Froese Biography

It not only returns life to its natural pace, but the bicycle is the great leveller.

Merry Christmas, don't get too busy, and remember: don't eat too many cookies, because you still have to get around next year.

ST. GILDEN, AUSTRIA ✦ OK, for the record, nobody rocks like Mozart. But Julie Andrews made plenty of Austrian stores come alive with the sound of ka-ching, after her famous opening to the Sound of Music, filmed 40 years ago on a mountain near this lake-district resort town. The movie initially raked in a cool $165 million, about $800 million in today's dollars. Now tourism cash still flows from it like a river, especially an hour from here in Salzburg, Mozart's hometown, where the visitors never really leave.

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA ✦ I love my daughter, all 15 months of her, for many reasons. One is that she’s more like her mother than me. Especially while flying. My wife Jean and I continue to be aid workers in the Middle East and Africa, so this is often. In fact, diaper-clad Elizabeth Katherine has already been on more than dozen flights and four continents. The Squirt knows one word. Just one. It’s “hello.” But words can be powerful things.

(The Hamilton Spectator - June 12, 2004) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ Back in Hamilton from our most recent work stint in Yemen, I see a litre of Coke is now cheaper than a litre of unleaded. In fact, since Jean likes to shop around for gas prices she can live with, sometimes on empty, I’m worried I might soon have to push the car. It seems that Saudi Arabia, old and shaky as the kingdom is, has us all by the family jewels. It knows that North Americans are addicted to their oil like a drunk to his bottle. Yes, the oil gods have granted two-thirds of the world’s proven reserves to Saudi and a few neighbours. Hardly seems fair.

Teaching hockey to a Yemeni boy is what Canada s game should represent.

Canadians may fuss and fume from time to time over roads and traffic, but they know nothing -- I mean nothing -- about how truly horrendous the driving experience can be.

Christmas doesn't ask, Who is Jesus? It asks, Who are we?

This country is one of contrasts. Red-dirt roads cross lush- green landscapes. People familiar with war smile easily and greet you genuinely. Beauty meets ugliness, plenty meets want, and life meets death here. Uganda may be, as Winston Churchill said, the Pearl of Africa. But, if so, it's a tarnished jewel.

Today, Jean and I, with our bright-eyed bambino, Elizabeth, are on a jet plane flying back to Yemen. Our condo in Ancaster is again a speck that has disappeared over the horizon.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Friday, June 20, 2003) Nobody knew. Prior to the birth of our first child, two weeks ago today at St. Joseph’s Hospital here in Hamilton, Jean and I kept her name, Elizabeth top-secret from absolutely everyone. “It’s from the Bible and it’s not Dorcas,” is all I would reveal, before adding, “If and when we have a boy, we have a biblical name for him too. And it’s not Nimrod.” So imagine the confirmation we felt when, prior to our return to Canada for the delivery, some western friends in Yemen said good-bye to us by reading the biblical story of Elizabeth.

Sunday is Mother's Day, and I'm reminded that I've never held my mother, looked into her eyes and told her that I love her. I've never offered a soft kiss on her cheek. I've never even given my mother flowers. My mom died before I got the chance.

It's Valentine's Day. Great fun. Two years ago today, I proposed to Jean. Her ring was presented in a restaurant, with the help of the official town crier, his booming voice, clanging bell and scroll. Moments later, along with thousands of others in London, Ont., we heard about our upcoming "royal wedding" on the radio.

Jarring images of how an Islamic extremist burst into, of all places, a hospital in the last days of 2002, to fire bullets from his Kalishnikov into the heads of our friends will linger for a while. My wife Jean and I and some colleagues are still laying to rest what has become known across Yemen as 'The Jibla Tragedy.'

It's daybreak and we're again travelling the dusty roads of Sanaa, Yemen's capital. After two days of travel, Jean and I are nearing home, a ground-level apartment on a street with no name. Thank you U-2.