Newspaper columns Archives – Page 34 of 60

Light and shadows in a Good Friday world

2 Comments / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / March 27, 2013 / 2013, art, Christianity, faith, Good Friday, Jesus, Jesus' humanity, mystery, Painter of Light, spirituality, suffering, Thomas Kinkade / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – April 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Jesus wept. Not long before he set his face like flint toward Jerusalem and the cross, he wept. Why?

Surely he knew how it would all end, how he’d resurrect Lazarus, who lay nearby so cold and dead; how this miracle would foreshadow his own final triumph over the grave. Was he playing his audience? It’s a scene with at least some strangeness. Here’s another.

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The Light of the World in the darkness of hell

1 Comment / Newspaper columns, The Standard / March 25, 2013 / 2013, Christianity, Easter, hell, Jesus Christ, Jesus in hell, Jesus' humanity, spirituality, suffering, violence / 3 minutes of reading

(The UCU Standard – Friday, November 1, 2013)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ Suicide is a shabby and shameful business, something that nice people don’t get mixed up in, yet here they are, two suicides in our university family, two young people who in separate incidents have left us with nothing but a disturbing ‘good-bye.’

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Will Barack Obama come to Africa?

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / February 16, 2013 / 2013, African culture, African politics, Barack Obama, Barack Obama and Africa, democracy in Africa, East-West relations, free elections, human rights, Kenya, Kenyan 2013 election, US President Barack Obama / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, February 16, 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It was YouTube and it was Barack Obama talking to the neighbours in Kenya. You may have heard that they’re about to vote.

The last time the Kenyans did this, six years ago, 1,000 lay dead on the bloody streets. Another 600,000 were displaced, including here to Uganda where UN shelters near the airport are still up.

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Know and be known

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / February 5, 2013 / 2013, Christianity, Froese biography, secrets, suffering, suicide / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – February 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ There was an old man with a secret.

And there was a police cruiser and fire truck and ambulance, large with red lights in the darkness in front of the man’s house. And my children held my hand and looked up and asked me questions. What could I say?

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Here is Africa. Don’t be afraid

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / January 25, 2013 / 2013, African culture, African politics, African university life, corruption, East-West relations, foreign aid, poverty, thievery / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, January 25, 2013)

ARUSHA, TANSANIA ✦ Edward should be fired. I can’t trust Alice. And our piano and laptop won’t resurface any more than anyone will know what happened to that $13 million.

This is how it’s going around here.

Not right here, actually. I’m on business one country over, just southeast from my home in Uganda. At the moment I’m drinking a cider of sorts, what the gentleman beside me called ‘rotten apples,’ a pretty good name, I think, for my recent experiences.

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New security plan is a good start; more now needed

Leave a Comment / Newspaper columns, The Standard / January 14, 2013 / 2013, African culture, African university life, thievery / 4 minutes of reading

(The UCU Standard – Tuesday, January 14, 2013)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was the children. “Daddy, daddy,” they said, unable to sleep. “What if the thieves are still out there?”

Yes, to add to the rotten tally of 2012, at year-end thieves stole our electric piano, the one my children loved. Six days later, thieves got my bride’s laptop plus valuables from her purse.

Two violations in six days from inside our campus home. It took our breath away. Six days.

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We’ll always pay for our actions

Leave a Comment / New Vision, Newspaper columns / January 14, 2013 / 2013, African culture, African university life, corruption, corruption in Africa, responsibility, security, thievery, Uganda / 3 minutes of reading

(The New Vision – Monday, January 14, 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ There are six of us around the table. We’re disturbed and talking about how to help. The place where we work and live and have friendships and worship with others is under attack.

Through 2012, this place, an educational institution, became, as one Ugandan said, “a den of thieves.” Then the new year had barely arrived when a campus home was broken into and robbed while its Ugandan family slept.

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Once, there was a poor, young girl …

2 Comments / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns, Popular / December 15, 2012 / 2012, African culture, childhood, children, Christianity, Christmas, Froese biography, Jesus Christ, Mary, poverty, spirituality, suffering, Women's rights / 4 minutes of reading

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Once there was a little Ugandan girl who loved school.

The girl, who had been an orphan when she was younger, loved learning new things and making new friends and pretty well everything about it, especially the stories.

Maybe she loved school all the more because of her years as an orphan, which started in a hospital in Mbarara, in western Uganda, where she was left abandoned when she was barely larger than a cat.

There she was given all she ever owned, her name, Hannah.

Once, there was a poor, young girl … Read More »