I don’t really believe in New Year resolutions or those Bucket Lists either, but I guess if I were to drop dead today I’d be content. More or less. Well, you know, within reason. I realized this right around the time my eight-year-old did a face-plant in the snow while we were skiing yesterday. Jon went down […]
This New Year, kick The Bucket List. Live the life. Play in the snow. Read More »
She kept all these things in her heart. This is what the ancient Scripture tell us. Mary kept these things in her heart, and she pondered it all. She pondered that the shepherds came to her and Joseph and their newborn to see with their very eyes; pondered the astounding news that angels had somehow
Mary, did you know? Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, December 21, 2013)
ENTEBBE, UGANDA ✦ It’s the end of another year of words.
Words that have routinely informed us and words that have even sometimes, like summer snow, given a fresh look at everyday things. Like what happened recently in Africa during my children’s nightly reading, a story both troubling and reassuring.
“You know,” I said, after, “things will happen in your life. Bad things. And nobody will be able to save you from them. I won’t be able to and neither will your mother. But let me tell you something. God loves to take these sorts of things and turn them into something good.”
We’ll be home for Christmas (for more than mere words) Read More »
It’s 5 am and still dark outside, but with a bit of jet lag this is apparently the best time for an 8-year-old to find his way downstairs to eat his breakfast Corn Pops and talk about snow. It is at Papa and Granma’s after all, and more so, it is Canada, which means, yes, snow,
Hannah wants a Canadian (snow?) burial; Jon’s right on that Read More »
It’s Entebbe, Uganda’s port of entry and departure, and we’re almost on a plane over the ocean and back to our home, the one where you can’t wear a t-shirt outside during this time of year. And on the table in front of me is an African news magazine with a picture of Nelson Mandela,
Hannah sees the judge, Nelson Mandela smiles at us Read More »
When you go through a red light and get stopped for it in a foreign country, you should always pretend that in your home country red means ‘Go!’ Then gesture wildly with your hands and speak jibberish in your native language. Unless your native tongue is English and you’re in Uganda, where pretty well everyone,
But officer, in my country red actually means ‘Go!’ Read More »
(Christian Week – December 2013)
DAEJON, SOUTH KOREA ✦ It was on the tenth floor café of a mega-church of 10,000 in this South Korean city, beside a floor-to-ceiling window, where a young man greeted me with a “sir,” and oh, by the way, did I have a word for him, any nugget, anything to help his future?
He knew I was involved with a missions’ conference some floors below and his spirit was so genuine – this is the beauty of Korean culture – that I was and wasn’t surprised when he asked particularly what I thought “success” was.
A measure of success Read More »
We’re waiting for the morning bell to start the school day yesterday, Jon and I, him bouncing on my knee, and a school mate comes over with the news that his family is soon leaving Uganda to fly home for Christmas, to California, but he’s worried about his dog. You see, the other day his dog got a hold
On Rob Ford, Ugandan chickens and having Nutella all over your face Read More »
