I finally got my wish.  For several years now I have been wanting to see salmon swimming upstream in our nearby Credit River.  Early this month my visiting granddaughter, Bella, and I walked to the bridge and lo and behold, we spied over a dozen, two-to-three-foot long, grey fish parading up the river below the surface of the water.  Do you know much about the life...

What an encouragement!  One Sunday earlier this month when on vacation in Collingwood we decided to visit Hepworth Baptist Church located west of Owen Sound at the base of the Bruce Peninsula.  This was Gary’s first full-time pastorate in the early 70s and where our two eldest children were born.  We didn’t know what to expect as we had not dropped by...

“O.K. let’s cut it down!”  After too many years I finally agreed with Gary to dispose of a spindly evergreen that I had purchased about 16 years go for $5. I had planted it too close to the side of our house porch which was a bad decision.  Now it was reaching to the sky above our roofline and tangling itself in our house wires.  Every time I accidentally touched...

One Sunday morning I viewed our backyard through our kitchen window. Something wasn’t right.  It looked like a gigantic bush had grown overnight towards the back.  Actually, a huge twenty-foot branch had snapped off the towering Manitoba Maple – a very old, weathered tree. It is strange as there was no storm or wind that night.  Maybe it had received...

“How would you like to learn a song?”  I asked one Sunday morning at our Hillside church.  Rachel quickly nodded her head “yes” and Robyn responded with a “no.”  I began singing the old Sunday School chorus “This Little Light of Mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” three times, followed by “Let it shine.” three times as well.  Do you remember singing this song as a...

“He really has ‘gone through the wringer!’” commented Scott Lockhart about his friend one evening at our weekly Hillside Home Group meeting. I quickly asked him if he knew what that phrase meant. He responded, “I think it refers to someone boxing, has been knocked down in the ring, the bell count is finished, and the boxer is declared a loser.” Gary and I started...

The highlight of 1987 for our family was the adoption of an almost six-year-old boy from South Korea named Chul Min Lee, now Lee Chul Min Carter. We all totally agreed to this decision of having a more hands-on experience with a needy child. On the other side of the world, Chul Min was wanting to live in a “fambily,” whatever that meant to him.  After our home study...