Lundström’s Inuit-inspired winter coat La Parka incorporated designs
from native artists in the 1990s.
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proved the final straw, but her zeal for raising awareness and helping the remote communities in the North never slackened.
“I felt that God’s calling for me, my
ministry, was my business. In 2008 when
the bank called our loan, we had already
given everything we
had for the operating
line of credit,” Lundström says, tearing
up as she talks. “The
outside of my life
was much worse, although my internal
[spiritual] prosperity was better than ever.
But I couldn’t put that in the bank.”
She retreated to live full-time at a cot-
tage she’d purchased 20 years earlier as
a summer haven from the city. She con-
tinues to seek God's will for her life, trying
to see God's plan in allowing her to lose
her business..
She works now as a freelance speaker
and clothing designer – and continues to
help the First Nations people in the North
help themselves. The Kiishik Fund initiatives continue, but Lundström is also working to build an Internet marketplace to help
First Nations people in remote locations
create a sustainable industry using their
sewing, designing and art skills.
In May 2012 Lundström and Beardy
visited Eabametoong First Nations Re-
serve, called Fort Hope in English, to
approach the band council about such a
sewing project. Eabametoong, only access-
ible by plane, water and ice roads, is very
remote and troubled with youth violence
and suicide.
During the visit Beardy asked her about
being baptized again.
(Beardy today is pastor at Aboriginal Believer’s Church in Toronto and president
of the North American Aboriginal Bible
College in Port Perry.)
Little did he know she had come to Fort
Hope ready to take that final step of acknowledging Christ as her Saviour.
“I expected her usual no,” Beardy
laughs, “but she said, ‘Right, let’s do it.’”
And so Beardy baptized her in the chilly
spring waters of Eabamet Lake.
In May the rivers that feed the lake
reverse and go in the opposite direction.
Eabametoong in the Anishinaabe lan-
guage means “the reversing of the wat-
ers.” Both Lundström and Beardy feel
this is symbolic of the change in her life,
her spiritual transformation – but also per-
haps a change in the way First Nations
people are perceived and treated, not just
in the North, but across the country. FT
LISa HaLL-wILSon is a freelance
writer in London, Ont.
