#30 Glow of Harrison

What a strange snow storm that has lingered long enough to confuse us all, is this Christmas or Easter?

I've figured out how to shrink a swelling foot! Took a lot of pillows!

My life story continues.....

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 At the end of the first year of college, we were expected to take on a summer practicum. I was assigned to serve at the historic and beautiful Harrison Hot Springs, specifically the Harrison Gospel Chapel in BC.

Wilma was over the moon with excitement. She couldn't believe we were going to Harrison Hot Springs one of the most exotic tourist attractions in BC with its natural healing hot springs, grand hotel and the mysterious Lake Agassiz known for its Sasquatch sightings. It would also mean that she would be close to her family, just across the Fraser River, for the birth of our first-born child.
 
I had heard that the placement held no appeal for the other students in the class because it was known to be caught in the charismatic movement….
 
Charismatic movement? What was that?
 
We were so naïve…
 
But after the desert experience of MBBC, Harrison was like a bright light on the horizon. First of all, did I mention that the place itself was breathtaking? Oh right, several times! Secondly, we had a little house all to ourselves right beside the church that was snuggled up against the base of a mountain with a sandy beach view right outside our front window. 
 
Part of the agreement of the practicum was that I take employment as a bus boy at the grand Harrison Hot Springs hotel which attracted the finest European chefs, maître d'hôtel and servers in the country. The dining experience was exquisite. The queen would have felt comfortable here. We had heard that some of the royalties were regular visitors. It was great training for high class table setting! If it wasn't perfect there was hell to pay.
 
I found the servers a unique group of dedicated men. Most of them wore wigs to hide their long hair.  When one of the foreign servers found a dead skunk beside the road he threw it into the trunk of his car wanting to stuff it and keep it as a souvenir. All of us wondered if he hadn't  smelt the thing, “Yes,” he admitted puzzled. “But it was too wonderful." We told him he might be sorry – and he certainly was as he spent the rest of the summer using a wide verity of substances to remove the smell! It became the talk of the summer!
 
That summer the big news was how the "Jesus People" movement became the religious story of the year… capturing the cover of Time magazine.
 
The movement that had started on the west coast down in California had  moved north into Canada  and landed in the town of Harrison Hot Springs, attracting the Vietnam draft dodgers, hardcore hippies from the drug culture, and swarms of teenagers from the Fraser Valley youth groups.
 
We had coffee shops down the street from us and gatherings on the beaches. There were long haired hippies everywhere. Wilma started to grow her hair long and decorate our house with drip candles stuck in wine bottles.  Oh yes, there was incense too….
 
Some of the Jesus people drifted into our church and even into our home where we had vigorous discussions on every subject possible. They talked about the charismatic movement – first ones to describe and explain speaking in tongues to us. I wish to this day we had listened and asked even more questions!
 
Part of the practicum was also to speak in the church. After one of my sermons, the pastor Jake Friesen and I were standing in the isle debriefing when he noticed a regular band aid on the floor of the church. He bent down to pick it up – “Evidence – someone was healed today,” he said smiling. It was the joke of the morning! 

Friesen was one of the saintliest man I have met, who could move easily among the hippies, the hotel staff, the tourist, the elderly and the children, the drug addicts and the saints, the charismatics and the Mennonites, he glowed with the love of God.

His reputation had preceded him and he was known as a Mennonite pastor who spoke in tongues. He told us his story but then never talked about it with us, and avoided the subject when we brought it up.
 
To this day, he remains a model of the perfect Godly man…who I understand was also sidelined by the Mennonite conference. They didn’t know what to do with him
 
Best of all were the times when we went swimming in the lake right outside our home. During one of our final dips. I went out into the deeper water. Wilma was lounging on the beach. Suddenly a young lady floating near me began to call for help. No one was around, Wilma couldn’t hear her and I could tell she was in trouble. She was way over her head - a current pulling her away from the shore.
 
I swam over and using my life guard skills, I pulled her into shallower water until she was safe. She said I had saved her life.
 
It wasn’t much really – but my inner voice confirmed for me that I had been at the right place for the right person and that’s really all that matters.
 
Leaving Harrison was a tearful goodbye.
 
But we took away the most precious gift of all – a little daughter born to us, July 6, 1971 her name was Candace Wynne Derksen, for thirteen years she would light up our lives.

"I am going to notice the lights of the earth,
the sun and the moon and the stars,
the lights of our candles as we march,
the lights with which spring teases us,
​the light that is already present."
Anne Lamott