“I know that our Indigenous people are hard to reach with the Gospel because of history and residential schools,” says missionary Elvira Cote.
Read Elvira’s life story, and how she responds to ministry challenges like this.
I come from a family of nine, and I’m the youngest. I was raised on Cote First Nation, near Kamsack, Saskatchewan. I lived there up until my teen years, but then went to live with my oldest sister. My parents had an arranged marriage. I’m not sure if they totally loved each other, but I do know that there was a lot of alcohol abuse in our home, and other kinds of abuse. So I describe my life growing up at home as very hard.
As a teen, I started making bad choices. By age 16, I ended up in correctional centres. There was one year that stands out in my mind when a lot of terrible things started to happen. My brother committed suicide, then three months later my sister got murdered (she was mother to Venus Cote, who also serves with NCEM). From then on it seemed like something bad was always happening in our family. Another sister froze to death, and left seven children behind.
I didn’t blame God for all this. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know anything about God, though I thought that there must be “something out there somewhere.” We weren’t raised with any kind of religion. I don’t remember ever going to church, or Native spirituality things.
From age 16 to 19, I was in and out of correctional centres. Looking back, I realize that violence was the only way I knew. It was normal where I grew up, so I thought that everyone lived like that. During those years I heard the Gospel story of Jesus through a couple who invited me to a Bible study, though I didn’t start following Jesus at that time.
And then I became a mom. I had two daughters, and was living in the town of Kamsack. There was a missionary couple, Frank & Mary Braun (serving with EMC, and later as NCEM associates), who were holding Sunday school and church services on our Reserve nearby. I started to send my two little girls to their Sunday school. The Brauns would pick them up each week – I would hide so that I wouldn’t have to talk to Frank or Mary!
A PRAYER FROM MY HEART
My girls started telling me that I should come with them to Sunday school, and one day I finally agreed to go. I remember sitting there one Sunday with the children and some adults. A Bible question was asked about David and Goliath, and I had no idea who that was. Then this little four or five year-old boy answered, and I thought, “Wow, he knows that? I’m an adult, and I don’t even know!”
The Lord was working in my heart and I began to see my need to become a Christian. One day I asked Mary Braun if she would tell me more, and she explained the Gospel to me. She wrote out a prayer of repentance for me to consider. In my heart I was convicted by the Holy Spirit, and I wanted to become a follower of Jesus. I prayed that written prayer from my heart. I had had a dream about hell and heaven, and I knew I had a choice to make.
After accepting Christ, I had to ask a lot of people for forgiveness for the hurts that I’d caused them. Following Jesus was a decision for myself, but I was also thinking of my little girls. I wanted to raise them the opposite of how I was raised. Of course I still had a lot to learn about how to live. I know that the Lord had His hand of protection on me all the previous years, and my decision to follow Jesus has spared me from a lot of bad things.
I had a growing desire to know the Lord more, and to understand the Bible. So in 1990 I quit my job and sold my possessions, loaded my car, and we headed for Key-Way-Tin Bible Institute in Lac La Biche, Alberta. I started classes there, and right from the start I knew that I wanted to become a missionary, telling other people about Jesus.
After I graduated three years later, we stayed on the campus and I began serving on staff at KBI. I knew that it was a good place to raise my daughters while they were finishing high school. In 2003 we moved to Winnipeg. I began with a job at a youth centre in the city’s North End. I soon realized that that wasn’t for me. I knew that the Lord wanted me in Winnipeg, and I wanted to do street evangelism. I had wanted to do that ever since I became a Christian.
My work in Winnipeg was not all physically on the street, of course. I have volunteered with organizations helping seniors, the young, the poor. I have taught English and led Bible studies, assisted at a day care, shared my testimony in jails, and I visit in hospitals. Sometimes I sit in the malls for the purpose of talking with people. And, yes, I do talk to people on the street, too. Those are the activities, but it’s the people who make all this worthwhile.
So how do I get talking to people? At the mall, I’ve noticed that if I regularly go and sit there, I will see people who are also regulars. It can start with a smile and simple “Hello.” Sometimes people will come to sit near me, even though there are lots of empty chairs elsewhere. Some have said, “There’s something different about you.” When the conversation turns to faith, I will ask people what they believe. I listen to them, and that gives me the opportunity to tell what I believe.
I know that our Indigenous people are hard to reach with the Gospel because of history and residential schools. Although my mom went to residential school, she never came back with bad stories. She was there for eight years of her life.
OUR ONLY HOPE
But I know it’s hard for those who were abused. Some who were sent to residential school say to me, “I was forced to kneel before Jesus,” or something like that. Then I say, “That’s not the Jesus of the Bible. He wouldn’t force himself on you. He gives you a choice.”
Some people are curious why I, as an Indigenous person, do not follow Native spirituality. I tell them how Jesus saved me and changed my life. Everything I need, I have found in the Lord.
I know that not everyone wants to talk about their past hurts. I can talk about mine because I have overcome, and it’s been through Jesus and His Word. God helps me with challenges in life, and He does not allow things without giving us the strength to handle them.
Sometimes people’s responses are not friendly, but I don’t take it personally. Sometimes I meet people and it seems that they’ve almost lost all hope to live, and their lives are hanging by a thread. Really, for all of us, no matter our story, our only hope is Jesus, and He is strong enough to hold us!
Pray for Elvira as she recently moved from Winnipeg to serve in the city of Whitehorse, Yukon. This article was condensed from a Tribal Trails video interview. Elvira’s story is included in “Real People. Real Life. Real Hope!, Vol. 2” — available by contacting <info@tribaltrails.org>
