Donna Bomberry, indigenous ministries co-ordinator for the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod, has been elected as the new secretary general of the Anglican Indigenous Network (AIN).

Bomberry was the sole nominee and received a majority of the votes of the AIN’s executive committee.One of the networks of the Anglican Communion, the AIN brings together indigenous Anglicans from around the world to discuss common issues and challenges.

“I was humbled to receive a lot of encouragement and support for me to put my name forward and I did…and so I now humbly and gratefully accept,” said Ms. Bomberry. “…I have always felt that we, in indigenous ministries in Canada, were being supported and empowered by this incredible gathering of 30 First Peoples in the Anglican Communion who are indigenous minority peoples living in our own lands…”

National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald described Bomberry’s appointment as “very good news from many angles: It is good for the Anglican Indigenous Network, where she will bring her broad experience, personal gifts, and well earned reputation for trailblazing work,” he said in a statement. “…For Canada, it will be a deeper bond and link with indigenous peoples around the world and a strengthened stream of vision and renewal in the spiritual movement in the Gospel that is growing among us.”

A member of the Cayuga Nation of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, Bomberry has been involved in various ministries within the Anglican Church of Canada.

But she is well-known for her work in strengthening the church’s ministry with native people. Bomberry has served as chair of the national church’s Council of Native Ministries, where she facilitated “Preparing the Way,” a major consultation involving aboriginal Anglican leaders that paved the way for a new self-determining partnership with the church.

In 1994, Bomberry joined the partnerships department of General Synod as Canadian development co-ordinator, and later, as residential schools and native justice co-ordinator. She assumed the position of indigenous ministries co-ordinator in 1996.

She said that she has “personally benefited from working with great indigenous church leadership” in her early days of indigenous ministries. She named the following elders as her mentors at the AIN: Owanah Anderson (The Episcopal Church), Archbishop Te Whakahuihui Vercoe (the late primate of the Anglican Church in of Aoteaora, New Zealand and Polynesia), Rev. Laverne Jacobs (United Church of Canada), Bishop Steven Charleston (retired, The Episcopal Church), and Bishop Gordon Beardy (retired, diocese of Keewatin).

In 2004, Bomberry, who has served as lay reader in St. Alban’s, Beamsville, in Niagara, Ont., received the Order of Niagara, an award that honours the laity of the diocese of Niagara. Bomberry will assume the new post after the AIN’s 2011 gathering in Sydney. She succeeds Malcolm Naea Chun, a native Hawaiian from The Episcopal Church.

Bomberry will continue her work for the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod in Toronto.

Article by Marites N. Sison from the  Anglican Journal