Guest Post: Summer Reflections (By Peter DeWit)

This is my husband, Peter DeWit.

He wrote a note on fb and I wanted to re-post it here. He had asked me to write about our summer, but I didn’t get around to it. He is a great writer and I loved reading about our summer from his perspective.

Peter Writes…

I am usually very reluctant to go back to my home country. It means hours of tedious travel, public speaking, raising funds, and often poor mattresses for my bad back. And I could say that all was pretty well true for much of my time in Canada. Nonetheless something happened in me to strengthen my heart and to return my lost love for Canada.

If you love surprises, so do we, and the surprises began and kept coming…

The beauty of early summer.  I have always had a love for ancient cultures and inspiring landscapes. While visiting England I have experienced the silent awe of walking the ground that was trod by kings and queens of antiquity. The very soil exhales history. While in France the narrow roads winding through fields of green and quaint villages whispered and tickled my soul. The centuries of cow paths now turned  into roads and soldiers’ foot battles must have happened mere inches from our presence. How I want to also boast of my native Holland and it’s windmills and brick roads reminding me of a heritage of hard-working people who knew how to tame nature’s fury; not to metion the ancient cheeze and the salted licorice! Seriously, everywhere one would glance one would be greeted with a monument of man or nature that said, “We have been here way before you, yes, for countless generations.”

But my ‘Oh Canada’, so young, never gave me the sense of majesty and history like my birth continent. As I drove the back roads I saw uneven highway being gobbled up by unhappy growth and the wildness surrounded by sad-sack fences that needed human mending. The major highways were tedious with weeds and uninspiring landscapes. And yet this summer the boredom was replaced by a pulling-in of the beauty of the Maples and Spruce and the wild untamed. I found the green of the grass thick with splendor. The hours on rivers warmed by summer’s heat invigorated my body with nature’s wild and dark-watery embrace. The cool evenings blessed me consistently, giving relief to hot days. The evening fireflies showing off their incandescent wonder delighting our eyes and inspiring a kiss or two by the Sacred Pond.

Then there was the joy of reconnecting with my church life.  This was one place I wanted to ignore, the church stage of pressure of performance , it seemed to kill the natural bent of the land and my heart. How could I avoid putting on a good show in these big buildings built explicitly for the show? Standing in front of hungry-for-validation-ears I wanted to validate myself, to justify my presence and their support of my ministry, or my mission. I asked the Lord to bless me with  Jabez-like provision. I also told the Lord to free me from the worry, the need to ask for money, even if the iron was hot and the shirt needing pressing. I had booked every possible weekend but one. It too got booked in the city of Ottawa on the very day we celebrate our country. It was like Jabez’s prayer was stretching the centuries over and upon us as we gawked with the tens of thousands for a sight of English royalty and being rewarded with a fleeting glimpse. My adopted daughter, who had spent all of 17 months of her 14 year-old life on Canadian soil, squealed with delight on the shoulders of her mother, “I am so glad I am Canadian!”

And there were the unlikely friendships that were conceived unnaturally in Thailand by unknown Canadians who had come to experience first-hand our lives. Instead of fading like the dandelion they took on a new shoot like the bamboo. Barbecues, boat rides, Wonderland, and horseback riding filled and thrilled our days. My family was blessed to live in the heart of Toronto the good for almost a month because of an unlikely friendship. And financial pressures were relieved when a Pastor asked his church near the beginning of our time to bless us so we could have fun without continually thinking about expenses.

Surprised by the response to our message. This could be really the better part of it all. After twenty years of spiritual and physical and mental labour in Thailand we had nothing really to boast about, save the grace of God. We spoke of our trials and failures and the dangers of entitlement. We shared of our changing perspective of what defines the good life. And then we closed the thirty minute presentation raising our Ebenezer to the sufficiency of God’s grace.  Our scars speak not of shame, but of faith’s survival and renewal. So many words of encouragement afterwards left us thinking that the time spent in trials and testings may have had a deeper purpose than we thought possible.

I told my family that I was sad that we could not stay longer and see the snow fall and the air explode from our lungs on a frosty day. I was falling in love not only with the rugged beauty but with the Canadian way. It was all so wonderful and the stories and memories of the summer of 2011 will keep us riding the wave for a while still. Thank you Canada for your land nd freedom. And thank you to the Pentecostal Assemblies, you have blessed me so much and remained my spiritual family for a long time.

Our Summer on the Streets

Have you ever wished you could fold the corner on a day, a day so richly illustrated in what you recognize as future memories, knowing that you’ll want to turn back to it easily? Or have you left markings along the way like Hansel and Gretel so that you could get back to that place with no trouble at all? Summer took us far away… From Bangkok to London and Roserrow and St. Ives in the UK, then off to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton and other magnificent places in between. Here are a very few of the pages whose corners I’ve turned…

After visiting England for a wonderful Cornish holiday (photos to come in a future blog) we landed in Toronto. Prior to the holiday there was a year-long search for a house-swap, ‘our Bangkok for your downtown Toronto’, and we were ecstatic when friends saw our search and let us have their College and Yonge condo for a month while they were out of the country.

Then to Ottawa for Canada Day

Where we managed this quick and hazy photo of the beautiful face of the Duchess of Cambridge, more commonly known as Kate

Along with a photo of Will’s hand waving out the partially opened window.

We spent some time in the country with campfires, bullfrogs, fireflies and friends

And we had lots of fun doing things that you can do only in The Great Big City, like getting on TV when the City TV news crew arrives and sets up right in front of you. That’s my daughter wearing the yellow t-shirt and very visible red shorts. She made it on the news! She also took the liberty to run through the water in the fountains.

My daughter was born in Bangkok, so she lives and breathes and thrives on The Great Big City life and is always game for any urban interaction. She especially enjoyed this urban art at the St. Lawrence Market…

There was a very interesting man who stood on the north-west corner of Yonge and Dundas, everyday, in an attention-grabbing t-shirt. If you are from Toronto you know exactly who I am talking about. We called him ‘the beLIEVE guy’. This photo was taken from inside the Forever XXl shop. He stood there with his Bible and handed out pamphlets, and intermittently he would shout ‘ beLIEVE!’ , not necessarily to anyone in particular as much as directed at everyone. Once we saw a tiny white particle that looked like a tooth fly out of his mouth as the ‘be’ syllable exploded and landed on the sidewalk.

We loved visiting Walking On A Cloud where our son worked. This was our last visit just a day before we left for London.

When we left Toronto on Augsut 7th we enjoyed a 10 hour stopover in London.

Again, our daughter isn’t afraid to engage with the city

And here we are home again, on the balcony in our room, back under this familiar sky that kidnaps our shadows for days and weeks at a time. The Big Mango, Bangkok. Sigh…

Pat Answers… Good Ideas and Bad Ideas and Things I’ve Learned Along the Way

“Can I help you?” the unsolicited question came from a security guard.

There were twelve of us DeWits, standing in a loose cluster, different shapes and sizes. We must have looked lost, or maybe speech  thought bubbles appeared over our heads, full of question marks in creative fonts, our personalized metaphysical constructs articulating our common connundrum.

We were staring up at the many signs in the underground path below Union Station,Toronto. Being a self-pronounced city girl and all, I, of course, wanted to be the one who knew exactly where to go but… at the same time I didn’t want to rush in the wrong direction, pridefully causing us all to stray far from our destination.

“We’re looking for the exit that takes us to Front Street on the south side.” I answered.

The guard gave the answer of a smart-Alec needing a bit of attention. He asked, “Do you want the hard way or the easy way?”

Sheesh.

Every city has its struggling tourist pouring over a creased map, too afraid to ask directions. I’ve been around for a while and I like to think that I’m here for a purpose; to intentionally find those who, like tourists in a city, are searching for a destiny, and to somehow help to point them in the right direction. The challenge is this: how do we know if we are sending them off in ‘the hard way’ or ‘the easy way’? How do we fight the desire to be that person who wants to look like they know the way even when they don’t, that person who seems to know all the answers?

I’m going to be posting a few blogs about What I’ve Learned when it comes to pointing people towards Destiny. Feel free to join the conversation at any time.

Too Many Crasy People!

“There’s a city inside the city, the city at the center of the map.” Robert Charles Wilson, The Inner Inner City.

Walking through the park behind our building, it was obvious that the two older Asian men were quite drunk, and they were harassing an elderly woman who was trying hard to hold her own. Her dress hung from her full hips like a faded tent, thick hands flew out menacingly at her oppressors; hands ready to slap someone if needed. I approached and asked the woman, “ Are you okay? Do you live near here?” thinking that maybe I could walk her home. She gave one last heavy stomp of her foot on the ground toward the men, shooing them like pigeons. The men laughed and yelled and wobbled over to the empty park bench.

“Thees ees my buildink,” she declared, and then she pointed to the apartments in front of us, “Crasy people,” she stated as a fact, not just an opinion. “Too much drink. Too much druck. Police comink to my buildink every day. Every day! Too many crasy people.”

I guess a lot of people would agree with the lady. The city just has too many crasy people! We, on the other hand, think the city is the best place to live because of the many ‘crasy people’. Hey, I am a crasy people too.

Toronto would be a great city to call home. And so would Paris. And so would London… or New York. Or any great big crowded noisy city. You see, the city is a place where you just can’t avoid people. You are forced to face the ‘crasy people’. That’s what Jesus did. Regardless of where we live, all of us must pursue the rhythms of life, the things that keep us alive and functioning; like eating, sleeping, shaving, doctor’s appointments and exams. In all of those pursuits we come in contact with… crasy people. If completing those daily routines becomes our main goal in life, then what happens is that we begin to see the people in the path as mere obstacles to get around, frustrations to avoid, just something in our peripheral space. When people unexpectedly jump into our path and shout ‘boo!’ we don’t like it. They are nothing more than crasy people.

The fact is, as we put time and energy into our home, our business, our food, our work, our studies, our relationships and communities we are actually giving our cities a narrative through the conversations and interactions we have with people along the way. Throughout all those planned moments that tend to become mundane, we actually find unmapped terrain within those oh-so-well-worn paths between the grocery store and the kitchen door. Each time we talk to a stranger or participate in an exchange with those crasy people, we inhale life and exhale the story.

All the while this is happening there is also another narrative being written: it’s The Divine Narrative, the narrative of the inner inner city. There is no map to the inner inner city. The inner inner city is being mapped as we walk it. It’s as we seek the voice of The Divine Narrative in the city that we start to really live, to really love and to really make the city our home. We’ll start experiencing those things that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard. Our lives and The Divine Narrative will contour a city as well as its response to the most pressing issues the urban dwellers are working on; racism, greed, poverty, homophobia and violence as well as asylum, health, human rights, education, the arts and tolerance.

And that’s why we can move from city to city and enjoy each place as home. There’s a purpose for us being here, in Downtown Toronto (even if it’s just for 2 months) just as there is a purpose for us when we are living in Bangkok. We go through the rhythms of life and survival, and at the same time we can encourage the business of Anna, a Surb from Turkey, who sells us our hotdogs in front of Nathan Philip’s Square, or we can encourage Khun Deng who sells us orange juice in front of Siam Square, Bangkok. We can sit with Ali, an Afghani from the TD bank, and hear him tell his story of being a child soldier before fleeing to a refugee camp in Pakistan, or we can listen as Shanta telIs how he and his family fled for their lives from Sri Lanka’s war to find asylum in Bangkok, then Holland. I call it a ‘Location Independent Life’, a place where missions doesn’t require a degree or a visa, where all we need are some neighbours (or even a few crasy people) and a glimpse of the Divine Narrative, and where The Divine Narrative gives us purpose no matter where we are.

I LOVED My Gift!

Dear Friend,

“What’s one of the greatest challenges you guys face over here?” you asked Peter.

The response came easily, ” We really miss our boys,Jordan and Joel, who are in school in Toronto. I’ve been back to Canada a few times but it’s been a year and a half since Pat has seen them.”

“Well, what if I flew them to Thailand for Christmas?”

Wow! What a generous offer! We could not believe it. But… the boys had to work over the holidays and were not able to get away. That’s when we wondered if you would consider flying me to be with the boys in Canada instead. You graciously and without hesitation said, “Yes.”

We checked out the flights and booked my ticket with Cathay Pacific. I could not believe it that I would be seeing my boys on New Year’s day. When I sat down in my seat, ready for the 16 hours in 54K, I was looking forward to some of the good movies. To my dismay, there was no electricity at my seat. There was no electricity in the entire section, starting with 54K. That’s when we found out the airline would compensate by upgrading us to business class. Woot! Movies and a bed!

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So to you, friend, I want to say thank-you. The January snow, the clear cold air, the sleepy train rides on the Yonge line, and chilly waits for the 106 bus, the crowds downtown and the unexpected upgrade to a business class flight all made for a great trip. Two sons and two good friends waiting at terminal 3 in Lester B met me with borrowed  coat and sweaters, boots and mittens that fit well, strangely. One childhood friend, one high school friend, one long lost niece, and a few bosom friends shared their time, their fireplaces and their best coffees with us. Ten small days of cooking and eating and touring and relaxing in Toronto with Jordan and Joel were better for this mother’s heart than a year and a half’s worth of Skype , sms or phone calls.

You did a good thing. I really and truly appreciate your gift.

Sincerely,

Pat

We got to visit with Holly, my niece.

My first winter in 10 years!

Moon Bean Cafe at Kensington Market

Kensington Market with Joel and Andrew

Going to OCAD with Joel

Downtown with Jordan

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