Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is sharing an experience he had during a recent visit to the Prairie Green Landfill in hopes of offering a new perspective on the search currently underway at the facility, located northwest of Winnipeg, for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, the missing women believed to be buried there.
Accompanied by the women's families, who also brought with them their spiritual supports, one of which was a Christian pastor, Kinew says the moment happened on their way back down the hill.
"We visited the ground, we said our prayers together and we viewed the site where we believe that these women's remains are located [and] your listeners will know this reference much better than I can relay it to them, but the pastor turns to me and says, 'you know what I'm thinking of as we visit this site? I'm thinking of the story of Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis and God said to Cain, 'the blood of your brother cries to me from the Earth'."
The passage the pastor was referring to, according to the King James Version of the Bible, was this:
"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
And the LORD said unto Cain, 'Where is Abel thy brother?' And he said, 'I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?' And he said, 'What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground'."
"And that really resonated with me," said Kinew. "I kind of nodded my head and said, 'yeah, it's the blood of our sisters who is crying to us from the earth right now, isn't it?', and he said yes, that was the sense that he had."
For Kinew, this was an important experience to share, saying this search is about a few Manitoba families, doing the right thing.
"This is about, if somebody goes missing, we go searching and, even if we don't know if we're going to be successful, at least we make that effort to show that people matter."
In return, the Premier stressed, the Province is also undertaking this search in a spiritual way.
"We're taking care of, not just the families, but also the people involved," he stated. "The trades people who show up on-site and put in a hard days' work. The contractors who are working here. We take the time to talk, to pray and to reflect on the very important thing that we're doing because, at the end of the day, we're talking about human remains."
"I can't explain the whole significant of it, but just that story from Genesis being relayed to me by the pastor helped me to think about this landfill search in a different way, and so I hope your listeners take something out of that that nourishes the spirit."
You can hear the Premier's full comments to Candace Derksen below.