“Breaking” (and other) News from the Witts

Spring Greetings from Hamilton!
We are still waiting in faith for spring to fully arrive here. Despite winter’s attempts to reassert itself–we are looking forward to nature giving us another picture of the resurrection reality we celebrated this past Sunday.

The “Breaking” News
Two weeks ago Dave broke his ankle.  It was a case of a less than nimble 48 year old playing with some over exhuberent neighbourhood teenagers at an open gym time that Bethany runs. Apparently his drive to the basket looked good even if the result was him sprawled on the floor with a shattered talus.

We knew he was in trouble when we overheard the ER doctor on the phone with the ortho department, “I’ve never seen one like this before” she related to them.  12 hours later he went in for surgery and three hours and two bolts after that he was ready to start the process of recovery.    We would appreciate your prayers as our family journeys down this road of recovery– (click here for the May update)

Have you heard of “Christianity Explored”?  It’s a 10 week study that uses the gospel of Mark to help people explore who Jesus is, why he came, and what he calls them to.  We are currently leading this study at Bethany for a group of 20 people.  We’ve been having some fascinating conversations as we let the Gospel of Mark show us who Jesus is. Not surprisingly there are all kinds of misunderstandings of what Christianity is all about.  We are trying to create a safe place for people to ask questions and sort through what they believe. We are finding it quite challenging – but really good.

Family Stuff:
In the next few weeks Josiah has to decide which university he will attend in the Fall. He was accepted into the Computer Engineering program at 3 different schools. He seems to be leaning towards U of Waterloo which is about 1 ½ hours away and has an excellent reputation in engineering. We are getting a crash course on student loans, scholarships and bursaries as we try to figure it all out.

Micah is loving high school and discovering new interests. Who knew he would love playing badminton? Largely due to the influence of his new friends who are passionate about badminton he now spends several hours a week on the badminton court.  But soccer season is just around the corner.

We anticipate a quieter summer this year with no big trips in the works. Alison has plans to build a raised vegetable garden and to entice us to eat healthier with lots of fresh home-grown produce. We are also looking forward to visitors from out of town including Alison’s uncle and cousins from England.

7th TrueCity Conference


For  the past 7 years we have gathered churches from across Hamilton at the end of February for a TrueCity conference.  This year was no exception. Our theme was “Our City, God’s City” which led us to explore how we are God’s called out people learning to live our lives in such a way that Hamilton is transformed. Over 250 people gathered over the weekend to worship, to learn, to meet each other, and  to pray together.  

A key area of focus for Dave was preparing videos that tell the stories and capture the voices of how churches are working together for the good of our city.  He worked with a few others to produce four videos this year.  To get a taste of what is going on go to www.youtube.com/user/TrueCityVideos and  take a few minutes to watch some of these videos.

Board Gathering (not to be confused with a Bored Gathering!)

Dave’s other responsibility was to arrange a gathering of core leaders from the churches that are most keenly involved in this movement.  It was definitely not boring! We thought we would be doing well to gather 50 people so when more than 80 leaders from 14 churches came together we were pumped!  There was lots of energy in the room as we spent 3 hours considering the specific calling of our congregations and how best to live it out in collaboration with each other.
One leader who has worked with churches in cities across the country said to us  -“that the elders of the True City churches would meet to talk is, I think, pretty unprecedented. I cannot think of a single time in my travels, ministry years, city working, etc., where there was an attempt to connect the elders of churches to each other “.  We plan to keep building on that momentum.

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