“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...

Our front doorbell kept ringing non-stop. I hurried downstairs as fast as this old body could take me.  I unlocked the door and Gary quickly leaped into our small foyer.  He gasped, “I almost stepped on a skunk in the driveway!”  I am not sure what both of us would have done if this unwanted visitor had sprayed him.  Thankfully, it didn’t happen and so one potential...

Have you ever been stared down by two large dark chocolaty-brown deer eyes?  The other day a couple of deer decided to saunter through our backyard up to our kitchen bay window.  They probably were determined to check out the bright flowers on my plants on the window ledge to see if they could snatch some tasty petals to snack on.  Did they understand...

All of a sudden, Gary and I heard a huge, unexpected bang and immediately we were showered in darkness. We were just finishing our supper one night early in January.  We couldn’t even see the shock on each other’s faces. I scrambled around to find some flashlights and Gary managed to make it to the front door to look outside.  He realized that the blackout was just...

Recently I rediscovered in our archives a Kindergarten songbook that Gary had received from his Sunday School at Forward Baptist Church, Toronto.  He was probably 4 years old – today he is celebrating his 78th birthday.  I’m not sure why we have kept it; but somehow now it seems too old to hit the trash can.  Don’t you find that the books you want to get rid of you...

Truth and Reconciliation Day, September 30, has been set aside each year to honour indigenous “children who never came home and survivors” over generations throughout Canada.  Many like to wear orange shirts on this day which symbolizes the “stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem.“  Gord Downie, leader of the well-known Tragically Hip band, issued a call...