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Happy Valley, Labrador
MCC workers touched by tragedy in Innu community


In January, Bill and Pam Stevenson began serving as regional representatives for Mennonite Central Committee in Sheshashit, Labrador, an Innu community of about 1,200 located about 40 km from Happy Valley.

Since a number of MCC volunteers have lived in the Sheshashit community over the years, the Stevensons were not surprised that they had been quickly and warmly welcomed by the community, and had become especially close to one couple.

On July 20, while visiting Davis Inlet, they received an urgent message that they were needed back in Sheshashit. The son of their friends, a 27-year-old man who had visited them a week earlier, had killed himself.

It was not the Stevenson’s first experience with suicide. They quickly phoned their friends who were racked with grief and shock. They prayed for them, for their son and for themselves, sensing an urgency to return to Sheshashit.

Then in the morning, they received word that a 17-year-old, a cousin to the suicide victim, also had committed suicide. He was the son of a woman Pam worked with in the community.

At the airstrip as the Stevensons waited for a flight to take them back to Goose Bay, a small group of mourners gathered. Pam learned that one of the mourners was the aunt of the teen who had hanged himself just a few hours earlier.

“Without a word she reached for my hand and held it,” says Pam. “Despite language and cultural barriers, a bond was forged as we silently shared our grief.”

Three days of mourning preceded the funeral. Although the Stevensons were new to the community and unfamiliar with Innu customs and language, they were treated with great respect by the mourners.

A wake was held in the home of the deceased. Hundreds paid their last respects. In the front room sat a handmade coffin. The body was dressed in the traditional, hand-embroidered buckskin garment of an Innu warrior. Symbols of the Roman Catholic and Innu traditions graced the room – statues of Mary and Joseph, rosary beads, native drums, medicine pouches and the likeness of a wolf.

A large group of Innu, once known as the Montagnais, arrived from Quebec. A Jesuit priest conducted a worship service in Innuamon for the family of the deceased. Pam was invited to sit with the mourning mother, a gesture of honour. Bill joined the procession in carrying the coffin, also a token of esteem and trust.

“We experienced a sense of shared sorrow and deep respect as the prayers of God’s people filled the crowded room,” says Pam. “Though I could not grasp the meaning of the prayers, my spirit discerned the still, small voice which drew us together in death as in life.”

A joint funeral for both men was held July 23 in the school’s gym. Both were victims of tragic lives and deaths. Prior to his suicide, the son of Stevenson’s friends had disclosed a history of sexual abuse by a white, Christian teacher and friend. The other had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a white man as well.

The crisis in Sheshashit did not end with the death of these two men. Within a few weeks, the incidents of gas sniffing and drinking climbed, as did related accidents and suicide attempts.

While the Stevensons admit that they are at a loss to offer answers to the people of Sheshashit, they are not without hope.

“We have seen with our eyes the miracle of God at work in the friendships we have developed with our Innu neighbours,” says Pam. “We ask for prayers for the people of Sheshashit as they mourn and as they seek new life for the future.”  – MCC Canada

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Last modified December 3, 1999.

© 1999 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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