Category Archives: In the News

January 4, 2010 · 10:25 pm

Farewell

We learned the news tonight that a good friend died suddenly on Sunday night. Keith Fullerton was a spiritual father to Leo and I.  He was our pastor in Saskatoon when we were students learning about life and faith and he was the pastor that sent us off to the Congo.  You can read more about him here.

It has been good to keep in touch over the years, visiting when the occasion permitted.  I guess it is a few years past now since we spent some time together in their home in Surrey.  They gave my car with the broken window a safe place to sleep while we waited for the glass people to open on a Monday morning.

Keith was retired but not really. He was always busy serving in some capacity. I last saw him at Alive this fall.  He continued to be down to earth, loving life and people and keeping up with current issues in theology.  The term pastor suited him well.

Funerals never fall at convenient times and this next week is full of travel and study for me and travel and work for Leo so I doubt we will  be able to go and celebrate his life with friends.  My thoughts and prayers are with his family.  We will all miss him but we will meet again.

Comments Off on Farewell

Filed under church, Dealing with stuff, In the News

July 22, 2009 · 8:55 am

Rescue

Seems to me this is sort of Kingdom work – making our world a safer place by our willingness to risk for others.  I wonder…  God is certainly at work here even if the participants are unaware.

Comments Off on Rescue

Filed under In the News

July 20, 2009 · 2:50 pm

Plane crashes

Tragic accident in Kamsack – plane crash kills Saskatoon eye surgeon.

The story is here.

Comments Off on Plane crashes

Filed under In the News

July 6, 2009 · 3:14 pm

More good news for coffee lovers.

This is news I am glad to hear.

 

 

Now, if I was only a mouse.

Comments Off on More good news for coffee lovers.

Filed under In the News

July 2, 2009 · 9:23 am

Power is really only temporary

Just got news that a person important in the little corner of the Congo where we used to live, has died in Brussels.  Bemba Saolona. 

If you read French, you can catch the story here.

Leo played tennis with him and his son, Jean-Pierre at Karawa a couple of times. 

He owned businesses and an airline and many plantations while we lived there.  His son is now going to trial for war crimes.  How the mighty are fallen!

1 Comment

Filed under Africa, In the News

January 2, 2009 · 11:31 am

What will change Africa?

A friend from my missionary days in the Congo posted this link on Facebook.  Very insightful, considering the writer professes to be an atheist.  I think he recognized the heart of what we believe, what we hope shows in spite of our failures – that following Christ makes a difference. 

I would contend that this may be more visible to him in Africa but it should be no less true here, in North America.

1 Comment

Filed under Africa, In the News, Reflections

November 16, 2008 · 10:07 pm

Affinities

It seems that I have made the front page of the paper.  That’s right.  Me and not my usually newsworthy husband. 

Prince Albert Daily Herald – front page – Top Story

Not like I am bragging or anything.  This is more likely to get me in trouble with the people at my college who might see it as a form of advertising than to cause a rise to fame. 

Its a good story about a work that I have been involved with from its start-up here in PA and it tells the story of what we do pretty well.  It is a work I love to do. 

But when I told the reporter that I do this work because I like children and that I do this because it fits with how I practice and who I am, how on earth did this get translated into a  phrase like “affinity” for children?  Maybe it is just too big a word for me.

1 Comment

Filed under Day to Day, Dental, In the News

September 18, 2008 · 5:53 pm

Lancaster dies

For a non-sports fanatic, football still holds my attention, especially during the Grey Cup play offs.  CBc has a story on him here.

Ronnie Lancaster was playing back when I was in school.  He left his mark on Canadian football, on Saskatchewan and likely on all of us who are his peers.

Comments Off on Lancaster dies

Filed under In the News

September 11, 2008 · 1:10 pm

Oh, Election Mode!

What a lot of junk mail elections generate!  I can’t say that most of it influences me to vote for the party that sends it out.

We got a flyer this week that to me appears to be full of half truths designed to distort the thinking of average Joe Citizen so that the party in power will gain their support, or keep it and increase it.  The flyer shows a tattoo "Not on Your Dime" and talks about the perks given to prisoners. 

Hey, everyone is against crime, right?  Therefore criminals should be deprived of all privileges and punished more severely.  So this government is appearing to come down hard on crime.  That should gain votes for sure.

If that is what they want to say, they should come out and clearly state that.  Without manipulating the reader to suppose that the proposed tattooing program in prisons is just about perks for prisoners.  It was proposed as a way to cut down on the transmission of disease as well as a way of teaching safe tattooing methods for those wanting to get into this field – if they aren’t already – when they get out. 

Just be honest, dear government leaders.  Tell all sides of what the proposal meant.  Don’t try to manipulate us into voting for you.  Give us some good stuff that will improve our society.  Don’t play on our fears and prejudices.  We get too much of that anyway.

Comments Off on Oh, Election Mode!

Filed under Day to Day, In the News

September 8, 2008 · 6:40 pm

I found this interesting

… seeing that we have a church in this size range.

Via Covenant Church News

Size of Churches: ‘Small Is the New Big’
IRVINE, CA – Following a year of planting churches in Bangkok, Thailand, NewSong Covenant Church pastor David Gibbons has changed his views of what constitutes the best size for a church.
“I visited other churches and discovered that the Evangelical Covenant denomination there (Thailand) had 4,000 people in roughly 400 churches,” Gibbons says in a lengthy interview with Leadership Journal. “It hit me. Back home, NewSong had about 4,000 people in four congregations. I saw four churches with 4,000 people versus 400 churches with the same number of people, and the question I felt God posing to me is, Who’s stronger?
Gibbons’ answer to that question has led his congregation to begin planting  what he calls organic-sized churches. “Not house churches, but mid-sized,” he says. Mid-sized congregations, which he calls “verges,” have attendance of 30-300.
Gibbons questions the mindset that bigger is better. “Small is the new big,” he adds. “Big isn’t bad, but it’s overrated.”

Comments Off on I found this interesting

Filed under church, In the News, Quotes