Recent Columns

We are a story, a living story, if we are anything, and this is one reason, maybe the best, why stories will never go out of fashion. In my own family, much of our time together revolves around stories. We read them every night and often the children read more on their beds, flashlights in hand, […]

We are a story, a living story, if we are anything, and this is one reason, maybe the best, why stories will never go out of fashion. In my own family, much of our time together revolves around stories. We read them every night and often the children read more on their beds, flashlights in hand, […]

So, I went for my morning swim as usual today, the only difference that the pool was in Canada where, normally, in November, I am not. And after I finished and walked out through the lobby, the day’s newspaper in hand, the gal at the counter called me by name and said the boss, that is the […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, November 15, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA -- It was still morning in Berlin on this Sunday when candles at the Church of Reconciliation were lit to honour yesteryear’s dead, the brave souls who ran from the uniforms and helmets and strong-armed authorities, who ran for freedom that was torn away, even as their flesh would be torn by barbed-wire and vicious dogs and bullets at that wall.

(UCU Standard - Monday, November 17, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s a risky move, of course, to open up your Sunday morning message to questions. You never know who might ask what. But this is what happened last Sunday. The minister who I listened to had a post-sermon question-and-answer session and a woman stepped forward with what they call a show-stopper. Her voice quivering, she asked rather plainly and desperately, “So just how do you get saved?”

Ugandan neighbour kid to Jean: ‘Where are you going?’ Jean to Ugandan neighbour kid: ‘Crazy. Want to come?’ Ugandan neighbour kid: ‘Let me go ask my Mom.’ Is it the Canadian accent? ++ But when you cross borders there will be, at the very least, misunderstandings, if not risk and a need for courage to […]

Ugandan neighbour kid to Jean: ‘Where are you going?’ Jean to Ugandan neighbour kid: ‘Crazy. Want to come?’ Ugandan neighbour kid: ‘Let me go ask my Mom.’ Is it the Canadian accent? ++ But when you cross borders there will be, at the very least, misunderstandings, if not risk and a need for courage to […]

He was a man, youngish, well, certainly not all that old even if he had a beard that put some years on him. For one reason or another, he had come a long way, halfway across the country, thousands of kilometres, in his black pick-up truck. And then, finally, he stood there at the front door […]

Liz pulled out an old Bryan Adams CD on the school run this morning and the song Heaven came on and she liked it so much she played it again and pretended to sing it to Mister Bubbles, that is her cat. Huh. Once at the school, a friend came and sat for morning coffee. […]

It was Around the Couch Time and we got on the topic of dreams and we each had something to say on the matter. I asked if anyone dreamed much of flying. I have. And I explained exactly how I did, indeed, fly in my dreams. And what about those unnerving dreams? Getting chased. Drowning. Getting shot. […]

Liz started showing her exceptional talents quite young as shown in this photo I took from our early years overseas, in the living room of our flat in Sana’a, Yemen, in 2004. We looked for a circus that could have taken her and her act, but couldn’t find any in Yemen.  

It’s been Hannah in the news here lately, with this post at Thanksgiving and, the other day, this photo, a photo that prompted a Ugandan university student to write me and say a big thank you to our entire family for adopting Hannah. (“thanx for adopting our ugandan girl who cant help her self….”) This sort of […]

Today was an ordinary morning with the kids needing their breakfast and the dog needing his exercise and a thousand other details that make up any day, but, even so far from home, these days aren’t quite the same, not for some of us, not since Canadian Corporal Nathan Cirillo took his last breath in […]

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Some days you hardly know how to keep going, how to take even another step. The hunger pangs gnaw that much at your stomach. But it’s your children and their lack of good food that worries you more, especially these days since they are so sick.

Hannah has a way of showing her joy like nobody else in our family and this moment shows it. Mom gets credit for catching her in midair during our recent family Thanksgiving holiday. We travelled north to the Kyaninga Lodge, near the Congolese border. An hour away from Kyaninga is some of the best chimp trekking […]