Being thankful for the land and for our neighbours

As we spend time today being thankful for the good things in life, we are reminded to also appreciate the basics. 

“I would say, taking a cue from our Indigenous neighbors, would be the land, the soil,” says Gary Dyck at the Mennonite Heritage Village. “It produces so much for us; it holds our water, it produces our food, and for the cattle, for the animals, it is their sustenance also.” 

While we usually get our food from the grocery store, Dyck reminds us that our food comes from the land. 

“I'm just always amazed,” he says. “I put in one seed and then that produces so much more. The land is so generous to us and if we treat it right... there is that great truth ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’ and that is shown to us every year, again and again, through the land, through the soil.”

Geese enjoying the pond in October at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach.

Dyck says that proverb speaks to the land and water, caring for our environment, and it speaks to the way we take care of each other. 

“If we can keep that (proverb) in the forefront of our minds, and Thanksgiving as part of that, being grateful and what we have to celebrate, but I think if we can keep that truth of ‘what we sow, so shall we reap’ it can help us so much in our lives, in our community. 

“What we've sowed in the Indigenous community in the times past, well that's what we're reaping today,” he says. 

Dyck encourages us to take care of the earth as well as each other, sowing seeds of kindness while we take care of the land and water. 

"That is a challenge, that we need to keep building into the land, so we can continue to be blessed and others be blessed by it.”