Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 08
April 16, 2007


UpClose

Now a citizen of three kingdoms

Abbotsford, B.C.

Dueckman

Maybe I should be singing, “O Canada, my home, not native land.”

On Feb. 23 I was sworn in as a brand new Canadian citizen, and it feels good! But it was a long time in coming.

A native of Newton, Kan., I ended up in British Columbia when I married a Canadian I’d met while doing voluntary service with Mennonite Central Committee. Settling in a new country after our wedding in 1981 took some adjusting. Eventually I learned Canadian ways of doing and saying things, but I never wanted to become a Canadian citizen. For 25 years I was content to remain a U.S. citizen with permanent resident status in Canada.

Then last summer I experienced growing conviction that it was time to consider citizenship in the country where I live, work and pay taxes. Partly it was the realization that my time spent in Canada would soon surpass the time I’d ever lived in the United States. Maybe too I thought that since I work for a magazine called Canadian Mennonite, I really ought to be one.

So after submitting my application and taking a written test, I was summoned to Citizenship Court to take the citizenship oath, the final step in the process. For me, as a Christian heeding Jesus’ command in Matthew 5 not to swear by anything, I had already decided I would merely “affirm,” not swear. But the words of the oath require one to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.”

As an American—which I would remain, as a dual citizen—declaring loyalty to a faraway British monarch was problematic. I wondered how I could in good conscience say words I did not really mean. I could rationalize they were “just words,” but then would I regard my marriage vows as also “just words”? The words we say, especially legally required words such as these, carry powerful meaning, and I like to mean what I say.

Although I struggled with the concept, eventually I came to understand that I would not be pledging allegiance to the Queen as a person, but rather to the law and the nation she represents as Canada’s head of state. Thinking about it that way, I decided I could do it.

The ceremony itself was celebrative, inspirational and moving. There were 60 new citizens sworn in that day from 41 countries. I had never been in a room with so many different nationalities, and seeing people from six continents now pledging a common loyalty to their new country was inspiring.

Repeating the solemn words that bestowed Canadian citizenship on me truly felt like a sacred moment in my life. It reminded me in some ways of a wedding, with its promise of commitment. At the singing of “O Canada” to conclude the proceedings, as I thought about the new identity I was taking on as a Canadian citizen—and how long it had taken me to realize I really wanted to make this commitment—I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I could barely sing.

People have asked me how it feels now to be Canadian. I’m not sure how to answer, as nothing in my day-to-day life has changed except my eligibility to vote. But in some ways I do feel different. As a resident non-citizen I was always aware I was a foreigner residing in Canada. I was like a foster child, welcome and accepted but not legally a family member. Now I feel a real sense of belonging. I am like a child fully and officially adopted into a family—the Canadian family.

I must admit that the word “citizen” has a nice ring to it. I am reminded of the verse that says, “You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19). I don’t recall a time when I didn’t consider myself a Christian, so I don’t know what it feels like to come into God’s household from the outside. But thanks to my citizenship experience and the affirmations of so many Canadians, I think I now have an idea of what it might feel like to be welcomed warmly into God’s arms after being outside the fold.

I am now a citizen of both the U.S. and Canada. More importantly I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20). Although our heavenly citizenship supersedes any earthly one, we must live our earthly lives as citizens of earthly nations. I feel truly blessed now to claim citizenship in two.

—Amy Dueckman

The writer, from Abbotsford, B.C., is the B.C. regional correspondent for Canadian Mennonite.

The enduring love of God

Selkirk, Ont.

Like the banner that hangs at Rainham (Ont.) Mennonite Church, pastor Karen Sheil is also a study of God’s enduring love.

At the front of the Rainham Mennonite Church sanctuary hangs a banner of the shore of Lake Erie, just down the road. The banner, a gift from a previous pastor, is emblazoned “God’s love endures forever.”

Karen Sheil is also a study of God’s enduring love, as well as grace and paradox. Brought up Baptist, she now pastors the local Mennonite congregation in the same community where her father, Art Sheil, was at one time pastor of the local Baptist church. In one of the oldest Mennonite churches in Ontario, Sheil is the second woman to pastor this congregation in a row—following Catherine Hunsberger, now at First Mennonite, Kitchener, Ont.

In a community that prizes marriage and family, Sheil, a single woman, is carefully studying celibacy as part of her master of divinity degree at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ont.

A careful planner, laying out where she wants to be in life in the future, she has often felt God’s sudden tug or push in a new direction that changes everything else. Once this push took her from planning for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) work in western Canada to Redeemer Reformed College in Ancaster, Ont.

Then God brought her to Rainham as pastor shortly after finding out about the congregation’s need—after planning to work as a youth minister.

The Rainham congregation itself is not the first place where she felt supported in pastoral ministry as a woman. Growing up near Nairn, Ont., her pastor was Mary Mae Schwartzentruber, now at Bloomingdale (Ont.) Mennonite Church. And Sheil’s home congregation in Hamilton was co-pastored by Julie and Phil Bender, now MC Canada Witness workers in China.

But that wasn’t all that drew her to Rainham. The congregation, over 200 years old, is uncertain about its long-term future but has hope for what it is doing now. A few years ago, partially at the invitation of congregational members, partially spontaneously, a half-dozen local children and youths began to attend. They came without parents, although the parents gave them rides to church, and asked neighbours for rides home. When she candidated, Sheil was very impressed with the children’s interest. Their dedication continues three years later.

Her background in theatre, as well as the chaplaincy training she is taking at McMaster, help her with her three-fold focus on worship, preaching and visitation during her two days of paid ministry each week.

She laughs as she recounts that she decided against a life in professional theatre. “That leads to no home, no marriage, no kids, and having to move every six months,” she says.

And here she is in a different vocation, using those gifts, but—except for moving—in the same situation. She spends her other time studying, working on the combined topic of theology and theatre, and has been part of the Hope Rising troupe that sings in many Ontario congregations in support of MCC’s Circles of Support program. For her, work and worship are part of a larger theme of embodied worship, as opposed to thoroughly cerebral or emotional worship.

Graduating with her M.Div. in the spring and beginning an M.A., she’s not sure what the future holds but she is sure that God’s enduring love will keep it full of grace and paradox.

—Dave Rogalsky


Back to Canadian Mennonite home page