MORE FEATURE ARTICLES

From "Welcoming Refugees in Uganda"

Uganda is practising a kind of rugged and expansive national hospitality that can make Canada’s decision to welcome 25,000 Syrians seem like a gesture, like inviting a neighbour over for tea instead of the entire street for supper.

From "Tangled and troubled times at Gospel for Asia"

If there is any good coming so far out of this complicated mess, says the ex-staff person who left GFA after 14 years, "it is that some Christians are willing to hold other Christians accountable. That is the silver lining. The Church is willing to hold itself accountable."

From "Gently into the arms of Jesus" in Faith Today.

In one of the final photos taken of Lucetta Howard of Uxbridge, Ont., she perches on a wrought iron chair carried by two hardy-looking grandsons. The shot was taken at her granddaughter’s wedding reception. Lucetta beams, as grandmothers do, clearly revelling in the moment and the attention of her grandsons who carried her – seated on this chair – wherever she wanted to go throughout this great family celebration.

Her life was about to end. She knew that. She died six weeks later, at 92, of bone cancer.

"Clean Water in Cambodia" in Faith Today magazine.

We pick up two shovels and trudge our way over to where the digging ends – and the densely packed mound of sand and gravel surrounding the water reservoir begins.

We have been told to dig through this hill. It simply needs to be a trench through the hill wide enough for a person to stand in it.

In the history of mission trips all over the world, never have two people been more badly matched to a task. She starts to dig up high. I dig down low.

We have no idea what we are doing. We both know this.

"Canada's Mean Streets" in Faith Today magazine.

Cindy’s face crumbles as Jan asks her gentle questions. “How are you? Are you okay? What’s going on?” Cindy’s voice is soft, whispery in response. She cries and pleads with Jan to call her boyfriend to come down quickly. Her pain floats through the open window and begins to replace the oxygen in the car.

There is something very bad happening here.

Cindy’s boyfriend, who Jan thinks might be a good guy, shows up. Jan invites Cindy to a Prayer Day coming up at church, which meets at Yonge Street Mission.

“You want to save her from hell? This is hell right here,” says her boyfriend, pointing to the concrete sidewalk. “She’s in hell now....”

"A Visit to the World's Newest Country" in Faith Today magazine

Our journey to Yida was a two-and-a-half-hour flight from the tiny dim airport in Juba, the capital city of South Sudan, the world’s newest nation. But for the refugees who make their way to Yida, it is usually a trek from two to 10 days, almost always on foot, carrying children and whatever possessions, food and water they can manage to bring. This is in landlocked Africa in May. The day before we landed in Yida it was 48.9 degrees Celsius.

In and around the Juba airport, signs still hang that say, “Countdown to Southern Sudan Referendum.” They feature a sketch of a hand ramrod straight above a large inked thumbprint in a circle and the word “Separation.” Heat, time and dust have made the posters look older than they must actually be, because the vote took place just over a year ago in January 2011, and the dream of independence became reality on July 9, 2011....

"Toronto School of Theology" in InTrust magazine

THE OFFICE OF ALAN HAYES, director of the Toronto School of Theology, boasts a beautiful, leafy view over Queen’s Park, an urban forest in the heart of downtown Toronto. Silver maple, northern red oak, and an equestrian statue of King Edward VII dominate the park, a green enclave within the University of Toronto. Worn paths connect one corner of the campus to another.

In fact, you can walk from Wycliffe College, an evangelical Anglican graduate school on one side of Queen’s Park, to the Toronto School of Theology offices on the other, in about seven minutes.

Theological colleges pepper this sprawling, downtown campus...