Something Slightly Resembling Gumption.
Hi, I’m Idelette. (Pronounced: Ee-da-lette)
Life is an adventure. I am neuro-spicy, deeply spiritual, love to play and laugh. I am always learning.
I live, play and write on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Sto:lo peoples in Surrey, Canada. My heart is stretched across oceans and continents as I navigate what it means to be a global citizen.
I was born and raised in South Africa; it is the beat of my heart and the warmth in my soul. That story, however, required me to consider my place and responsibility in the story of humanity and in April 2022, I published my first book, “Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity.” (Ninety percent of the profits were given towards restitution and making the world just a little more right.)
When I was 16, I read a book that cracked open the all-White world I’d grown up in and shattered so many of my belief systems. I’ve spent my life ever since leaving the construct of Whiteness, unlearning so much of what I had internalized and learning a new way of being human.
In 1995, my journey took me to Taipei, Taiwan where I worked as a reporter and studied Mandarin. I loved my life in Taiwan, zipping around the city on my purple scooter. In 1999, I felt the nudge to go on an around-the-world trip. That July, I flew from Taipei to Chicago and also spent a week in New York. On Aug. 1, 1999, Scott picked me up from the Vancouver airport and, in that instant, my life changed dramatically. I spent 3 weeks in Vancouver, and by the time I was headed to the airport again, we’d decided to get married. Over the next two months, I traveled to England, the Czech Republic and South Africa. By the time I returned to Taiwan in September, I knew my chapter there was coming to a close. I spent time packing up my life and saying goodbye to my wonderful friends. In November 1999, I flew back to Vancouver and started my next adventure: marriage and life as an immigrant on a new continent.
My life has been marked by a certain gumption.
I was the first person in my family to walk on the Great Wall of China. The first to travel in Asia. The first to travel to North America. The first to start a new life in Canada.
I dared to marry a man I’d known for only 3 months.
I dared to start an online magazine (SheLovesmagazine.com) for women and create a space where women’s voices in the church and beyond could be heard—loudly, beautifully, clearly.
I dared to create an online community where women encouraged each other, cheered each other on and celebrated each other. We had a practice of “Speaking Beautiful Behind Each Other’s Backs.” We created a safe and brave place in the world where women dared to be their whole, glorious selves. We launched authors, pastors, priests, non-profit leaders, therapists, artists and activists.
I dared to write a book, inviting other White people to join me on this journey of recovering from our racism.
I am about to embark on another adventure. This next chapter will require more gumption than ever before. I cannot—and don’t want to—do this alone. I invite you to join me by signing up for my newsletter to follow along and remember your gumption.
We can live our most fully alive life and help create the world we long for.
Do you dare?
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” —Arundhati Roy
Life can be so juicy.
People often ask me, What is juicy living? Sign up for my newsletter and find out.
Maya Angelou said, Love liberates.
My journey started in South Africa, took me to Taiwan and now Canada. I didn’t know when I longed for liberation that it would first take me right back to where I was born.
Love has liberated me and keeps liberating me.
I have learned that my liberation has always been connected to the liberation of others.
It all starts with Love.
When I first heard the call of Love and Liberation, I was a young girl, looking up from the backseat of our Opel Monza out into the darkness of the Stellenbosch mountains. I had a sense even then that the world I was longing for, was not small, white and exclusive, but expansive, loving, and brimming with all of humanity. It was so different from the story so many people around me believed. Finding a more beautiful way, has been my quest. I have been relentless in my pursuit, crossing continents, reading for clues and keys, going to places of pain and injustice and looking for the sacred in each person I encounter.
Love is the door.