By Josiah Neufeld on
OTTAWA, ON—Ending poverty in Canada is not some kind of pie-in-the-sky dream, says Karri Munn-Venn, a policy analyst for Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ). “I think it can be done. I think it’s an issue of political will,” she says….Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
POINTE-CLAIRE, QC—Each 50-pound cardboard box–small enough to check in with any airline—can save 600 lives. The treasure chests crammed with antibiotics, antimalarials, eye drops and other medical essentials arrive at villages in Zimbabwe, Burma, Haiti, Ecuador or Iraq often balanced…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
OTTAWA, ON—Evangelicals and Roman Catholics in Canada agree on one thing at least: caution and regulation when it comes to the use of reproductive technologies. In a hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada on April 24, the Evangelical Fellowship…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
OTTAWA, ON—Porters at the Westin Hotel are more accustomed to toting the suitcases of rock stars and CEOs than the backpacks of jeans-and-t-shirt-clad street workers. In late March the posh hotel across the canal from Parliament Hill again provided the…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
SELKIRK, MB—Virginia Coleman had finished preparing her Easter message and was sound asleep at 2:30 a.m. when firefighters knocked on the door of her house on Peltz Drive just north of Selkirk. They told her she’d have to evacuate—the Red…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
Rick Tobias’s imposing stature, the regal sweep of his whitening hair and beard and the thickness and blackness of his Lebanese eyebrows hold authority. I met Tobias, the CEO of Toronto’s Yonge Street Mission, at Street Level, the fourth incarnation…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
CALGARY, AB–Steven Friesen once gobbled comic books with guilty delight. He knew his parents took a dim view of exaggerated female forms in skin-tight superhero garb and conflicts solved with guns, but the artwork riveted him. Now 30, Friesen has…Read More→
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WINNIPEG,MB–William Woodford lives a simple life in a Manitoba Housing apartment downtown. The 85-year-old Saulteaux elder drinks water and doesn’t eat junk food. He survived 13 years of residential school, helped liberate Holland as an Allied soldier during the Second…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
“I love Jesus, but I’ve got holes in my arms.” To prove it, Darrin stretched them out, palms upturned. Needle scars peppered his pale skin. He’d been through detox nine times, he told me. “Why doesn’t God loose the chains?…Read More→
By Josiah Neufeld on
WINNIPEG, MB–For 12 to 14 days at a time, Mimi didn’t brush her teeth, barely ate and survived on a steady diet of sex and crack cocaine. “I would stand on the street corner, make my money, go into the…Read More→