{PART OF THE MEA CULPA SERIES OF POSTS _ where I post things I should have written a long time ago… yeah…that’s on me. Apparently I reposted this in Dec 2019 during my MEA CUPLA series…but this one was tagged 2011 so it showed up not as a new post.} {{{This is a post I…

There’s a lot of ways to describe the Rocky Mountains, but the one that seems to come the most naturally, and the most frequently, is majestic. We’ve lived in the Alps for years, but there really is something about these mountains that is truly unique. Our family has been incredibly fortunate to get a few…

There is a product design theory that says f you really want to find out if something will do its normal job well, look for how it works when it’s stressed. Sometimes this is done via extreme users and extreme use situations. Designers will give a new keyboard design to a hardcore computer gamer, or…

Today marks exactly 24 years since Susan and I got married. Twenty four years! What’s shocking to me is just how much 24 is an ‘old people number.’ I can remember as a kid when some relatives celebrated their 25 anniversaries. Those people were old. We’re not old. Certainly not. I guess the other thing…

My birthday was last week, and as I often find myself doing at this annual life-marker, I look at what others had done by my age and the ole’ “who died at my age” question. So I’ll tell you: Pierre Currie, husband to Marie and Nobel prize-winning chemist & physicist, was hit by a horse-drawn…

In these unprecidented times…. It kind of feels like that is the new way to start an email or newsletter or update of any kind from any institution. Honestly, I’m pretty sure no one used that phrase to start an email last year, and suddenly it feels about as common as “hello” Actually , we’re…

One of the things that still strikes us living in Burundi is the population density. Not that it is anywhere like truly densely populated places like Hong Kong or even New York or Toronto, but there are way more people than it feels like there should be. In a huge city, you expect people everywhere.…

here’s a post from my daughter and my fake daughter – reflecting on some of the issues of racial injustice that have finally been brought to the forefront over the past several weeks:

Matea put up a new post on her and Ella’s blog:

or: “It takes a village to teach a child” NOTE: this was something I wrote back in Kibuye about a month and a half ago – before we even thought we might be heading out. It feels like right now, more than ever, a lot of people are talking about community. Mostly it seems to…

Saying something supportive and celebratory about mothers seems a bit odd. It’s like celebrating kindness, or an end to war, or ice cream. Of COURSE, we all love, support, celebrate those things. It’s just human nature to do so -only a monster would not be happy about things like a great cup of coffee, or…

There are a lot of peculiarities to how people move around this country. No…scratch that. There are a lot of peculiarities to how people move around this country. There are a lot of things that we find peculiar about how people move around this country. Of course, to those who have lived here their whole…

{NOTE: I really did not feel that what the world needs now is yet another post about COVID-19. However, we are in a bit of a unique situation here, and felt it’s worth sharing} So it appears that as of today, Burundi is one of the only countries in the world to have no confirmed…

One of the things that never seems to get old for the kids who live on the hills around us here is, well…us. Despite the fact that there has been a pretty significant number foreign missionaries here for quite a few years, making dozens and dozens of trips back and forth from our houses to…