Welcome to the Bridgetown Church podcast.

For the month of November, we are honoring Indigenous Heritage Month.

Each week, members of our Church family will be sharing stories that acknowledge and celebrate

Indigenous heritage from their lived experiences to the world at large.

I just want to start today's podcast off with the acknowledgement of the land that we are on.

So what we now call Portland, Oregon and Multnomah County are the traditional lands of the Coolids,

Multnomah, Kaflamut, Clacamus, Tomwater, Tuwala-Ting, Calapuia, Wasco, Mollala, and Watlala lands of the Chinook,

and many other nations of the Big River also known as the Columbia.

The land we occupy as a nation as a city and as a church was taken unjustly.

And so as we move into our podcast today, I also just wanted to just give you a little warning

that we'll be talking about some more sensitive topics.

So if you have any trauma, especially around the area of sexual abuse, I would just caution you as you listen.

Hey guys, I'm Kylie and I have the honor of introducing my dear friend and roommate, Katya.

She will be sharing about her experience as an Indigenous woman or first nations as they say in Canada,

but she will get into later.

Katya, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hey, I'm Katya and I'm a biracial immigrant from Canada.

My family is from the Scuppa tribe in the interior of British Columbia, we're considered co-sailage people.

Something that's kind of interesting about our family culture, being Indigenous or as Katya mentioned,

we go by first nations in Canada, is that it's really important to introduce your family any time that you say like who I am or why I'm here.

So in that sort of sense, I would always introduce myself by mentioning my mother and my grandmother.

So my mother's name is Colleen Warco, my grandma's name is Sylvie Boverde, and my great grandmother is Rose Boverde Williams.

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