Seven tips for concerned grandparents
If you’re concerned about your child’s parenting style, you’re not alone. Here are a few ways to mitigate conflict in your relationship with your adult children and grandchildren.
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A messy welcome
My last memory of Philippe* is of him rushing towards the communion table too soon. Before the pastor had recited the requisite story and familiar prayers and issued the invitation. The rest of us remained in our pews waiting for the signal that we were welcome – Philippe didn’t wait. The congregation sat in silence…
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The kindness of exclusion
The two women on the GO train looked annoyed when I explained they were sitting in a wheelchair-designated space. They huffed and muttered but took the stairs to the upper level of the train car while I turned to latch Janneke’s chair for the start of our trip. Let’s go to the Ex! In August,…
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Celebrating a wedding as the world burns
When I started telling people about my engagement to Derek, all that joy felt out of place. The start of 2026 was a precarious time. It seemed as if every month, Meghan and I were editing a news story on a country Trump had threatened or invaded. Several international friends made plans to travel to…
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Matthew house makes room
“I don’t really like politics” is a sentiment I have heard countless times, even in Christian communities. But immigration, like many other things, is political. Canadians involved in welcoming refugees spoke to Christian Courier (CC) about how to get political by supporting refugee resettlement. “Getting to Canada is only the beginning,” says Kailee Brennan, Executive…
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Where does Cal’s legacy go?
When I wrote about Calvin and Inès Seerveld’s remarkable bequest of art collected over three generations of their family to Trinity Christian College last August, I did not imagine that a year later I would be writing its sequel, or that the sequel would be a kind of elegy. Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights,…
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1950: the bridge crossing
It was a Saturday evening. June 3, 1950. We were crossing a long bridge and entering Prince Edward County. At the wheel was Mr. John VanderVliet, the fieldman for Dutch immigrants. My father, mother, brother and I sat in the back seat, filled with anticipation and apprehension. Our beginnings in Canada thus far had been…
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The hope ‘kist’
A couple of months ago, I was in Whitby, Ontario, making my way on hands and knees through my parents’ crawlspace. “It’s not that bad,” my Mom called after me as I batted at cobwebs. I was looking for a wooden chest stashed somewhere behind my cello and under a pile of shoeboxes. My parents…
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Pastors race to build trust in Congo’s Ebola response
A day before the Ebola outbreak was declared by the Congo Health Ministry, Doctor Déo Ngatane was hospitalized at Centre Medical Evangelique Bunia Hospital (CME). He had treated himself for malaria at home without relief from his symptoms of fever, aching joints, headaches and vomiting. “I was just feeling horrible.” The next day, Ngatane’s colleague,…
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Permission to imagine
“And by this time either they had grown much smaller or the picture had grown bigger. Eustace jumped to pull it off the wall and found himself standing on the frame; in front of him was not glass but real sea, and wind and waves rushing up to the frame as they might to a…
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The joy of going slow
Camping might be the quintessential Canadian vacation. In a country with fewer than five people for every square kilometre and most of us enjoying easy access to nature, sleeping outdoors in the summer is a simple pleasure. Parks Canada even has a section of its website dedicated to learning to camp, with videos, instructions, recipes,…
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Finding empathy in the dark side of caregiving and ageing
Getting old is often not pretty: incontinence, managing medications and doctors’ visits (if one has the luxury of a family physician), navigating the medical system, making and getting to appointments – all of it can be overwhelming. Care management often falls to relatives. Yet some live too far away, some may be in similar circumstances…
