2013

When the poor come knocking

(The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, September 20, 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It was late and dark and unusual because the visitor lives hours away and I didn’t expect him. But he came anyway and sat at my front door and cried and told me all about it, how thieves had come the night before.

He had been at church, he explained, at one of those all-night prayer services common in this part of Africa, when the rats did it, when they broke in and cleaned out his house. Clothing, furniture, cash I had recently given for his kids’ schooling, everything gone by sunrise.

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How to handle your daughter’s boyfriends

I’ve been looking through the Parenting Manuel they gave when my oldest was born but I don’t see anything on what to do when she gets five, yes FIVE, boys professing their love for her. Liz is 10. ‘Daddy, daddy!’ is how it all started one day after school. ‘You’ll never guess what happened!’ Liz

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Our dog is too sexy for his Speedo

I’m way too sexy for my underwear. Which is why I wear a Speedo into the pool. I expect the same from our new dog. We picked him up yesterday. His name is Zack, which, if you’re a thief, is short for Zack Attack. His birthday, as we’ve discovered, is on My Bride’s and my

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Joy and giving up your life … from Korea to Antarctica

The year was 1912 and the newspaper ad was from the London Times and it went like this: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return is doubtful.” This, from a more heroic age when men would bet everything they had, even their lives, on

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Korean flights and reporters and a family photo

My Bride and I are on a plane in a few hours flying back to the kids in Uganda, from Korea, this land of hand-helds and sliding doors, from the west side of Korea while a typhoon comes from the east, something our travel agent and the news have both warned us about. But our Korean

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Green tea, ginseng and pride in the kids six time zones away

My Bride has just finished her address to some hundreds at this conference near Seoul, 10,000 km from home and the kids. It will be my turn later. We’re in the company of a couple of senior Korean doctors. Both are legendary in the Korean medical world. The younger one, a thin-faced 91-year-old, likes to

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A matter of the heart

(Christian Week – October 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ The thing about marijuana is that it stinks up the joint and brings images of barefoot hippies and stoner movies and general rebellion, none of which is very attractive to the clean-cut religious crowd. The sorry thief on the cross? A pot smoker no doubt. Probably a dealer.

But the times, they are a changin’.

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