Members of the Future Generations Collaborative hold a newly signed agreement for the former Laurelhurst Presbyterian Church on March 15, 2024. From left to right: Jennifer Pertile, her five-month-old son Gray, Jillene Joseph, Natalyn Begay, and Chenoa Landry.
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
Dozens of indigenous elders, youth, and church members gathered at the old Laurelhurst Presbyterian Church one afternoon in March. That was the last time other people entered the building as a church. As they walked past an abalone shell filled with steaming sage, everyone took a penny from a small bowl.
More than six dozen people attended the property transfer event held on March 15, 2024. Each user placed a penny or two on a red prayer cloth until it totaled $100, or $1, the symbolic value of the old Laurelhurst Presbyterian Church.
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
After lunch, people made their way to the sanctuary hallway, which will one day be remodeled to resemble the interior of a classic longhouse. They sat in a circle and listened to friends and family share their memories of Barbie Jackson Shields (Atwai). ), the user who animated the task, and its namesake.
“[It was] a historic event, because after more than 3 years of meetings, construction dating, building trust, and evidence over and over again in other degrees of the Church, the Church, through and through, has given back the land, or ‘Land Back,’ as we call it,” Joseph said.
Since 2012, FGC has sought the health and healing of Portland’s urban Indigenous community.
Barbie’s Village has been a dream in the making for over 3 years, named after and honoring the legacy of Barbie Jackson Shields (Atwai), a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and an original herbal helper, a central role for the FGC. mission. Shields is committed to addressing public health disparities within Indigenous communities, i. e. , those who are homeless in their territory.
Kenny Shields, center, is the husband of the late Barbie Shields. With their help, the Future Generations Collaborative came up with the concept of creating Barbie’s Village to honor his legacy.
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
Barbie’s husband, Kenny Shields, Anishinaabe and Sioux, said the moment meant a lot to him and his family. She was joined by two of her daughters, Tacori, 10, and Ashah, 8, who proudly wore their elegant yellow and blue shawls.
“It’s meaningful for me to be able to sit back and witness the signing of this procedure after years of delegation,” Kenny said.
Shields said he and his wife dreamed of creating a safe position for Indigenous families who, like them, had young children and needed a position to turn to when they struggled to get safe, affordable housing.
In 2018, Barbie suffered a brain aneurysm that took her life before she could see her dream come true. To honor his dream and legacy, Joseph told Shields that he wanted to name the task after his late wife.
The decision to donate the land and assets to FGC came after a vote last fall through Cascade Presthroughtery, the regional governance framework for more than congregations in Oregon and Washington states. Members voted 135-24 to donate the land and construction of the former Laurelhurst Presthroughterian Church to the Future Generations Collaborative for $1.
Now, Joseph says, FGC will begin transforming the old church into Barbie’s Village, a small residential village with six to ten tiny homes and a resource center to provide wraparound services to Indigenous families facing housing confidence and homelessness.
“We are so grateful for this gift,” Joseph said. We sense the magnitude of this gift and accept it with total love, honor, care and respect. “
In this record-breaking photograph taken on Oct. 30, 2023, the Rev. Chris Dela Cruz leads the Barbie Village task force, where he and its members have taken it upon themselves to go door-to-door to answer questions and inform and educate network members who live in the network near where Barbie’s Village will soon be built.
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
Getting to this point wasn’t easy. This has required years of building trust, covenants and relationships, and most importantly, healing generational wounds and traumas through the Church.
Three years ago, the Barbie’s Village Task Force was established. Under the leadership of the Rev. Chris Dela Cruz, the Future Generations Collaborative, the Leaven Community Land and Housing Coalition, and the Westminster Presbyterian Church have worked in combination to address homelessness and meet the needs of the community, while returning land to Indigenous stewardship and providing opportunities for the Church to begin the adventure of repatriation and reconciliation.
“This is the first time I’ve noticed a best friend standing up for me,” Joseph said. “It was a very deep understanding for me and made me even more grateful for everything we do. “
Members of the Barbie Village Task Force took on the task of going door-to-door to answer questions, as well as informing and educating network members living in the network that Barbie Village would soon be a reality.
It’s a task that Rev. Dela Cruz called “incredibly personal” as a Filipino-American who “puts on a necklace that carries the weight of the saints and sins of the Church. “Dela Cruz explained how his ancestors reclaimed their lands through 2. European and American powers colluded with the Church, resulting in the systematic erasure of many facets of Filipino culture and indigenous peoples due to colonization.
“This Land Back act is just a drop in the bucket in the need for the American Church, and indeed, my own rectory, to take into account its own complicity with white supremacy and do the work of reparation with the Native community. ” said the Rev. Dela Cruz in his March 15 speech. But in truth, Barbie’s Village is a gift to us, the Church, because it has allowed us to perform a genuine, concrete act of reparation that will have to be a style for the Church to continue if we are to be faithful to our vocation.
“Today, indigenous peoples will once again claim this land as their own, to administer it for the benefit of all,” added Rev. Dela Cruz.
Each player went home with braids of sweet grass as a thank you for their presence and for Barbie’s village. “We’re giving you one of my favorite classic medicines, sweet herb,” Jillene Joseph said. “We offer you this so that when you look at it, hold it, pray with it, or rub it, your prayers will also keep coming with Barbie’s village. “
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
Last fall, Multnomah County President Jessica Vega Pederson announced an emergency measure to give cash back to nonprofits fighting homelessness. Part of this package included an initial grant of $300,000 to cover initial prices related to Barbie’s Village.
Joseph says FGC is applying for more grants to help fund the structure of six to ten tiny homes with indoor plumbing and heating, as well as outdoor playgrounds. Joseph said he expects to hire contractors simultaneously, to speed up the structure and renovation of the existing building.
“It also depends on where the cash goes,” Joseph said. “We have the initial $300,000, and then we just gave a grant of almost $2 million to the Portland Clean Energy Fund, which will probably do what we need. So we get We start with what we have investment for and then we move on to move on from there.
At the March 15 event, Jennifer Pertile shared her memories of Barbie Shields. “The last time I saw Barbie and stayed with Barbie, she came here and discovered me on the street, because at that point I was lost in my own addiction. “Pertile said: “She just wanted to come and take me home and take care of me. He had a way of reaching out to you and letting you know that he cared about you, that he enjoyed you, and that he was looking for something bigger for you. “you.
Jarrette Werk / Bedscore News / Feature story for the Americas
While this is a historic tour of the Land Back, doubts persist about the end of the Church, according to Joseph.
“There was a reversion clause there, which said that if for some explanation the FGC had to close its doors, then the building would stop working and go back to the church,” Joseph said. for-profit organization to which I would pass. “
The agreement, drawn up through an independent organization under the largest regional church organization, the Presthroughtère des Cascades, stipulates that ownership will revert to the Presthroughtère des Cascades if any of the following situations occur: FGC becomes insolvent, assets are no longer used for charitable purposes, assets have been unoccupied for more than a month, FGC is no longer an active not-for-profit corporation, or FGC sells or proposes to sell its assets or interest in assets.
Joseph says that the inclusion of such restrictions introduces doubt into an otherwise positive exchange. He said that giving a gift means leaving no strings attached.
“Part of our task is to heal from the lasting effects of colonization and we know that the Church also has its healing paintings to do,” Joseph said. “We hope that the Church will do its healing paintings, so that the next time Land Back takes place, it will be with the bonds of oppression that are attached to it. “