Posts by Cheryl Nembhard

A tribute to my Mother who has given her all. All her time, surrendered all her desires, all her love, given all of herself for her family. “Where do I belong?” she asked as she boarded a plane that took her on a voyage quite literally into the unknown. At sixteen years old my mother…

“You are not a welcome people!” were the words emphatically stated by an immigration official to my father. He was just graduating from his post-secondary studies as an international student when he was hoping to start a new life and had applied for Canadian residency status.  It was well into my 30’s that when my…

Just over a year ago, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, myself and millions of other Asians living in North America watched, troubled, as rhetoric began to spread labelling COIVD-19 as the “Chinese virus”. I wrote a thread on Twitter in that first week of lockdown about the harm such rhetoric can cause.…

There is a lot of talk about deconstruction of faith. There is a growing movement among notably younger evangelicals in North America who are disenchanted with their faith. The questions they ask remain largely unanswered and they are leaving the fold in droves. So much so that even bastions of faithful adherence to Calvinistic theology…

Growing up when I was uncertain about something I simply needed to ask my parents and I would receive a satisfactory answer. If I was not content I would ask again, “but why?” “but how?” This same thing was true for most of my faith related questions; if I had any questions regarding God or…

Have you ever chosen a “word of the year”?  Often it’s something personal from God and prayed over with great anticipation. I’ve never really been someone who does this – until this year. Still reeling from 2020, the hope for a redemptive 2021 was strong, so I prayed for a word. But instead of a…

Grit. I see it daily in my profession. I see it in the eyes of the men and women, young and old, that have made the decision to improve the quality of their lives, and have asked me for my help. Everyone has different reasons for being there, but all share one thing in common.…

Broken. Buried. Raised. Scarred. The heart of the Christian story will always be Jesus and the cross. Jesus and the empty tomb. To be a resurrected people is to steward this story; it is to invite this story to be told over every other story, every other circumstance. A resurrected people know they are broken.…

Kaarina Hsieh   What does it mean to be “resurrection people”?  This is a question that Christ followers should be asking ourselves every day. St. Augustine said that “we are an Easter people and our song is Alleluia”. It is this reality, charged with the words of St. Francis of Assisi  to “preach the Gospel…

There’s a classic storytelling trope called “the reveal”. In it, the hero is finally made aware of a dangerous plot, a missing link or that the one they fancied was standing in front of them all along, asking to be loved. The hero has a choice at that moment. Either ignore this news or adapt and…