Pilgrim Days
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Pilgrim Days

When you read this, I will be within 100 km of the end of a pilgrimage for the second time. Together with my husband and three children, I’ll be spending this Easter walking the Camino de Santiago. For my children, it will be a first. My husband and I were pilgrims in 2005 before our…

How to Visit the Holy Land
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How to Visit the Holy Land

“One of my lifelong dreams is to visit the Holy Land!” My wife Karen and I often hear those words when people learn that we lead guided group tours to Israel. For most individuals a visit will be a once in a lifetime experience, and many approach such a trip with a singular purpose in…

A world of small things
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A world of small things

expanse of rockglacial and basic delicate berriesand hued bloomsgrasses – blue, fescue, and cotton. . . holes in ice(lost at sea)tiny hopes of oneringed by rime   quick time   breath shortbut darker holesin purest whitenow covered creep closer and feed the futureof nanuq generationsstill tiny, womb-boundwaiting to becomesomething greatin a world of small things. Written while…

Immanuel at the side of the road in Gulu, Uganda
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Immanuel at the side of the road in Gulu, Uganda

“The people who walked in darknessHave seen a great light;Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,Upon them a light has shined” Isa. 9:2, NKJV I find a stick, carved, from a branch by the side of the road where we’ve broken down. The engine popped, a lack of coolant and other…

COVID border crossing

COVID border crossing

Trying to decode pages of government protocols. Pacing a suburban backyard like a caged animal. Being nervous driving with Michigan license plates in Ontario. Crossing a nearly deserted Bluewater bridge. Emerging joyfully from a basement apartment after enduring a 14-day quarantine. These are some of my experiences as an expat trying to conscientiously navigate the…

The pleasures and pitfalls of travel
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The pleasures and pitfalls of travel

Closed borders and travel bans have brought travel and tourism to a halt over the last year. Thomas King’s latest novel offers the reader a vicarious vacation told through the travels of Bird and Mimi, a middle-class Indigenous couple from Guelph, Ontario. They are in Prague on vacation. This trip is one many they undertake…

Senegal, 1997

Senegal, 1997

We are anxious and at a loss, staying in an empty and mosquito-infested YWAM residence in Dakar – a busy, confounding city that neither of us knows. My flight has just come in from Vancouver, via New York; she has taken all manner of public transportation (bush taxi, ferry, bus) from a rural town in…

A busy year

A busy year

The past year has been a difficult one for many people round the globe, including our family. But it has also brought undoubted blessings, and these have made my life fuller and busier than I could have imagined a short time ago. Now I am embarking on a new venture for which I hope to…

Last flight out of Ecuador

Last flight out of Ecuador

I left for a month of Spanish immersion in Ecuador on February 14, an idea I had contemplated for decades and could finally implement in my 60s. COVID was circling overhead, but oh so far away. To be safe, I registered with the Canadian embassy. On the last Saturday of my trip, the concierge at…

Jumping train cars in Thailand

Jumping train cars in Thailand

On January 22, 2020, I waited in the Vancouver airport with my brother Harry and Malaysian-born sister-in-law Luang for our Air China flight to Taipei. We were on our way to Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. This trip was pursuing a dream I’d had since the early 1980s. After the Vietnam War, my husband and I…