WHEN Rev. Margaret Mullin was 17, her great-uncle gave her the spirit name that pointed toward her destiny.
He was the last hereditary chief of an Ontario First Nation that had disappeared because of a hydroelectric dam. She had been "raised white" with a strong Christian faith, and was struggling to understand how she could be both a Presbyterian and a proud aboriginal.
'My job is truth telling,' says Margaret Mullin.
He named her Thundering Eagle Woman.
"He said that in the future, my voice would be strong and powerful for change -- that's the thundering," says the 54-year-old minister and former nurse. "The eagle part was that he saw me in a position of spiritual leadership."
As part of the naming ceremony, Mullin's uncle gave her an eagle feather. For many years it lay virtually ignored on her bedroom dresser. Only in about the last five years, she says, has she come to understand its power and significance.
"My job is truth-telling," she says, reverently grasping the feather's quill, wrapped with beaded deer hide. "When I'm holding this feather, I can only speak the truth."
Thundering Eagle Woman has proved to be a remarkably appropriate name. It expresses the two sides of Mullin's dedicated, groundbreaking work as executive director of Winnipeg Inner City Missions (WICM), operated by the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
She has been an anti-poverty crusader, thundering for action to help the residents of Centennial, the area west of the Exchange District and south of the CPR yards, between Sherbrook and Princess streets. It's one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods, 50 per cent aboriginal as of the 2001 census.
Mullin thundered, in fact, until WICM raised $2.4 million to build Anishinabe Place of Hope, a three-storey, 20-unit transitional apartment building, drop-in centre and church that opened four months ago at the corner of Logan Avenue and Laura Street.
Simultaneously, Mullin has been an eagle, soaring on a quest -- guided by elders from Keeseekoowenin First Nation -- to reclaim sacred aboriginal traditions and help her 100-member congregation do the same.
In both roles she has persevered against opposition, remaining rock-solid in her faith. Her pet peeve, she says, is hearing comfortable white Winnipeggers dismissively say, "They should just get a job!" about inner-city residents who lack food, clothing, safe housing, family support, education and child care.
"Shame on Canada. Shame on Manitoba," says the straight-talking pastor. "How can abject poverty be allowed?"
As for bringing native drums and smudge (sacred smoke) pots into worship services, praying to the Creator, breaking bannock for communion and preaching the seven sacred teachings alongside the word of Christ, it's still a rare approach. It's completely unaccepted by many Christians, Mullin says -- including many aboriginals.
She didn't embark on it lightly. For about 10 years, she has sat on a national committee of the Presbyterian Church that has exhaustively compared aboriginal beliefs with Christian doctrine, and found no contradiction. Nonetheless, "It's a lonely path. My support to date has not come from within Winnipeg. The church has a lot to learn about being culturally sensitive....
"I'm trying to teach the church, but also to teach the aboriginal people that it's OK to be who they are. The first time I tried to bring the smudge (into a service), I had three of my elders scream and run out. They had been taught that it was evil, that they would go to hell if they participated.
"Two of them later smudged with tears in their eyes, that it was finally happening in the church."
Thundering Eagle Woman wears her hair cut short, except for a small, tight braid that extends from behind her left ear, curving onto her chest. The three strands symbolize that mind, body and spirit, equally woven together with the spirit of God or Creator, "give you the strength to live right."
Last year, she won a Women of Distinction award. She is Irish-Scottish on her father's side and Ojibwa-German on her mother's. She says she feels Ojibwa, but is considered Métis.
Back in 1999, Mullin was extremely reluctant to leave her Brandon ministry and lead Anishinabe Fellowship Centre. She thought her knowledge of aboriginal culture was not strong enough. But God wouldn't take no for an answer, she says.
The centre had been operating for more than 30 years, but only about 15 people a day were coming to its drop-in at 287 Laura St. It was often closed while the staff person was out advocating for clients.
Mullin decided there had to be a consistent open door. She had to be there, providing coffee, a phone, a warm lounge, emergency food, and a non-judgmental ear. "I sat and listened to what the need was," she says. "I'm always on the side of the have-nots, because I grew up as a have-not. I see myself as a healer and a change agent."
About eight years ago she hatched a vision for a new kind of facility: a safe, affordable housing complex where adults aged 30 to 50 who had overcome addictions, criminal behaviour and other problems could live for up to three years while getting a first job and saving for their own housing.
She forced herself to learn the techniques of professional fundraising. But even her strongest supporters didn't believe she could drum up more than $2 million (including a large grant from the Winnipeg Housing and Homelessness Initiative).
"I thought, 'That's a wonderful dream, but we'll never be able to do it,'" remembers Lorna Law, a retired public health nurse and WICM board member.
"(Mullin) has a great command of finding money where there just doesn't seem to be any. She can be like a dog with a bone. She's a remarkable woman, a great speaker....
"She can run an organization. At the same time, she can be tender, caring and thoughtful to the most difficult person you can possibly meet.
"People just flock to her.... You just feel valued when you're around Margaret."
Mullin, though, gives God the credit for pushing her to build Place of Hope. "I actually wore a bracelet for five years that said PUSH: Pray Until Something Happens."
Today, in addition to Mullin, Anishinabe has a full-time outreach minister, nurse and social worker. Last year people from 800 households used its services. It still operates the building on Laura, while the professional staff work out of the main floor of the new apartment block. The space is bursting at the seams.
MULLIN'S entire philosophy is to support people individually, patiently helping them to take gradual steps toward a wholesome life -- a process that often takes years.
She recalls how one of the current apartment residents, who is well on his way to independence, first showed up seven years ago as a gang member addicted to alcohol, crack and solvent.
"He had heard that Reverend Margaret never gives up on anybody. He was going to prove me wrong....
"Unconditional love and acceptance from somebody else is the key. Eventually, they start to see themselves as worthy of love and respect."
Mullin knows where she learned the values that sustain and drive her. Her mother was born on Ontario's Sand Point First Nation, but lost her own mother as a three-year-old and was taken off the reserve and put in an orphanage. She had polio, which left her "unadoptable." She was shunted through 17 foster homes. She didn't find out that she was aboriginal until her teens.
Out of school and working by age 16, she embarked on a long search for her roots, but the people of her reserve had been scattered because of a hydro dam project. When she married Mullin's white father, most of his family disowned him. Finally, while pregnant with Mullin (a fact Mullin finds significant), she took the bus from Ontario to the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba to meet her long-lost sister.
That sister had married a Cree and eventually had 14 children. When Mullin's family moved to Hartney, they saw a lot of those cousins. In her teens, Mullin witnessed how much worse their poverty was than her own and heard them called "dirty Indian."
"That's where my passion for justice got started," she says.
In spite of all the adversity they faced, Mullin's parents always emphasized education as the key to a better life. All four of their children became university graduates.
"Mom and dad just kept saying, 'You are who you are. You are just as gifted, just as worthy, just as strong as any other person on Earth.'"
Portraits is a series profiling exceptional Manitobans who live with passion and purpose. If there's someone whose story you'd like to read, send your suggestions to: alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca
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