Remembering DJ

This post is dedicated to Perry ‘DJ’ Stevens, with great affection and prayers for the repose of his soul.

I remember distinctly the feeling that stirred at the sound of DJ’s voice from down the street. “Well, if it isn’t Isabel!” I’d hardly seen DJ out and about and away from his tent until then, so it was such a sweet surprise to hear his amiable call from way down Montgomery Street. It was also a warm shock to feel so known - on an ordinary day, southwest Portland is the kind of place where you could know the streets like the back of your hand and yet still feel utterly anonymous and foreign to every other local person of the city. Hardly anyone ever looks up. But in that moment I felt known, befriended, and loved; the thing is, DJ was just the kind of person to make you feel each of those things.

Michael and I were privileged to visit DJ nearly every week for the first several months of our mission year. I can’t even remember what our first encounter with him was like—for nearly all the brief time we’d gotten to visit with him, it felt as though we’d known him for many years. Our conversations swung from jazz music to difficult family history, from experiences in prison to experiences of prayer. His tent wasn’t so near any other tents, though it certainly wasn’t hard to see; set up along a hardly-used bike path, it sat on a strip of land that is a direct tier above two overlapping highways below. This made it difficult to hear him, and there was really only room for one person to lean in at the entrance of his tent so as to pick out his voice amidst the chaos of traffic sounds rising from below. So Michael and I would switch off from visit to visit. One would intercede, while the other leaned into the stories DJ shared of his life. When asked to repeat himself, he didn’t seem to mind. There was a peace about him, despite the tireless noise in his immediate surroundings. If I’d begun my day with any bit of impatience or unease, the peace that emanated from DJ’s composure made me well aware of it. His laugh was contagious, his demeanor kind, and his eyes never failed to let you know that he was grateful for the company. It’s in these simple ways that, in knowing DJ, I grew in knowledge of Christ. 

The same day DJ Stevens called my name from down Montgomery street, Michael and I were concluding our year of street ministry. I remember that week being difficult and heavy with goodbyes—more difficult, however, were the encounters of empty tents, where we’d hoped to see the people we visited regularly just one last time. Even worse, we weren’t sure we’d have time to seek out the more remote tents we’d visit, such as DJ’s home. It was a period of time that challenged my trust in the Lord. It was increasingly difficult to entrust these lives to the hands of the Father, and to fight the tempting thought that, by stepping into the lives of each of these people, we were setting them up for yet another circumstance of abandonment. 

Such temptations obviously were sourced from a misunderstanding of our role as a missionaries. We were not on the streets for nine months to become the central and grounding force in others’ lives; rather, our nine months were committed to the humble, quiet work of planting seeds, wherever we passed, and pray that those seeds would one day grow into a growing desire for a new center, a center in the very Source and Fount of life itself. Each day, through its joys and sorrows, was a lesson of trusting in the often unseen and unforeseen ways of the Lord. In those final weeks, especially, the Lord was teaching me that the call to surrender wasn't a call to let go of the people for whom I cared deeply, but rather an invitation to participate in the mysterious work that God would carry out in years beyond my time as a missionary, and beyond me altogether. 

Seeing Perry DJ Stevens on our final day of street ministry seemed to be a gentle nudge—to once again relinquish my grip on these friendships and encounters, and gift them back to the Father. Knowing DJ was a gift in its own right, seeing him on that day was a gift and reminder of the Lord’s playful and tender mode of providence. As it turned out, that was the very last earthly reunion Michael and I would have with our friend. Nowadays—especially when the noise of ‘highways’ and worries and daily anxieties make it particularly difficult to be still and attentive to the Lord, I am reminded to trust in His mercy, and trust that through His Mercy, DJ now prays for me. 

~Isabel Cortens
2021-2022 Mercy Missionary