It occurred to me yesterday that we have not formally announced the results of the tour that we got back from only 7 days ago.
To go back a couple of steps, let’s talk about Thursday night, March 26.
At this stage, we had just finished a visit to Spruce Grove and Stony Plain, and having talked to my sister and my mother in Edmonton by phone, discovered that our planned overnight at Dawn’s place was not going to happen. It wasn’t a big deal – only 90 minutes south we knew we had a bed at Cheryl’s parent’s place in Red Deer. We jumped on the highway south through Devon and that led us straight to… Leduc, and a White Spot for supper. Kind of funny, when you realize that White Spot is a unique restaurant chain that is a household name in BC, but almost unknown in the rest of Canada. The fact that we drove right to one of the very few that are not in BC… well it was comfortable. I made one concession – I didn’t have their “Legendary Burger”. When in Alberta, you have an Alberta steak.
We meant to stop for dinner, to digest in private the cities we had seen and ask God where our hearts were. We only brought in two packets – Spruce Grove and Medicine Hat. Looking back, these were the two we preferred from the start, but having reviewed all the options, we were more certain than ever it was between these two cities.
After sitting down, we both found our hands gravitating to the Medicine Hat material. We tried to be fair and set up pros and cons for the two cities, but it was clear to us that barring an act of God, Medicine Hat was where we were being led. There are many reasons, from the superficial to the miraculous. I’ll start there.
When I began to set up this blog, I started surfing around other blogs to see if I could find others on similar journeys. One of the first ones I found was Jason and Leigh Wilks’ blog, planters in Medicine Hat. At that time, Cheryl hadjust begun to get interested in Medicine Hat, so on discovering that they were planting there, I immediately began to distance myself from the idea, as I did not see that it would be wise to jump into a town already being evangelized by gifted people with a heart for the Gospel. However, it never left our radar and when it came time to plan this trip, we still wanted to stop there, so I thought who better to give an honest assessment of the Hat than two planters on the ground? I contacted them and they graciously agreed to put two strangers up and give of their time – little did I realize how much of a sacrifice they would make for us!
When we reached Medicine Hat, we discovered (they didn’t really tell us) that they were in fact in the middle of a move! They had their whole lives in boxes and were ready to move into a new house the following week. Nevertheless, they ordered Chinese for us, from a lovely restaurant and we shared a meal together with Randi Short, their worship leader who moved all the way from Newfoundland to help them with their church launch, back in January. In between getting to know them and their two sons, we felt completely at ease and connected with them very much on a heart level.
They told us of a city that is successful but changing. Once one of the biggest cities for retirement, the demographics have been shifting as those retirees began to end their earthly journeys. It had seen growth as the oil patch, desperate for workers, began to arrange to commute men and women from Medicine Hat by airplane all the way to Fort MacMurray.
Yet, there was still more. The farming base and longstanding natural gas harvesting (one of the biggest gas fields in the world and the first in Canada was discovered under our feet) had been diversified as just outside of Medicine Hat, the largest centre for greenhouses had grown east of the Fraser Valley, where we are right now! So cheap vegetables are another feature of the area. In addition, there is a Goodyear plant in town, obviously the foundational brickworks are still in operation, and even in the surrounding towns there is work whose hub is Medicine Hat. You can walk into any corner store in Canada and find “Spitz“, salted sunflower seeds – they are produced in Bow Island, just 20 minutes away. Just north of town is Canadian Forces Base Suffield, one of the largest bases in Canada. Medicine Hat serves as an important hub, with an extended influence.
The people there are passionate people. They love their WHL team, the Medicine Hat Tigers (Vancouverites may be aware that this was Trevor Linden’s junior club!) – there is a waiting list of 8 years for seasons’ tickets. They have a brand new arts centre, the “Esplanade” downtown. They have a newly constructed recreational facility, complete with a lighthouse and waterslides, wavepool, and the requisite hockey rink all in one building!
Yet, the city is struggling spiritually. They have one of the lowest ratio of evangelical churches to population in Alberta. Many mainline denominations are withering away, and seem to have lost heart. The new developments leave no room for new churches in them, leaving huge swathes of homes unreached. Three Catholic parishes are merging into one from lack of leadership. We have heard accounts of large churches with promise embroiled in church splits. It will be a challenge to locate a place for Sunday meetings – Jason told us that the school board, if we seek space there, requires you to pay the janitorial staff for half a day just to unlock the doors for you.
Emotionally, their people there hurting. Lifestyles of men leaving town for days at a time does nothing positive for their families. Family violence is rife, as well as crack addiction as the random drug testing from the oil patch would pick up cannabis which remains in the bloodstream for 30 days, while crack comes and goes in a couple of days allowing them to “clean up” before heading back to work. Driving through neighbourhood after neighbourhood, we could see the hearts of these people in their driveways, with huge material toys concealing the pain behind closed doors.
No city is without its challenges, but we are excited to be going. We believe that we can begin to change the community, one heart at a time. With God at our side, we can make a difference, and see people begin to turn away from the fruitless things of this world, and rely on Jesus and find new meaning in Him. As I posted earlier, we are excited about the idea of attempting to build a new culture from scratch in a neighbourhood that is under construction – welcoming people and making the love of Christ known from a street’s very foundation and inviting people who move in, into that. If the love and kindness we show to others becomes the “normal” then people will find it easier to adapt to it, rather than us having to go into a neighbourhood and transform a calcified and resistant fortress mentality so common to suburban life.
We invite you to join us. Support us in prayer – subscribe to our monthly newsletter, on the right. We also will need financial partners going forward, so please consider if God is calling you to contribute that way. We also desire to go as a team, so we are prayerful already that God would stir up people from anywhere – everywhere to journey with us to Medicine Hat to see God’s Kingdom grown in a fresh way. We plan to move in May-June 2010. Thanks again for all your love and support so far!
Tags: Alberta, calling, community, Jason Wilks, medicine hat, scouting trip
