Occasional family and ministry updates
A couple of weeks ago, I went to watch the Toronto Blue Jays take on the Tampa Bay Rays (baseball, for those of you who may not follow professional sports). For the first time in recent memory I went to the game on back-to-back days, both Friday and Saturday. When they announced the group that…
A couple of months ago I received a rather unique invitation. Compassion International was considering sending a team of bloggers to Dominican Republic and wondered if I might be interested in tagging along. The purpose of the trip is for these bloggers to see what Compassion is doing in that place and to learn what…
Last Saturday Aileen and I watched as some friends of ours were married. First was a beautiful ceremony at a historic Baptist church in the heart of the city and this was followed by a lengthy, enjoyable reception at a nearby reception hall. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and rejoice with our friends, praying for…
Yesterday Aileen and I celebrated our tenth anniversary; today we have the privilege of enjoying the wedding of some good friends. We are thrilled for them and are looking forward to spending the day with them and with their friends and family. I thought about weddings this morning and was reminded of my cousin’s wedding…
This seemed a good day to post another brief memoir. Today, 08/08/08, marks the tenth anniversary of the day this happened. It is going to be a scorcher. It is barely 10 in the morning and already the sun is hot. And this church, with no air conditioning, was never our “Plan A.” We had…
Today I continue posting memoirs (see here for more), little tidbits of my life experience. Chaffeys Locks is one of the most beautiful spots in all of Ontario. Perched between two small lakes that are part of the Rideau Lakes system, it is a historic town founded by William Chaffey in 1816. He established a…
My children have been behaving a little bit strangely at bedtime in recent days. My son tends to be melancholy in the evenings at the best of times but recently has been getting worried as soon as we tuck him into bed. Two nights ago he was concerned that the Sith were going to attack…
Today I continue posting memoirs (see here for more), little tidbits of my life experience. I can’t believe my parents are making me do this. It is Christmas break and the last thing I want to do is head away from home to spend time with a bunch of people I don’t know. Yet mom…
It’s funny how Saturdays, a day of fun and relaxation when I was young, have turned into days of busyness. Early in the day I had to put on my coach’s hat to lead my son’s team through a baseball practice. No sooner had we returned home from that than Aileen had to run my…
This is just about my favorite time of day. The house is quiet and no one else awake. It allows me a few minutes to myself—time I use every day to read the Bible and pray. I know that in a few minutes the family will begin to stir. Nick and Abby will wake up…
Last summer we vacationed at a cottage on the shores of Lake Erie, a couple of hours away from home. It was a fun place to be, but by the end of our week there the water had turned bad with huge piles of seaweed and algae plugging the beach. This is apparently quite common…
Today I continue posting memoirs (see here for more), little tidbits of my life experience. Since the first grade I’ve been a student at Willowdale Christian School and I’ve come to enjoy the place as much as a boy can ever enjoy his school. But here, just a few weeks into seventh grade, I am…
Several times a day a train rumbles along the tracks that cross our street—Eureka Street—just a few houses up from our home at number thirty-eight. It is a passenger train, one made up of a long string of double-decker cars. In the morning it shuttles commuters from Markham and Unionville into downtown Toronto and in…
Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing down some memories. It has been a fun process of just thinking about the past and recording some significant events and moments. While I’ll probably post them mostly on weekends, I thought it would be fun to post this one today. I see this as a testament…
Several years ago I wrote a little Father’s Day article for my dad and called it “Working Man Hands.” This year I took the opportunity to lengthen and improve the article and then submitted it to Boundless Magazine. They were pleased to print it at their site. I thought you might enjoy it. It goes…
I’m not much of a do-it-yourself type. I’m well aware of my limits. You know, I’m pretty comfortable changing light bulbs and painting walls, but beyond that I tend to put a call out to my father-in-law (for low priority jobs) or a paid expert (for high priority jobs). We’ve got a few neighbors who…
It has been a tough couple of days. On Wednesday I wrote about the perfect storm of being away from home and returning only to have Michaela (my two year-old daughter) come down with some kind of illness. Well, that illness has progressed and yesterday she was admitted to the hospital. The doctors aren’t quite…
Today was a perfect storm. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Grand Rapids to meet with a client out there and got home yesterday evening. I came home to find Michaela (who is a month away from turning two…can you believe that?) just starting to show some signs of illness. Sure enough she spent the…
Some time ago my mother made me aware of a poem her grandfather had written many years ago. My great grandfather was an Anglican minister somewhere in Quebec’s Eastern Townships and, to be honest, beyond that I know very little about him. But I really enjoyed this poem (which would have been ideal to post…
I was in a bad mood yesterday. For weeks now I’ve been trying to figure out something simple with a nearby bank—or something that should be simple. It has been a comedy of errors, really. Every time I try to do something (anything!), it seems that their incompetence or ignorance is working against me. I’ll…