I have worked within the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery since it formed in 2014. The coalition emerged after a decade of working for liberation alongside Indigenous communities displaced and threatened by resource extraction in Suriname, a country in South America. On behalf of my friends, I petitioned a host of national, local and global authorities. 

By the end of a decade, it was clear to me that the oppression of my relations in Suriname was legal. There is no redress or relief provided by national or international authorities. 

I watched my friends suffer and then watched their children suffer. I concluded that the systems (laws and policies) that govern resource extraction are designed to dispossess Indigenous peoples for the benefit of mining corporations and their shareholders. 

After years of careful investigation, I learned that many retirement funds, including those held by Christian denominations, invest in resource extraction, because extractives are lucrative. 

It occurred to me that our current financial systems, which systematically remove and oppress Indigenous peoples, are similar to the financial systems that propped up chattel slavery for centuries. I concluded that only a social movement spanning multiple generations could challenge these systems of oppression. The coalition is an attempt to embody this movement.

I identify with the Twelve whom Jesus sent, as described in Matthew 10. Jesus instructs them to go to their own people and proclaim the message that the kin-dom of heaven has come near. He gives them the authority to heal body and spirit. 

“Don’t take any money with you,” he tells them, “or even extra clothes.” He says they will be sheltered and fed, for the worker is worth his or her keep. 

He encourages them to speak to those who will listen and to move on quickly away from those who are not ready to hear. 

He warns that they will be handed over to authorities, but he tells them not to worry. This is simply what they can expect. 

He tells them that their message will cause strife, because it challenges the order of things. They must speak the truth with confidence, even though the truth may turn people against each other: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (Matthew 10:34-35). 

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is not advocating violence. He is saying the Twelve must not shrink from telling the truth in the hope of preserving unity. The truth is divisive, especially when it rebukes injustice. 

Jesus’ good news for the poor is divisive. He calls on the Twelve to respond to an authority higher than church leaders or heads of households, kings or emperors. The Twelve are accountable to the Creator, the highest authority. He says whoever loses their life for his sake will find it.

Walking alongside Indigenous peoples who live with oppression, I encounter many of the hurdles the Twelve were asked to face. Friends encouraged me to seek better-paid work and shook their heads when I have opted to work hard for something other than money. I have traveled all over the world and spent half of my life on the road, exhausting my body. I have been brought before religious and state authorities. I have been disavowed by friends. I relate to the call to persevere without guarantee of personal reward. 

I have now advocated alongside Indigenous communities in North and South America for more than two ­decades. I have traveled with a radical message of hope: good news for the poor. 

I think I am beginning to understand the last part of Jesus’ speech as he sent out the Twelve. I do not have financial security, a prestigious career or any certainty. Maybe in losing the things I thought were important, I am beginning to find my life — in community with relatives across the world who are willing to speak the truth and stand with the oppressed. 

Perhaps discipleship is giving up all that we are told we need — reputation, financial security, prestige — to follow a call to a dream that feels impossible. 

The dream — the kin-dom of heaven drawn near — contains hope when many are experiencing despair. I am not filled with despair but with faith, hope, love and abundant life.