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Two parents, two kids and an in-law
Halfway up the street in midtown Kitchener, Ontario, is a single, detached home much like the other houses around it, but inside, something unusual is happening. At least the neighbours think so. How does it work? they ask. What are the common areas? How do you get privacy? Is there a limit if they start…
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Commitment to accommodate
Thomas Bumbeh talks about cultural commitment to care for aging parents Living with extended family under the same roof has made sense to Thomas Bumbeh on several different levels throughout the years. After arriving in Edmonton from Liberia in 2001, Bumbeh shared a house with three cousins. Now, the 50-year-old realtor and entrepreneur who attends…
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Tying Grandpa’s shoelaces
Grandpa’s shoelaces were round, not flat like my own. They were a challenge to tie up, even for my nimble fingers. He sat in his straight-backed chair at the kitchen table, and, since his fine motor skills had declined, it became my job to tie up those laces before school each morning. Sometimes he would…
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Care comes around
It’s been 20 years since Rebecca Harder, now 46, and her husband decided to permanently move into her family’s intergenerational home in Winnipeg’s western suburb of Charleswood. Harder’s grandparents, Mildred and David “Doc” Schroeder, who passed away last summer and in 2015, respectively, were the original proprietors, both of the 2,400-square-foot house and of the…
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The world’s most low-key Advent group
In the middle of the pandemic darkness of the fall of 2020, when church gatherings were fraught, a small idea ignited. I sent an email to people I knew, inviting them to meet online each Sunday in December for what I called, “The World’s Most Low-Key Advent Group.” A grand name for a small gathering.…
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Sacred disruption
I don’t like the dark. If I can’t avoid walking into a dark room, I will use my phone’s glowing screen to break up the night until I reach the light switch. What is it about darkness that I find so disconcerting? Perhaps it’s the uncertainty, the unknowability of what lies unseen. My brain tells…
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Five spiritual practices for waiting in darkness
1 Night sky meditation Go to a quiet spot, under the night sky. Pray with Psalm 8. (“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”) Ponder: How am…
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Waiting in the uterverse
On every one of my previous visits to the fertility clinic, the waiting room was full. Women of different ages, ethnicities and income brackets would take their seats in fertility limbo. Some would sit on their own, while others sat with partners who held their hands and brought them water or coffee until they were…
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If all the earth…
Nature has always been a source of inspiration for Mennonite children’s author, Aimee Reid. Several years ago, she took her dog for a walk while camping at Valens Lake Conservation Area in Hamilton, Ontario. She returned with a phrase in her mind: If all the earth were forests green and you were the nest. “I…
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MennoMedia evolves to meet challenges
Joan Daggett, project director of MennoMedia’s Shine: Living in God’s Light curriculum, tracks trends inChristian education as part of her work. We asked her about the challenges and opportunities for faith formation of children in 2024. Over the past number of years, church attendance patterns across North America began shifting away from the model of…