The Fortunes

Today (July 6), Rhonda and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. I remember the day clearly because I shot a five over-par at the Pine Grove Golf course in Sudbury, Ontario. Five over par was an excellent game for me at that time. And honestly, if it wasn’t for a bad slice on the 14th […]

I’m not sure that this story is true but it’s been told many times. As the story goes - when Ronald Reagan, a former U.S. President, was a boy his aunt took him to get a new pair of shoes made. The shoemaker wanted to know if Reagan wanted the shoes to be square toed […]

Living in Basel gives you many opportunities to see and experience various aspects of culture. The city is full of museums and musical events as well as local festivals and activities; last week was Art Basel. Art Basel is one of the largest contemporary art fairs in the world. Since the New York Times calls […]

When I was in university I lived in a house with a bunch of the other guys. One of them was the son of the owners, a family that had emigrated from Yugoslavia in the 1950s. His grandmother used to come over every Sunday night with food for the week. Most of us would […]

Church ministry is a team sport. While it is tempting at times to do everything ourselves the truth is we can’t. And we shouldn’t. The church works best when we all work together.
Last night was our monthly Elders’ meeting. We talked a little longer than planned but it was a good meeting. I got to […]

The church kitchen is having an ant problem. I just killed a few more while I was grabbing a coffee. Our church is located on the 3rd floor and we seem to always have ants. New and more ant traps have been placed out and any open packages or sweets have been removed. Still I […]

If you were watching the news last week you might have heard that the world was supposed to end on Saturday. It didn’t. An errant radio preacher in California, Harold Camping, had calculated that Judgement Day was to begin on May 21 with massive earthquakes around the world. I was surprised that so many news […]

It is one of our most common temptations and it leads to no good. When we give into it we are overcome by feelings of inadequacy, envy, and disappointment with God. It keeps us from recognizing God’s blessings and prevents us from receiving more. It can drive us to overwork and causes us to withdraw […]

My parents named me David, after my uncle, my mother’s brother. I like the name and I like being named after someone in the family. Of course, David is also a popular Bible name. King David was the most famous and most important king in the history of Israel. He is a prominent character throughout […]

When I was 12 years old and living outside Lyon France, our family would go every couple weeks to the English library on the 5th floor of the British Consulate. It wasn’t a very big library but I was always ready to return some books and look for new ones. It was there that I […]