Recent Columns

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 […]

The other day we — the Froese 5 — were driving down the highway, on holidays, eating chips and playing Safari cards and having a general good time while listening to a very funny part of John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, a part I knew they’d like, where poor little Owen pees his pants […]

My Bride is in Tanzania with some Save the Mother work so I’ve been Single Daddin’ It for a couple of days which is nothing, really, compared to an American friend who is doing the same for an entire month as his wife is back in The States for some important things there. So my friend […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, October 18, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It’s hard to know what it means to be human some days, let alone a saint, but there are clues here and there, like in this novel, The Plague, by Albert Camus, where two atheists – one a doctor, one a journalist – have a brief conversation. They’re in Africa fighting a devastating plague when one says to the other, “It comes down to this. What interests me is learning to become a saint.” There’s a mystery to the whole thing, a hunger, a longing ...

She’s  hardly a perfect girl, but there is one thing about our adopted daughter, Hannah, she can say things from time to time that show just how profoundly thankful she is to be in our family. Even at her young age — she’s just 8 — she knows enough about her own story. On the […]

KAMPALA, UGANDA✦It’s the children who in the end will be given the keys to the Kingdom. This is what Jesus said on the matter. Be a kid again. The way up is down. If you want even half a shot at eternal life, as if it were somehow possible, go and grow young.