From 1962 to 1991, Mennonite-related organizations operated residential schools for Indigenous people in northwestern Ontario. On March 6-8, 30 survivors from those schools gathered in Dryden, Ont., to tell their stories and begin their healing journeys.

The schools were run by the Northern Light Gospel Mission, an organi­zation formed by U.S. Mennonites in Pennsylvania, and Northern Youth Programs, a Mennonite-related or­gan­ization based in northwestern Ontario.

Northern Light Gospel Mission operated the Poplar Hill residential school, while Northern Youth Programs, founded in 1967, ran Stirland Lake residential school for boys and Cristal Lake for girls. About 400 students attended the schools.

For Jonathan Kakegamic, who helped organize the gathering, a benefit of the time together was hearing other students share about the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuse they experienced at the schools.

“Hearing people talk about it helped them see ‘I wasn’t the only kid who was beaten,’ ” said Kakegamic, a student at Stirland Lake from 1986 to 1988. “That helps on the healing journey.”

Although Northern Light Gospel Mission and Northern Youth Programs were not officially tied to any Canadian or American Mennonite conferences, Kakegamic wonders if Mennonite groups today might be willing to come alongside survivors to provide support and healing.

“Can the Mennonite community be a healing community for us?” he asked. “Those stories need to keep being told. We need to be heard.”

Also at the gathering were representatives from the now defunct Northern Light Gospel Mission, Northern Youth Programs and Living Hope Ministries, which also had a link to Northern Light Gospel Mission.

“It sticks with me that I know people who did this,” said Norm Miller, executive director of Northern Youth Programs, adding the abuses that happened at the schools were “a massive departure from everything Mennonites ever taught, that Jesus ever taught.”

Miller has also heard from some former staff who still struggle over what happened at the schools.

“Some feel like they were also victims of those in charge of the schools,” he said, adding that some school leaders were influenced by conservative Christian teacher Bill Gothard, whose teachings in the 1970s emphasized unconditional submission to authority figures.

“They knew what was happening was wrong, but were afraid of leadership at the schools,” Miller said.

Andrew Lang, executive director of Living Hope Native Ministries, said: “We are part of a church that did harm. We all share some of that responsibility. . . . There are people who were hurt by what was done in our name as Mennonites.”

For Scott Morton Ninomiya, who directs the Mennonite Central Committee Ontario Indigenous Neighbours Program, coming alongside survivors of the schools was an “opportunity to redeem the church from the wrongs of the residential school system.”

Engaging with survivors will give Mennonites a chance not only to “take responsibility for what was done in the past but also to show how we can help with healing today,” he said.

Survivors appreciated that Paul ­Miller, principal at the Poplar Hill school from 1967 to 1975, apologized for what happened to them. Kakegamic said: “It can’t wipe away the past, but I’m thankful he acknowledged our pain.”

Kakegamic hopes there will be more opportunities for survivors to meet with former administrators from the schools and with representatives from Canadian Mennonite conferences.

“We need to keep sharing our stories if we are going to have reconciliation,” he said, adding that Mennonites today also need healing from what happened, even if the conferences they belong to were not involved in operating the schools.