Set apart for healing and hope
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Set apart for healing and hope

After five years at the Centre, its current Director, Visser-Wikkerink, is attempting to read the Bible from a more indigenous perspective, assisted by the community at the Centre and Indigenous theologians in Canada. Her goal is to let go of the western European constructs through which most CRC members view the Bible.

Is buying sex a crime or a social problem?
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Is buying sex a crime or a social problem?

Faith communities in Canada can contribute to the necessary change in social attitudes to make buying of sexual services socially unacceptable. While moralistic messages are often dismissed in our pluralistic society, Christians can help to promote the dignity and rights of all persons and help to build a society that enables all people to live with dignity.

Inside
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Inside

Smith offered this assessment: “The narrator finds inner courage and self-worth in her work as an aide in a group home. The parallelism of visible and invisible disabilities effectively broadens the theme. The imagery of the story is subtle and effective, the car and the piano, for example, serving as tender portraits of the narrator herself.”

Night Sailing
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Night Sailing

Benjamin Groenewold Van Dyk’s story, “Night Sailing,” won high praise from the judges and a well-deserved Honourable Mention. Witvoet explained, “The author has a wonderful way of building up the plot of the story, from puzzlement to awareness of why a shocking event can turn into a future of liberation, not sorrow. The source of the characters’ suffering is subtly hinted at. The author has a poetic way of describing the environment and dares to juxtapose memories and current reality.”

Diplomacy and law-making, not more force, needed in current conflicts
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Diplomacy and law-making, not more force, needed in current conflicts

The great predicament of Israel and the Middle East is so deeply rooted in the historical problems. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, there was no cohesion about how these groups would relate to one another. The UN’s approval of the state of Israel created the potential for nationalism among the Palestinians, but the Arab States never agreed how to support a place called Palestine.