January 31, 2005
I’D HAVE NEVER CHOSEN THE BOOK FROM THE CATALOGUE MYSELF. It was one of those ‘Editor’s Choice’ titles you get from the book club when you forget to send in your latest selection. But thumbing through the pages of The Autograph Man when I first opened the package, I was fascinated to pick up Hebrew […]
January 24, 2005
YUSHCHENKO’S VICTORY IN THE CONTROVERSIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE UKRAINE WAS FUELED BY THE FERVENT PRAYERS OF ORTHODOX, CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT BELIEVERS ALIKE. This is the view of Sunday Adelaja, the pastor of Europe’s largest church with a membership of over 25,000. Between five and ten thousand church members prayed and showed support every day […]
January 17, 2005
FASCINATING SUPPORT FOR THE TRADITIONAL STORY OF THE THREE WISE MEN comes from Marco Polo, that intrepid Venetian explorer who opened up the thirteenth-century European mind to the east. WW-reader William Bouman drew my attention to Polo’s account in The Travels, as translated by Ronald Latham for Penguin Classics. So I took my own copy […]
January 10, 2005
YES, IT’S ALL A BIT CONFUSING. Epiphany, or Three Kings, was celebrated this past week in various European cultures, by the exchange of small gifts on January 6th. The day before, January 5th, was the twelfth day of Christmas, or Twelfth Night, the occasion for feasting on the last Christmas dinner in some traditions. Then […]
January 3, 2005
ENOUGH BAD NEWS FOR A WHOLE YEAR SEEMS TO HAVE SWEPT OVER US IN THE FEW DAYS SINCE CHRISTMAS! One of the greatest natural disasters in our time has taken a huge toll of life in a dozen Asian and African nations. Thousands of western holidaymakers are still reported missing. The estimated 140,000 deaths so […]
December 20, 2004
HERE’S A REAL LIFE DILEMMA FROM ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, IN WHICH MIGHT DEFINES RIGHT. Last week we suggested that relativism, with its assumption that all perspectives are legitimate, undermines justice in the long run. ‘When we can no longer say whose ideas are right, the guy with the most votes, the biggest guns and the […]
December 13, 2004
FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS. A POISONED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. GOVERNMENTAL CORRUPTION. We easily associate such news items with former communist countries. What else should we expect after decades of godless philosophy? And yet, those of us in western nations often don’t realise how much the cry for ‘tolerance’ of recent years is undermining righteousness, justice and social stability. […]
December 6, 2004
HE WAS WAITING FOR ME AT THE END OF THE PLATFORM, AS ARRANGED. A decade had passed since we had seen each other. The passage of time had treated him well, I thought, with only a sprinkling of grey hairs in his beard. He greeted me warmly, took my bag and led me out of […]
November 29, 2004
AS WE SEND OUT THIS WW, THE UKRAINIAN HIGH COURT IS CONSIDERING THE ALLEGATIONS OF FRAUD DURING LAST WEEK’S ELECTIONS. It could be several days before any verdict is announced. Meanwhile, the tension continues on the streets of Kiev where supporters of Viktor Yushchenko keep vigil, demanding a just outcome. Our YWAM teams from Kiev […]
November 22, 2004
REMEMBER THE WOODEN HORSE OF TROY? Ancient Troy, as the current Brad Pitt movie reminds us, was situated in modern Turkey, across from Gallipoli on the Dardanelles (those straits that help link the Aegean Sea with Black Sea). The Greek adventurer Odysseus and his friends tricked the Trojans into allowing the famous wooden horse full […]
November 15, 2004
A NEW GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR DOMINOES WAS ATTEMPTED LAST FRIDAY EVENING IN HOLLAND. Eighty-four specially-selected volunteers from fourteen European countries had been setting up set up 4,250,000 domino stones over the past two months with painstaking concentration in a large exhibition hall in Leeuwaarden. The official Guinness record they were aiming to beat was […]
November 8, 2004
AS THE PLANE DESCENDED TOWARDS MALAGA AIRPORT IN SOUTHERN SPAIN, I scanned the surrounding slopes in search of the orange-tiled roof and the white plaster walls of Villa Isabel. How many thousands had passed through this training centre and meeting place over the past 14 years, en route to work in North Africa? I wondered. […]
