A Legacy and a Vision for the First Nations of Northern Manitoba and Ontario

First Nations evangelist Lott Thunder of Winnipeg has a great spiritual legacy, having had praying parents, and having started to preach some 48 years ago at the age of 15.  

Over these many years, Lott Thunder has witnessed many miracles of grace, and has preached at many native campmeetings.

Two campmeetings every year are held at the Winnipeg Convention Centre each Easter and Thanksgiving week-end.  First Nations people come from all over northern Manitoba and NW Ontario and beyond to attend these meetings where Lott has consistently drawn large crowds of up to 2,000 to 2,500 people.

At Native campmeetings and tent meeting all over North America, Lott Thunder is well known in Native circles. 

Lott Thunder’s daughter Rose Thunder McLean is also a well-known singer who sings at most of her father’s revival meetings, and has recorded some eight gospel worship albums.

Rose Thunder is married to Marty McLean, son of Robert McLean, another gospel pioneer who has left a solid spiritual foundation for the next generation of First Nations leaders in Manitoba’s North.  Marty and Rose are a part of a rising generation of First Nations leaders with a spiritual legacy who honour their spiritual fathers and mothers, and want to go deeper, higher and further than anything that has happened in the past.  

They are organizing Youth Encounter Week-ends that are inter-generational where people are encountering a risen Savior, people who are seeking His face with all of their hearts, resulting in the transformation of lives from the inside out.

First Nations ministers such as Lott Thunder, Robert McLean and his brother Raymond McLean are spiritual fathers who have a vision to see some 100 communities in northern Manitoba and Ontario (that look to Winnipeg as the hub) come alive spiritually. They have faithfully built and established relational ties into these communities which are a foundation to build upon into the future.

Before founding the First Nations Family Worship Centre in Winnipeg, Raymond had travelled as an evangelist into pretty much all of these remote, isolated communities, has built relationships of trust, and continues to do so.  His brother Robert has now founded the Fairford Sanctuary, and has travelled into these communities over some 40 years, often at great cost and great risk, and has had a part in planting some 30 church congregations.  Lott Thunder recently saw in a dream how that this area on the map to the left was initially covered with great spiritual darkness.  What are some of the evidences of this spiritual darkness?

Substance abuse continues to spiral out of control.  

In Manitoba, 70% of people who are incarcerated are First Nations, even though they make up 17% of the total population of this province.  

The cost of living is exorbitant, and the land needs to be wisely stewarded  with trustworthy partners to support the inhabitants who live here, and so people will not have to find jobs only in the larger urban centres.

 Aboriginal youth commit suicide at more than 10 times the national rate.  

Thus picture was taken at the Pikangikum First Nation on March 6, 2010.  This is the yard of a resident who had 14 children, 5 of whom killed themselves by suicide.  Notice that they bury their dead right by the residence of those who have died, which becomes a constant reminder of their tragic and untimely deaths.

What Lott Thunder saw in his dream was that this territory, this region was a principality that was covered by much spiritual darkness, resulting in many social problems, the roots of which are spiritual rather than political. 

In December of 1995, at a Sacred Assembly in Gatineau, Quebec, where the 
Prime Minister of Canada and Members of Parliament from all political parties were present, as well as the heads of all the major denominations in Canada, Elijah Harper stated:  
“It has become more apparent that these things need to be resolved, and that the political process has failed.   I believe there is something missing, which is the spiritual element.”

But a change is coming!  In his dream, Lott Thunder saw a “greater glory” to come in the next generation, a glory than anything that he had experienced in his lifetime or ministry of 48 years!  The “greater glory” to come started as the fire of God began to blaze in one community, and then another, and another, until the whole land was filled with light!  The land was filled with the Father’s glory, and the people who lived there saw the glory of God filling the earth starting right where they lived.

People no longer needed to travel hundreds of miles to go to a camp-meeting far away in order to encounter the Presence of God!  The saving, delivering and healing Presence of God was breaking out in each one of these remote, isolated, northern communities.  The greater the pain, the greater the healing, and the painful experiences of the past will actually give the First Nations an advantage in releasing a healing anointing in our land!

Like it was during the ministry of Jesus, it was those in the northern territories, in the region of the Galilee that were the first to have their spiritual eyes opened, and to recognize the Kingdom of light which would scatter the darkness.  Galilee had been held in contempt and was despised and dishonoured by those more educated in natural wisdom in Jerusalem, but who were uneducated, blinded and ignorant when it came to spiritual revelation.  (See Isaiah 9:1, 2; Matthew 4:12-17; John 1:46; 7:41, 42, 52).  Perhaps if Jerusalem in the south of Israel could be compared to Winnipeg in the province of Manitoba, then Galilee in the north of Israel could be compared to the indigenous communities of northern Manitoba.

In the midst of deep darkness, the light of God’s glory is rising brighter and brighter upon the faces of a rising generation of aboriginal youth!    Just like the light of the sun shines ever brighter from the crack of dawn until the noonday sun, even so the rising up of these youth are like the crack of the dawn of a new day which will shine brighter and brighter, from one degree of glory to another, until they are transformed from the inside out into the very image of Christ who lives within them!

On First Nations issues, while some are looking only at the past, looking only backward, First Nations leaders like Robert McLean from Fairford are proactively looking forward, blessing the next generation right from infancy, praying divine protection upon them, covering them, and dedicating them to the Lord for His Kingdom purposes.  Building on the legacy of his generation, his prayer is that for them, the future will not be as the past, and that they will become known as the generation that the Lord has blessed!  Isaiah 61:9.  The power of intergenerational blessing is greater than the power of intergenerational cursing, and God has given leaders like Robert McLean the authority to choose blessing so that the next generation will not have to go through the abuses and traumas that many in the older generation went through.

Generational curses are broken whenever the younger generation honours the older generation for whatever blessings that they have received from them, including the gift of life, and whenever the older generation blesses the younger generation to build on their legacy, and to go further.

The Importance of Unity

Elijah Harper was an ardent advocate of reconciliation with a spiritual legacy received from his father, Pastor Alan B. Harper who faithfully pastored at the Red Sucker Lake First Nation for some 54 years.  After being baptized as a believer in Jesus in 1995, Elijah called the nation’s government and church leaders together that same year in order to encourage a spiritual rather than a political process in addressing First Nation’s issues.  

A spiritual foundation is absolutely vital to connect people, and to build bridges and not walls, and in order to eventually find a meeting of the minds. 

By having his father, Pastor Alan B. Harper, open up that 1995 national gathering in prayer, invoking God’s blessing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Elijah was acknowledging the importance of the supremacy of God, and of the church’s role in this healing journey for Canada.  What has been lacking is the need for stronger spiritual ties between Native and Non-native churches in Manitoba and beyond, particularly between  churches in remote northern Manitoba communities like Red Sucker Lake (where Elijah Harper grew up) and the rest of the Body of Christ. 

The First Nations are not looking for a denomination, but they are looking for a relational network whereby the Body of Christ can partner together, and strengthen the hands of the First Nations leaders, enabling them and supporting them to release a greater degree of spiritual authority and generational blessing that will bring greater freedom to all of us.

In a prophetic word given in Regina in August of 2014, Cindy Jacobs prophesied:

“There has already been a spirit of reconciliation loosed in Manitoba, but God says now I’m going to do it in a way that is greater.  I’m going to cause a partnership to come with the native and the non-native churches, and God says I’m going to release the prophetic word.   

"I see a great prophetic mantle upon Manitoba. ‘You’re going to have the word of the Lord.’  God says, Satan has tried to build a resistance even against the prophetic.  That is coming down says the Lord.  And, I am going to release the word of the Lord to the ends of the earth through Manitoba says the Lord.”

Now, in this year of 2017, we stand at a strategic moment in that there are First Nations leaders such as Lott Thunder, Robert McLean and Raymond McLean who want to build bridges and to partner with white churches in building upon the relational connections that they have already established into these communities of northern Manitoba, and of north-western Ontario.

After travelling into these northern communities for many years, Raymond McLean has founded the First Nations Family Worship Centre in Winnipeg so as to have a local church base from where partnerships can be built that will enable him to see a land of spiritual darkness transformed by the glory of God that resides within the church.   At the beginning of 2017, this church hosted a worship event which brought together worship teams from a white congregation (Maranatha Niverville), a Congolese congregation (Tabernacle of the New Covenant in Winnipeg), and a Filipino congregation (Followers of Christ Fellowship in Winnipeg), all led by the First Nations Worship Team and Choir!

Truly inter-cultural, cross-ethnic bridges are being built on the foundation of worshiping the same Father in spirit and in truth who is the true Source and the true Origin of every tribe and every nation.  John 4:23, 24.  Our joint worship becomes a foundation upon which we can talk to each other in a peaceful, joyful atmosphere, and seek to understand one another better so as to learn to both listen and to share as we partner with one another for God’s Kingdom purposes.

In this picture, Raymond McLean is with his brother Robert in South Korea in the spring of 2013.  Both of these men, as well as people like Lott Thunder, have built bridges into these remote northern communities.  By Non-native churches partnering with ministries such as these, we are linking up with true spiritual fathers who have established relationships of trust with communities that are isolated.  These men have all paid a price, often travelling under dangerous travelling conditions on winter roads, and now the younger generation that is more technologically trained and resourceful, and the rising generation can much more readily connect with other Youth in these remote communities, and network with them to bring greater understanding of the word of God, and of their true identity in Jesus Christ.

There is a sense that congregations such as the Fairford Sanctuary, the First Nations Family Worship Centre in Winnipeg and Maranatha Niverville are but the beginning of Manitoba Native and Non-native churches coming together.  Spiritual fathers are raising up a new generation to go further, and are connecting to advance God’s Kingdom through a relational network!