June 15, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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(Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, June 15, 2013)
It’s 10 years later, dear Elizabeth, and it’s true: Home is where your heart is. You’ve said it now in plain words. Your heart, with your imagination, is in our African home.
This is what I know you mean when you say with sorry sadness, “Daddy, the roads are too smooth here. Everything’s too perfect. I’d rather be in a place where the roads are bumpy but more interesting.”
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June 14, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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(The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 31, 2013)
JINJA, UGANDA – It’s Monday and we’re on the road early, dressed up, driving the 90 minutes down a dangerous road, the road that we won’t drive at night anymore because we fear it may kill us.
We arrive at the court in Jinja, a relaxed beach-town on Lake Victoria, to finally be told ‘Yes. Yes, everything is in order and the court is satisfied, and Hannah will never have any family outside of yours, the family she clearly belongs in.’
Hannah is the Ugandan girl who’s been in our home for almost four years now. We just need the final stamp of court approval to make her adoption official.
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April 15, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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(New Vision Online – Monday, April 15, 2013)
JINJA, UGANDA ✦ It’s Monday morning and I sit in a Jinja café wearing a bright tie, blue shirt, navy blazer and brown pants, but I’m wishing I could start the day over and wear black from my neck to my feet, everything as black as the black in Uganda’s flag.
This, as I read the latest news report of Black Monday, the growing citizens campaign pointing out what we already know, that Ugandans need to mourn, to grieve, to be saddened for their deepening losses, losses from thefts of public funds that are key to the wellbeing of this nation.
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April 9, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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(The UCU Standard – April 8 – 22, 2013)
MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ The darkness of hell is the last place one would expect to find the Light of the World, but there they are, the passages buried in some lesser-turned pages of the New Testament, in Peter’s first book.
Peter, of course, is that apostle who often comes to mind during Easter because of what he said at the fireside outside of that cold, all-night kangaroo trial of Jesus. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I never knew him. No, you’re quite wrong. No, no, no, I never knew the man, this fellow, this trouble-maker Jesus. Now go and leave me alone.’ Three times.
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March 30, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ I’m the odd man out in a loose circle in the campus home of the university president talking about God’s grace, an unsurprising discussion because, besides being a university and my own family’s home, this is a nearly century-old theological training centre.
The horrible news of late is the roadside murder of a young law student, John Otim, beaten dead with an iron bar for money that he didn’t even have.
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March 27, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Jesus wept. Not long before he set his face like flint toward Jerusalem and the cross, he wept. Why?
Surely he knew how it would all end, how he’d resurrect Lazarus, who lay nearby so cold and dead; how this miracle would foreshadow his own final triumph over the grave. Was he playing his audience? It’s a scene with at least some strangeness. Here’s another.
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February 16, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It was YouTube and it was Barack Obama talking to the neighbours in Kenya. You may have heard that they’re about to vote.
The last time the Kenyans did this, six years ago, 1,000 lay dead on the bloody streets. Another 600,000 were displaced, including here to Uganda where UN shelters near the airport are still up.
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February 5, 2013
by Thomas Froese
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KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ There was an old man with a secret.
And there was a police cruiser and fire truck and ambulance, large with red lights in the darkness in front of the man’s house. And my children held my hand and looked up and asked me questions. What could I say?
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