South Africa Solidarity Learning Pilgrimage:
Land, Faith, and Identity - Healing the Colonial Wound

Oct 6-19, 2026

For Mennonite Church Canada congregants (group max. of 20)
(full details below)

What is Pilgrimage?

Pilgrimage is an experience that leads us into a new, unfamiliar world, opening us to new insights and parallel learnings applicable to our personal context and lives. “Pilgrimage is a very different posture from mission. The goal of a pilgrim is not to solve but to search, not so much to help as to be present… There are so many efforts to make a difference that do not make us different… [It is] the people who make friends and are transformed who make the deeper difference over the long haul. Pilgrims return home as new people. Now changed by the journey, they change the world where they live.” [Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice, Reconciling All Things]

Who is leading this Pilgrimage?

Together with MC Canada, this pilgrimage will be planned and hosted by one of MC Canada’s global companions in South Africa - an Anabaptist group called Iziko Lamaqabane. In addition to their ministry of working with urban peace and justice practitioners in South Africa to “heal colonial wounds, disrupt systemic violence and cultivate faith formed by and expressed in liberative praxis”, the Iziko leaders are gifted in facilitating this type of pilgrimage learning experience. It is their conviction that “the more we can walk together, sharing stories, friendship and knowledge, the more our wisdom, longevity and capacity to disrupt violence and oppression will grow.” [quotes from Iziko Lamaqabane]

What is the focus of this Pilgrimage?

To explore the long history and legacy of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa, which was a political social engineering project based on racial segregation which thoroughly defined and continues to define South African society. This pilgrimage will:

• Wrestle with the parallels of apartheid to our Canadian context, especially through our own settler-colonial history with Indigenous peoples. Both histories include land dispossession, with systems and policies to eliminate, segregate or assimilate Indigenous and Black peoples, with deep and painful impacts on faith and identity. We will also compare the Truth and Reconciliation efforts in both South Africa and Canada, and their effects and challenges in healing colonial wounds.
  
• Focus on the role of the church in the struggle against apartheid. Apartheid emerged out of a particular theological foundation and imagination. To struggle against and ultimately overcome apartheid, the South African church had to confront not only the racial segregation and its socio-political construct that became apartheid’s most defining element, but also its theological assumptions.

What can I expect?

The first half of the pilgrimage will take place in Johannesburg. The second half in Cape Town. These two cities offer drastic contrasts from physical landscapes to economic and cultural climates.

• “Archival sites” visits will help build understanding of the South Africa context and history: i.e.. Museums (like Apartheid, Hector Pieterson & District Six), Regina Mundi Church, Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
• “Sites of struggle” visits will allow us to engage with post-apartheid communities that continue to suffer from inadequate access to resources and opportunities, and those working with these communities to bring healing and justice: i.e., Constitution Hill courthouse (and former prison), Kliptown Freedom Charter, Sophia Town, Hillbrow homeless shelter and the MES (Mould, Empower, Service) workers, District Six, The Bo-Kaap
• As we live together in retreat centres, we will have many opportunities to reflect on and process our experiences together through informal discussions and outings, and Contextual Bible Studies (google this, as they originated in South Africa as a tool of liberation).

The details...

Theme: Land, Faith & Identity - Healing the Colonial Wound

For whom: up to 20 participants from Mennonite Church Canada congregations 

When: October 6-19, 2026

Cost: $4000 plus the cost of airfare to and from South Africa.

Participants will need to arrange their own international flights, arriving in Johannesburg by 5:30pm on Oct 6 and leaving Cape Town Oct 19. Tany can help arrange flights or recommend a travel agent.

Have questions? Want to sign up? Email Tany Warkentin (MC Canada’s Liaison to Ministry in Africa. Tany will accompany the group.) 

Registration Deadline: July 31, 2026

Discounts available for participants experienced in communications, willing to share about the experience through photos and/or written stories for MC Canada.

How can we, as Anabaptists in Canada, learn in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in
South Africa, assuming a posture of deep listening, paying careful attention to those
whose struggle is the greatest, and discerning our response in community?