aboriginal Bible Academy and Mission Canada. Dan brings a wealth of experience in ministry to Indigenous Peoples and a fresh perspective on the great potential for Kingdom impact in Indigenous communities. He also cautions Canadian leaders to seek to understand the differences in worldview between our Indigenous Peoples and the majority Canadian mindset. This is such a great interview - We hope you don't just listen to the podcast, but really lean-in to the implications it might have on how we do ministry in these communities!
Welcome to the Multiply Network Podcast, a podcast created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple-making communities across Canada. My podcast fam, welcome to the Multiple Network podcast. My name's Paul Fraser and thanks for tuning in today. Really excited to share this interview I did with Dan Collado. He's the Academic Director for Aboriginal Bible Academy and also serves in our PAOC Mission Canada ministry, helping give leadership to our national focus on Indigenous Peoples. I feel this is such an important conversation, an important interview, not just to listen to, but really to lean into as it relates to our Indigenous Peoples. We're going to actually do a follow-up interview with him and some other Indigenous leaders later. But this interview lays such a good foundation on how Indigenous communities think, act, believe differently than the typical Canadian majority mindset. I'm telling you, I learned so much from this interview. And if you are a leader in church world, you need to hear what Dan has to say. He says it in humility, in grace, with patience and optimism. You see, we need to be about helping our Indigenous Peoples, but how we help makes all the difference. You're going to love this interview. Stick around right to the end. And it's coming up right now. Hi, Dan. Welcome to the Multiply Network podcast. Hi, Paul, thank you, good to be here. So glad to have you. Excited to talk with you about a little bit of your ministry experience, your passion and your heart for indigenous people. So why don't you give us a short summary, a short history, of what you've been doing and then we'll jump in to where you're at today? Sure, sure. I know when you think of involvement concerning indigenous ministry and the experience that a person might have regarding that, I usually begin by entering that with stating that I'm actually status First Nation myself. But that actually had nothing to do with my getting involved with indigenous ministry. I was thinking my passion and involvement with Indigenous ministry really stems from, I think, a wrestling match that I had with God in the early 90s. And I graduated from the ABBC at the time and I majored in missions. I had designs of being a missionary overseas somewhere. And certainly, back then, I mean, that was the idea of what a missionary meant, was being overseas. But the doors didn't open for various reasons and it kind of sent me spiraling a bit, and kind of questioning God, not so much about my calling, but just wondering, All right, Lord. Well, if not overseas, then what? And where? And so I couldn't really see myself, back then, you know, in some traditional pastoral role. So I felt like my spiritual wheels were spinning a bit and there wasn't a lot of traction. So I remember getting down to business with God. It was late 1992. It was either December of'92 or January of '93. And I had finally completely surrendered, and I made this commitment to Him and I told the Lord, I said, I am willing to go to literally any place where there's a need. And I said, The next door that opens, I'm going to walk through it. And so I said, you know, if it's not your will, Lord, then you're going to have to be the one that closes it because I'm committed to go. And so, long story short, within that same year, within that same timeframe, a few weeks even, through some various godly appointed or divine appointments, I really, I found myself, along with my wife of- it was just a little less than three years at that time - we were pastoring in a small fly-in First Nations community in Northern Ontario. And so to this day, I continually find myself saying yes to indigenous ministry opportunities. Yeah, so talk to us about where that fly-in place is, because I think most people are like, oh, you know, it's probably close to Toronto or something. Right? But no, you are north. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my very first place where we moved to was in northern Ontario. It was a fly-in First Nations community called Weagamow Lake, formerly known as Round Lake. They now have - this was after our time there - they now actually have a full-season road that kind of connects with the all-season road that ended at Wendigo Lake just north of Pickle Lake and lookout area in there. But following that, we then moved to - because apparently that wasn't far enough north - we moved to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. And we were there for ten years pastoring with the Inuit there. Wonderful times, wonderful moments of being able to share and to see firsthand, and experience firsthand, the culture and the different cultures between the Oji-Cree that were in northern Ontario, where we ministered and then, of course, the Inuit with the Inuktitut as the formal language there. Right. And why don't you tell us what you're doing today. So that didn't stop with those ministry experiences. You continue on with Mission Canada. Why don't you talk to us a little about what you're doing there? Certainly, yeah. Actually, with Mission Canada. It's a part-time role that I'm involved with concerning Mission Canada as serving as the Indigenous Canadians Coordinator. As the coordinator, I work with a team from across our various districts, helping to champion one of the five identified missional priorities of Canada, which are, of course, the Indigenous Peoples. And so we endeavor to highlight indigenous ministry and help raise awareness to the rest of the fellowship. But my full-time position, calling, is in my involvement with Aboriginal Bible Academy, where I'm the full-time Academic Director. It's a theological training, education training and equipping center for Indigenous Leadership Development. And so we help with the equipping and establishing of distance training centers across Canada. Yeah. Amazing and important work. And so grateful that you're doing it. I'm looking forward to doing a podcast with some indigenous leaders like yourself and others in the future. But for our podcast today, I do want to take -- I do want to get your take on what do you think are the biggest needs in indigenous communities now and maybe in this covid season? Sure. Well, I know that is... It's a huge question and it can have several, I think, rabbit trails where we could spend all day chasing. I mean, you do have your typical kind of headline grabbers, you know, where statistically suicide is an issue. I think the last stat that I saw was like six times that of the national average. This is, of course, referring to the indigenous population, community. Drug and alcohol abuse also is often a problem. You've got domestic abuse, which then is, I mean, that's often associated with the substance abuse previously. There's also -- there is a family dynamic crisis, I guess you can call it, if you will. Because half of the foster children -- I'm trying to recall it. I just read it recently-- that half of the foster children under the age of 14 in Canada are Indigenous. And so you've got over half of First Nations children in particular in Canada, they actually live in single parent homes. And so, but I say those things and we hear those statistics and it helps us kind of quantify some things, but really, in essence, those are just symptoms. And certainly, you know, with the geographical isolation, we've got covid, you know, there have been some struggles because indigenous people are such social people, so the restrictions with social gatherings has had, certainly, an impact. And then being geographically isolated. Relatively, our communities, indigenous communities, have stayed relatively safe. Because of that geographical isolation, they've been kind of removed from some of the particular hotspots that happen in the more concentrated urban areas. But then consequently, because they're geographically isolated, if there ever was breakouts that happened, of course, then they're physically distanced from, you know, the supplies and the services that would be so vital for making an appropriate response to disease and illness. I think aside from some of those statistical things that we can measure, there's a more subtle need within the indigenous community that I think really cuts much closer to the core. And it's that indigenous people need to have a sense of connection. And that really, that's the biggest need. Not just connection with their family, not just connection with other people, although obviously, I mean, that plays a large role, but it's literally a connection with everything. It's a connection with their environment. The indigenous person needs to feel connected to, like, all things. And I know that this can kind of get us into the weeds a bit, but like, with that question of What's the biggest need and then, you know, what can the Christian do? What can the church do to help address it? I think it really begins with the need for the church to understand, you know, how significantly different the typical indigenous world view is compared to the majority world view in the rest of the world. And I would submit that this is perhaps been the greatest misstep for for the church, not only in our history, but but presently as well. Any other missteps that that have happened or are happening they're typically because of a relative ignorance of the prevailing indigenous worldview, and I'm not suggesting in any way that ignorance is intentional. But, you know, it's just a natural happening of when a majority tends to to share a particular world view. We tend to assume that, well, everybody adheres to that. And so I think in order to have a meaningful impact with an indigenous person, with an indigenous community, or really with anybody for that matter, I think you need to have some sense of what are the core values that they hold dear. What's their world view? The truth is, I think we all have a world view. I mean, we all live by a certain set of values, right. That we use as a baseline, if you will, that that helps determine our particular course of action or to the different decisions that we make every day. I really think that the church, by and large, has has neglected to to realize just how different the indigenous person thinks. So, I mean, that just leads to really my next question is, OK, so, you know, I'm raised in the majority kind of culture, context. I have a certain world view. What's different than, maybe, my world view, than the -- you know, I don't know what you call it - the average or the the typical. I don't think there is. But what would be different in indigenous peoples in their world view, generally speaking, compared to, maybe, a majority mindset? Sure. Sure. I appreciate you wanting to make that distinction. I mean, because we are talking in generalities and for the sake of clarity to help kind of come to some general consensus of a course of action, you know, that's just the nature of the beast. You kind of have to talk in generalities. And so what I would kind of describe a typical indigenous world view, as succinctly as I can - And I mean, this is really doing a great injustice to this subject matter because, I mean, there are courses that are taught on these things concerning, you know, an indigenous worldview and the mind set - But for time's sake, a typical indigenous worldview is anchored primarily on one tenant of belief. Now, there's nuance to this, and to varying degrees, each indigenous person, depending on their upbringing, what kind of society that they've been primarily been exposed to, whether they're an urban indigenous person or more rural or reserve setting indigenous person. Typically an indigenous worldview has this one main anchored tenant, a belief, and it is the idea of having a communal understanding of existence. I guess that's how I would describe it. For the indigenous person what that means is that every human being, all human beings, not just indigenous, but all human beings that they're seen and they see themselves as part of the environment. It's not simply that we're all connected as human beings with one another, but that everything is connected, everything has an influence upon everything else. And it's the understanding that, you know, that humanity is not at the center. It's not the cog. But it's like a spoke in the wheel of their environment, spoke in the wheel of their existence, of their known reality. And so I think with that then humanity has not -- it's not just that they are to take part in their environment, but they are to be caretakers of that environment. And so that that leads to this idea of communalism. It becomes the chief value as opposed to individualism, which I would argue is perhaps the more predominant worldview here in Canada. If you had to pick between the two, communalism or individualism -- Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. We'd say individualim. A hundred percent. Yeah. And so I think consequently, you know, this this indigenous worldview of communalism, it would then give the community priority over the individual. But that's not to say, however, that individualism is not valid because it is. And that's, you know, a deeper conversation that can be had at another time. But I just want to contrast the traditional indigenous worldview with the early colonists, which, as I say, is still their world view persists as the dominant worldview for Canada to this day. But early colonial settlers, their world view, they championed individualism and a pioneerism. And so that led them to kind of see the environment. And this is important because this is the biggest distinction, is that this world view, along with championing an individualism, it saw, most significantly, that humanity was separate from their environment. They weren't together. It was separate. And so it really led to the seeing the environment as more of a commodity that could be explored, you know, subdued or conquered, if you will, and it could be used for one's own discretion. And so, you know, the idea that came about from that is the idea of you can own land, owning its resources and subduing the environment. I think, while that was fully embraced by the original settlers and the majority of Canadians today, the indigenous person, for the most part, has always maintained a communal understanding of existence. This idea of ownership of something outside of, say, your own decision, was owning something outside of that, that was formed. It was never truly adopted like it was with the rest of Canada. So that at the core is the difference between an indigenous worldview and perhaps the rest of Canada, you can say. And so I think that, you know, a church or the church as a whole who wants to reach, you know, the typical indigenous person or be involved in indigenous ministry in a community, I think is really going to have to come to terms with this world view. And what, you know, what does that entail? I mean, because the out-workings of this, of this world view, knowing if an indigenous person has this communal sense and understanding of existence, that we're all connected, that everything is connected, it's going to change how we interact. And so some of the things that it's going to mean for the church is that we're going to need to start thinking long term. Hmm...ok, just stop there. Just stop right there. That's where we don't do well. We want low hanging fruit, short wins, lots of wins. But to play a long game? Because people lose interest if it gets too long, if it gets too -- there's too much to it. But I couldn't agree more. So, you know, first of all, I want to jump in, you know, just to something you said earlier and then come into this playing the long game. Dan, I don't know if I've ever heard it explained so well. The difference. And I know you were taking some -- you know, as a generalization and, you know, we prefaced it with like it's just it's so different even from province to province, even from region to region in that province, the mindsets differ -- But I've never heard it explained so well. So I just want to say, thank you for doing that. That was that was just explained so, so well. And so unpack a little bit more now, this long game. Because I think this is the key. If we want to reach indigenous peoples and not just like, just say, Well we do. And we collectively nod. And it's like grandmas and apple pie- and of course we're going to say yes, and you know. But what do we need to do in the long game? Where does it start and how do we do that? Sure, you know, so in having this idea of needing to think long term, we need to come to grips, not only with what the world view of-- what the worldview is of your typical indigenous person, we need to come to terms with what our world view is and what our values are. You know, we value efficiency. We value within our commodity-based type of society, we have a highly efficient commercial type of society. We've become very adept at that, what I would call a transactional interaction, right? And I'm including the church on this. We've learned to be efficient in how to deliver certain ministries and certain certain things. I've got something that you want, that you need, and I can efficiently get it to you. So, you know, let's exchange services here and everyone's happy. Right. And that's the extent of perhaps the relationship and the connection. Well, indigenous culture was never, never steeped in that manner. It was never deeply competitive. It certainly wasn't a wage-based economy. It was trade and barter system. But specifically, it was motivated by cooperative mutual benefit, you know, born out of relationship. And that was what was important. And it was important because it shared that - and we go back to the world view - this communal understanding of existence, that we're all in this together. And that's not to say, I mean, everything was rosy with, you know, with indigenous communities. I mean, they had their conflicts. They fought amongst each other. But it was primarily having to do with wanting their community to exist and make it through the winter. So the resources were always typically the issue, and land would be involved with that. But
there was this sense of:We are to be motivated by cooperative mutual benefit, not so much a conquering or outdoing your neighbour. You know, success for the indigenous meant the propagation of their community, their clan, and that they made it through the winter. You know, for the non-indigenous person, the colonialist, it was not just making it through the winter, but being or having an affluence. And how do you measure affluence?
Well, it was:Compared to my next door neighbour, I'm doing pretty good. So it was a bit less cooperative. More competitive. I mean, that led to some amazing things - you know, inventions and what have you. But anyway, I just-- I think we as a church need to understand this communal relationship is so integral to the indigenous person. And to minister effectively, there needs to be a full appreciation and understanding of that. This hasn't gone away. I mean, we're talking in generalities. We're talking about something that certainly existed back in the early days and continues to persist. It's why our indigenous people weren't able to be assimilated. It's why they still are here, and the government had to relent on on some of their impositions with the Indian Act because indigenous refuse to change. They refuse to become non-indigenous. And so it is a long game that we need to keep in mind. One of the things that you mentioned earlier, too, that I thought was really important, one of the missteps you identified was connection. So obviously, understanding this communal mindset, this idea of We're all in this together; Everyone plays a role - including our land, our environment - all of it working together, and somehow we're connected to it all. And so that's kind of a -- it's definitely a shift in our thinking as a majority mindset. So how do we practically, you know, connect with our indigenous peoples beyond tokenism, beyond just like, Well, here's what we do. We give money or we do this. But like, if -- We need to put this back on our radar screens as a ministry. God loves them incredibly. In fact, He loves them as much as He loves anybody. And his heart for them is incredible. And we see the hurt, the pain, the brokenness caused by some of the majority world view, that mindset, over the years. And it's not like we're trying to repay something for what happened before, but we want to bring health, wholeness and healing and the kingdom to do that. Not our ways, not our traditions, not our franchise models of ministry. How do we connect? OK, so, understanding the worldview. Being long term in our thinking. Is there any other practical things that we can do to help us reach out and be a blessing to our indigenous peoples? Absolutely, Paul. I think, you know, to bring some good news to this. Something I think that I would want to encourage people with,
and that is:You don't need to be indigenous to necessarily be an effective and have an effective ministry within an indigenous context. Ok. Certainly it helps. To use, you know, urban vernacular, it gets you street cred if you're indigenous. But you don't need to be indigenous to minister effectively. So one of the key -- one of the key elements, if we're going to impact the kingdom of God within the indigenous setting and within the indigenous community, it's going to take authenticity, for one. OK. OK. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt, you know, one of the American presidents there in the early 1900s, he coined the phrase that 'people don't care what you know until people know how much you care'. And I think that the church's attempts to minister cannot be simply a transaction. Oh, you know, you need discipleship. Oh, you need to be saved. Well, here's a program and it can be done or it needs to be done, you know, at this certain time or in this certain way. But instead, there must be repeatable interactions that are anchored in relationship, authentic relationship. Yes, yes. I want to be in connection with so-and-so a person or such-and-such a person or such-and-such a community, such-and-such a culture, not because I need to teach them something, not because I want to change them. But I want to be in connection with that because I want to be in a relationship. Right. And so that's going to take authenticity. And so we need to balance our incessant need to be efficient with certain ways of how we go about things in order to not bypass this essential element of authenticity, because the relationship component cannot be short circuited. It can't be bypassed. You certainly, I mean, you can have some short term successes and things of that nature. But, you know, if you're talking about actual life change, you know, discipleship kind of encounters where we're helping to develop a disciple-making communities within an indigenous context, that doesn't happen on a weekend initiative. And so that kind of leads me to kind of the second requirement, which I actually touched on earlier, and that has to do with longevity. You've got to be authentic for a long time. If you want to develop an effective ministry into an indigenous community, then you've got to think long term. And as, you know, as building projects and week-long VBS initiatives, I mean, they are useful. They have their place. And certainly often as entry points to that beginning point of, beginning time of relationship building, but true disciple-making communities really only come about through prolonged intentional relationship-based interactions that are repeatable. They happen again. Where there is - again, we go back to this worldview - a cooperative mutual benefit. So it's not just, to use this vernacular, 'the white man coming to help rescue the Indian'. There is this sense of cooperative mutual benefit coming as much for the indigenous person to say, you know what, how can we help you? It's like, how can you feed into us? How can we mutually benefit from our interaction with one another? That is at the core of the success within indigenous ministry. But, you know, as you know, relationships, they take time. Yep. And it's just that, for the indigenous person, relationship is more important. It's not what you know. They need to know you. You know, and I love what you're saying there. Because, of course, nobody wants to be seen as a project. Nobody, you know, everybody wants relationship. And it's no different here. But I like the priority that you're placing on it. That that has to come first before anything else. One of the things that I think, at least in -- I'll speak generally -- that there is a stereotype that our indigenous peoples are just takers, that they don't have this communal mindset. And I think it's so important for us just to underscore that; that there's a deep need to give as well. That mutual benefit piece, I think gets missed. And, you know, and I think if we come in knowing that and saying, hey, we're here in partnership. We're not -- there's not a leader and a follower. We're here together. We're going to have more journey-thinking, opposed to destination-thinking, and we just come alongside. I think that's really important because a light bulb went off for me when you said that. It's like, Oh! Man, we've got to shift our mindset that, you know -- and it's a wrong mindset -- you know. Of course, there's probably, you know, outliers on both sides of the thing, where there are just takers. And that's no different in any culture, any majority mindset anywhere. But there's but I love what you're saying. There's a heart to give. There's a heart to participate. There's a heart to be in relationship. Because nobody wants to be in a relationship where all you're doing is giving. That's right. That's right. Right? So why is it any different? Right? Why is it any different? I love what you're saying. And I want to jump into that disciple-making community conversation, because that's what we're trying to reengage in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. How can we become a multiplication movement again? And I think you've shared some things that I think are helpful as we think through having disciple-making communities with our indigenous peoples. Any other thoughts? Any of the things that we can be thinking about? Maybe there's leaders out there that are going, I feel called here. I'm feeling, you know, a pull. Some of the things you're saying, the Lord's speaking. How do we get disciple making communities amongst our indigenous communities? Well, you know, I want to be encouraging to, you know, to the church, to our Pentecostal Fellowship that, you know, there's there is amazing potential within the indigenous community for ministry. I know that our indigenous churches and leadership, they're looking for opportunities to be in partnership, to be networking, to be in relationship. I know one of the initiatives that I often encourage when, say I get a call from a church looking to to do some type of ministry expression, and they're looking at, you know, perhaps maybe an indigenous component. Of course, we kind of walk through and talk through this idea
of:If you want to be truly effective, it's going to take time. It's not just one-off and special projects -- not to demean, you know, one-off special projects, they have their purpose. They have a certain value. But it's that understanding of being in a relationship where they're recognizing -- and I think actually you alluded to it and it's so key concerning the journey -- The journey truly is as important as what we would like to see as the end result. I know in our efficiency focused culture, it's all about getting to the ends. And for the indigenous person, generally speaking, the means is just as important. Yeah. You know, so the the idea of sitting down and having a meal and meeting the family is just as important, and perhaps is essentially, in the beginning, it's more important than what it is that you really want to say because you'll never get a chance to say it or it'll never truly be heard unless you put that relationship first. That's good. So the journey is just as important. And I think that can be somewhat of a paradigm shift for some of our initiatives and ministry initiatives. But, you know, when we're talking about discipleship, it really is a lifelong endeavor that we're referring to. You know, discipleship isn't a set of special meetings over a weekend or during a season. We're talking about lifelong learning. And it's unfortunate, but, you know, we should be seeing so much more of a natural progression within the indigenous culture, within the indigenous church culture than we currently do, because the indigenous culture is, I mean, it is perfectly made for this type of mentorship and discipleship where you look to a role model and there's this journey of walking together. I mean, precisely how Jesus modeled discipleship and disciple-making, what it was supposed to look like. The indigenous culture has that in spades. But in our anxiousness, you know, the church from the outside not understanding the culture at that time, you know, came in more, as you know, with the sense of needing to conquer the culture. And, you know, trying to work the- what was perceived as inappropriate or what have you- within the indigenous culture and Christianizing things, and there wasn't a full appreciation of just how developed the society and indigenous society was. Because it was one of the misnomers, the mistakes, you know, of the early settlers and the colonists as they came in, they made the assumption that the indigenous was, you know, savage, was uncivilized. And had no idea the robustness of the culture and how they dealt with decision making, value system, correction, you know, behavior modification, all these things. Certainly there wasn't the robustness that they saw, you know, when they looked and compared it to their own culture. But they didn't need that same robustness because there wasn't the same type of values and the aggressiveness wasn't there as it was, you know, because typically an individualistic culture, you know, that has a pioneering spirit, it leads to more aggressive behavior. You know, typically then your law system and your legal system has to be a little more robust and and succinct and very specific because behaviors tend to be more aggressive, and so you needed to deal with those things. But in the indigenous culture, it wasn't so much so. But anyway, I mean, that kind of got us in a roundabout way. But the idea that there is a journey that needs to be walked together in. Yeah. And one of the things you know, that I think you talked about the misnomers of the culture not being civilized. I would also add the spirituality piece was quite robust and quite evident. And I think that's one of the you know, again, one of those misnomers. I think there's an openness to spirituality, to God, to the kingdom of God, you know, not always our traditions, but I think Jesus is still very appealing. The teachings of Jesus is still very appealing. As you mentioned, the model of discipleship is very appealing. I want to --- Dan, this has been rich. And, you know, again, looking forward to that panel that we can do with you and some others. But just as we're closing here today, what are you excited about? You have a bit of a national picture. You sit on a national team, you're training leaders locally, but provincially, regionally. What are you excited about? Where are you seeing God work and where there's even more potential for the kingdom of God to advance with our incredible indigenous peoples? Sure, sure. You know, I'm going to look back on on the history, church history. There have been a number of significant, very, very significant moves of God in the history of the Pentecostal church, in the PAOC, within the indigenous community. Now, admittedly, you know, I'd have to say there's a bit of an ebb in indigenous church growth within the PAOC currently. Many of our of our indigenous pastors, leaders, you know, they're reaching or exceeding retirement age. And there's definitely a need to train and develop, you know, a new generation of indigenous pastors and ministry leaders. But I have to say, I'm excited. I'm excited about what lies ahead. Indigenous people - I always say this - Indigenous people make great Pentecostals. They really do. They don't need to be convinced --(Laughter) Wow. I agree.-- in the spirit realm. And that permits them to be naturally supernatural. To operate under the unction on freedom of the Holy Spirit as just a natural extension of their relationship with Christ. But further to that, they are our first peoples of our nation. They are, were, the original caretakers of this land. And if -- I truly believe this -- if we believe in praying for God to bless our nation of Canada and to bless our ministry efforts within its boundaries, then I feel that that blessing, in part, it flows through our indigenous people and the relationship that we have with them, that the church has with them. And I think that's so key. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, because I believe that too. I think God definitely is smiling. I know his heart is broken for what is happening in some of our indigenous communities. But as a people, he smiles. As a people, He looks at them with great compassion and care. And I believe, as you mentioned, this isn't a leadership crisis just amongst our indigenous leaders. This is a leadership crisis across the board as our boomers retire and move on into retirement. And there's Gen Xers are kind of that, you know, there's very few of us right now that are in ministry. And then, of course, engaging millennials and younger is the vision moving forward. That's no different than for our indigenous peoples as we even think about teen suicide and some of the brokenness you talked about early on. I want to thank you for just sharing your heart, but sharing - you know, just with with grace. And compassion. You know, I'm excited, you know, as I hear what you're saying. I'm excited again, just to reengage more conversation. I think we need to position ourselves as learners like I did today and moving forward. So, Dan, thanks for doing that. If people wanted to ask you some more questions, maybe get involved with some of the things you're involved with, how would they get a hold of you? Well, my my email with Aboriginal Bible Academy is director@AboriginalBibleAcademy.ca. So you can reach me there. Also, Daniel.Collado@PAOC.org is also available concerning Mission Canada specifically. And yeah, I can be reached there. You can even call me. I've got to work number -- it's at home. Of course, with this whole covid thing, I've been working at home actually long before this. I've been working at home since ten years ago, with being in distance education and that. But (613) 344-1703 and people can reach me that way. Amazing. Thank you, Dan. Thank you so much for jumping on today. We really appreciate it. All right. Lord bless you, Paul. Thank you for the invitation.