Proud to Be Canadian - A Report on the Kelowna Gathering

"Canada is a country of many nations," shared David Demian, director of Watchmen for the Nations at the recent Kelowna Gathering. "But the uniqueness about Canada, " he continued, "is that Canada did not become a melting pot. Canada remained as a mosaic. And in the picture of the puzzle - you can't see the picture until you put all the pieces together. The French, the English, the first nations - all the ethnos. And I believe, because of that, the Lord is releasing us to begin to move toward the atrocities in the land."

And I thought we will deal with the First Nations and then God will turn us to the French - and I was surprised and shocked that the Lord began directing our hearts toward the French people. And I did not know why but I'm thinking that it maybe because the first nations as we deal with the French and English, they will both have to deal with the first nations. Because it is not an English atrocity toward the First nations, it is all Canada together.

So the Lord is beginning to direct our hearts now towards Quebec. That we will not let Quebec lag behind. We will not let the French people remain where they are. We have the favour of the Lord and we will mobilize ourselves as an army to begin to stand in the gap and say "God we will not forget the French people'. We will stand in the gap - we will travail - we will weep.

Bottom line is we aren't going to let the enemy hold any people group in Canada captive anymore. We are going to walk together as a people that whatever it takes even if we die we die, we will stand on the watch and we will listen to the Lord and we will move.

Something is about to happen in Quebec and it needs the whole nation, the English-speaking from coast to coast to stand with Quebec at this time and say God change our hearts and change their hearts."

With the stage thus set, Odette Menard, a pastor from Quebec began to share about how God had impacted her during the gathering.

"I had the opportunity in Israel [the Journey of Hope] to begin to experience healing with a group of English people. One of the things that the French in Quebec hold against the English is that they say they want unity, but we are the ones that have to change.

But in Israel, when the English people got on their knees weeping , it really broke something. For the first time, I could see that English people could acknowledge a certain wrong in their hearts towards French Canada. And it brought an important healing in our hearts.

" I don't think I've ever cried as much as I did in these last few days," she continued. "As we met with the leadership team, David asked the English leaders to come and once again humble themselves before us and to pray that whatever was birthed in Israel would spread across the nation. And he prayed a powerful prayer.

'We as a church in Canada we need to stand together and say "there is no separation between us and the French church in Quebec."

This is a prophetic statement. We are speaking to the province. We are speaking to the deep rift and the separation. When one day they felt abandoned because English Canada defeated them and they felt betrayed. Betrayed from France and betrayed from English Canada. Let us pray that this will be the attitude of the church in Canada from coast to coast. We humble ourselves - we take that stand, the place of humility and brokenness so we can redeem our brothers and sisters to walk with us together.

This is a new day. We are driving a stake here in the heavenlies. We are setting a standard that our journey with Quebec will not be the same anymore. The favour of the Lord will walk with us to see the healing. It might cost us a lot but we will not go back anymore.'

And after all this happened, we began singing the national anthem. We were asked us to sing it in French and then they asked the English speaking people to sing it in English. While they were singing, a deep sense of security penetrated into my being. It was like I was being rocked in a cradle, I felt surrounded, I felt I was no longer alone. Before I was proud to be Quebecoise, but now I'm also proud to be Canadian!