It’s 2018. Downtown Eastside Vancouver. It’s an Indigenous-focus school, the first (and only) of its kind in Vancouver, and I tutor elementary school kids after school. The school is changing its name from Macdonald Elementary to Xpéy, which means “cedar” in Musqueam. The ministry I volunteer with aims to alleviate the poverty of the Downtown…
The Board doesn’t know this yet – except for Jaime, who winced when I mentioned it to her over lunch in Fort Langley in June – but our editorial team has an idea that might solve polarization. It’s called Enemy Pen Pals. Through this experiment, I’ll start connecting Christian Courier (CC) subscribers who might, at…
“Where are you from?” a voice asked. I looked around. A woman in hiking shoes was seated near her young son. She must have noticed my daughter Robin and I taking photos of the stunning view in every direction – the bright blues of Kalamalka Lake and the ridges of the beautiful Okanagan mountains. “Ontario,”…
On March 13th, I arrived at my office to find all of my filing cabinet drawers ajar and papers scattered on the floor. The safe behind my chair was busted open with a lock cutter. “My office looks like a crime scene,” I exclaimed to my only in-person co-worker, Pastor Joel Ringma. “Because it is,”…
This past winter I went on a trip without my family, my first in 11 years. Since I was visiting multiple people in multiple cities and taking flights and trains that might well be delayed, I asked my son to revive his old cell phone for me. I used the phone for one crucial text…
In February, when freelance journalist Sarah Lawrynuik approached a Ukrainian man in army fatigues outside the Odessa Opera House, he was understandably defensive. “You from United States?” he demanded. “I’m from Canada!” she replied, with haste. “Ah, from Canada. Good. Friend! Canada.” Both laughed nervously as he agreed to the interview. The interaction was broadcast…
When CC decided to run an independent survey on how Christian Reformed churches in Canada were responding to decisions made at Synod 2024 by its binational denomination, we knew it would garner interest. But we had no idea just how much! As a uniquely Canadian publication with roots in the Reformed tradition, CC has been…
On January 6, Prime Minister Trudeau announced his resignation and simultaneously prorogued Parliament. Curiously, the first editorial I ever wrote for Christian Courier was about prorogation – “The rogue and fool,” January 2009. In it, I described then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper as inconsistent, changing the rules to suit his own agenda. “Nonetheless,” I concluded, “I…
I’ve slowly been stocking the fridge with homemade inks. A forestry friend tells me that the berries I picked off a hedge are privet berries – they make a stunning purple. Another friend brings me dogwood fruit from her boyfriend’s yard: we eat a few – they have almost a gritty texture – and then…
I would recognize their handwriting anywhere. Right beside Numbers 18, where God is instructing Aaron on how the tribe of Levi needs to keep itself separate, there’s a vertical note to look up the Catholic interpretation in my dad’s distinctive scrawl. And adjacent to Deuteronomy 1:6, after the description of Yahweh, “who brought you out…
Canada, 2008-2015. Also Argentina. Australia. Congo. Czech Republic. Fiji. Finland. Ireland. Liberia. Morocco. Norway. Paraguay. Peru. Poland. Philippines. Sierra Leone. South Africa. South Korea. Taiwan. The Ukraine. What do all these countries have in common? After the coup, after apartheid, after colonialism, after civil war – they’ve each had to figure out: how can embattled…
In the end, this round of antidepressants didn’t do me much good. I tried the latest kind, upped and downed the dose with my doctor, and stuck with the most promising for a year and a half before deciding to ditch them at the end of the summer. Maybe there were days when they evened…
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