March 19, 2013
We hope you have a wonderful day and look forward to sharing this amazing year ahead with you and Liz.
You are an awesome addition to our family and we know you are going to make a great Dad for our new little grandson.
Can’t wait to meet this little guy.
March 9, 2013
We have been here almost six years now and have yet to find a foolproof solution to receiving letters or packages from overseas. There are, of course, the obvious issues where anything of value or that appears to be of value is apt to go missing in transit. Letters will usually get through if the address is correct but this is an issue for any type of automated address labelling system which simply cannot deal with a non traditional address format. When the name of our complex, Boulevard Condo is automatically shortened to Blvd, it means nothing here in Asia. We have no idea how much mail has gone astray, but we do apologize if it was yours!
Assuming the address is correct and it makes its way through Pos Malaysia to our building, the postie then randomly tosses letters into any box with a matching number or letter. We live in apartment 13A. But as the Chinese will not live on any floor that has a ‘four’ in it (sounds like ‘death’ in Mandarin), the entire floor above us is also 13A. We get a lot of mail, but not much of it is ours. Sometimes the mail gets to our box eventually thanks to helpful neighbours. I know we regularly redistribute the mail that is delivered to us.
However, now we are engaged in online courses, for the next several years we need to be able to access many books in a country where libraries are not a priority and have them delivered expeditiously. From the first course that Steve took we have learned that textbooks will be our major challenge. Some books are available on Kindle and we are very grateful for that, but three Steve had to order from the bookstore attached to the seminary. He received the third one a few days ago in the last week of his course.
This is clearly not a viable option so we now have another mailing address in a commercial complex. Yes, we know that this gives us four existing addresses, five if you count the school address, but it has become necessary. We have set up a mailbox at Mailbox, Etc. which is an outlet for both UPS and DHL so we will be able to pick up our own delivery, at our convenience, rather than having the Malay speaking delivery guy try to work out the details of delivery with our Nepali speaking security guards. Hopefully this is the beginning of a successful and ongoing relationship with Amazon and maybe even anyone else who might be inclined to send us a Christmas gift. Letters and cards can still come to our apartment, but if it is important, it should go to the address below.
So if you are inclined to send us something other than your prayers, our new and secure mailing address is:
Suite 158
MBE Empire Subang
P-05A, Empire Shopping Gallery
Jalan SS16/1
47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
September 13, 2012
Pam and I love to travel. Given the nature of her ministry, she gets to do more of it than I do. But I really can’t complain as I truly do get more than my fair share. Pam just got back from Singapore, a missions related visit that was nothing more than a series of meetings with her peers and superiors; necessary, but essentially business travel. Next week she will be going to a local conference on participatory learning. We will drive to Port Dickson early enough to grab a bite to eat somewhere on the waterfront. Again, not a huge trip, but certainly an enjoyable afternoon for me, and a week at a nice hotel for Pam.
One of my colleagues is packing up to return to Canada. This is significant for me as I might have to cover her responsibilities in the short term (up to Christmas) to help out the team. What was more germane to this post was her email informing the staff of the importance of keeping a travel log, as the company we work for requires this on exit. I am hoping I don’t have to exit anytime soon, but I thought it might be a useful exercise as well as saving me some grief at some point in the future.
One purpose of this blog is that is serves as a useful reminder of where we have been and what we have done since we arrived here (thanks Jon for suggesting it and setting it up for us!). This is fortunate because all those little custom stamps on your passport are hard to read and it is useful to have a backup site to check dates and locations. So far I have compiled a list just shy of 40 trips. That doesn’t include trips within Malaysia, as they don’t get stamped. That is quite a list in just five years. I would estimate that Pam’s list would be at least twice that.
Some of those places have been nearby, such as Singapore, barely five hours done the road from here. Some have been wildly exotic, like the Great Wall of China and the Little Barrier Reef of Australia. Wherever, it has been a great privilege to live in this part of the world, and I thank God for the opportunities we have had to see some of His beautiful creation before age and finances drive us home for good. We will never see the world in the same way again.
August 30, 2012
Neil Macdonald: Remembering Archie Barr, Canada’s honourable spy
About The Author
Neil Macdonald is the senior Washington correspondent for CBC News, which he joined in 1988 following 12 years in newspapers. Before taking up this post in 2003, Macdonald reported from the Middle East for five years.
Many years ago, I was a young reporter working on what appeared to be a bombshell tip. I placed a call to a man named Archie Barr. I’d been told that Robert Coates, Brian Mulroney’s new defence minister, had compromised himself, and a briefcase containing national secrets, somewhere in Europe. Apparently hookers were involved. We had further been told that some top-secret government agency was investigating.
At the time, Barr ran a top-secret government agency: the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He was its deputy director. He assured me CSIS was not investigating any such story. Though he said some other agency might be and, if it were, it might not have seen fit to tell CSIS. So I kept digging. Long story short, we found out that Coates and two assistants had been in a bar featuring strippers and hookers outside the Canadian military base in Lahr, Germany. There was no briefcase of secrets involved, but Coates’s officials had misled Lahr’s base commander. They had used his official car, were tailed by military police and had spread expense-account money around the bar. Coates resigned and Privy Council Office security officials, we discovered, had been looking into the case.
When I returned from Germany, though, I read in the Toronto Sun that CSIS had also been pursuing an investigation.
I’ll never forget the reply when I called Archie Barr back and demanded to know why he had denied it: “Our investigation started a few seconds after you walked out my door,” he said. “This is a two-way street, young fellow.”
That’s called being schooled by a pro. Not your usual cop
Archie Barr died quietly last Sunday in Kingston, Ont., after decades of kidney disease. He was in his late-70s.
He joined the RCMP at 18 and would eventually be sent off by the force to the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, U.K. I cannot say I knew him well. I’m not sure anyone did. He was a cipher even to other spies, and Scots-Canadian farm boys from Winnipeg don’t open easily to others, especially reporters. But I grew to consider him something of a friend. I also realized he was one of the smartest people I had ever met. We’ve corresponded for years.
When I first met him, in 1982, he was still a cop — a chief superintendent in the RCMP security service, where he’d spent a career chasing around Cold War spies and trying to persuade East Bloc diplomats and citizens to betray their countries. I had met lots of cops by that time, but none like him.
He didn’t believe in the us-versus-them code that guides most police. He believed that law enforcement agencies are there to protect the civil rights of the population, not violate them. He believed that if someone is investigated and found to be without fault, the fact that person was investigated at all should remain a deeply guarded secret. He also believed, as did at least two royal commissions that examined the sometimes illegal antics of the RCMP, that police, with their black-and-white, arrest-the-bad-guy approach, don’t make good intelligence agents. And he talked freely about “our sins.” He felt the Mounties had some atoning to do.
Starting CSIS
That view didn’t make him particularly popular in certain circles of the RCMP. Nonetheless, he went on to become the guiding intellect behind the establishment of CSIS, Canada’s first civilian intelligence agency.
“It would not have happened without Archie,” an old colleague who followed him into CSIS told me this week. “It was uncommon within the RCMP to run into someone with his intelligence and determination.” CSIS was a quid pro quo. The new agency was given unheard-of powers, subject to judicial approval. In return, Archie Barr ensured CSIS submitted to an unheard-of level of oversight — both its inspector general and the Security Intelligence Review Committee have carte blanche to go through its files.
“He knew the faith and credit of the Canadian public was the agency’s bread and butter,” said his former co-spy. “He is probably most responsible for what we have now, which is a pretty good agency, with a reputation around the world.”
Barr was a counter-intelligence guy from another era. He was a close friend of Sir William Stephenson, the famed Canadian “Man called Intrepid” whose spying on Nazi Germany helped change the course of the Second World War. Barr even introduced me once to the great spymaster.
He was also a trusted contemporary of James Jesus Angleton, the fanatically anti-Communist CIA executive who tore that agency apart during the 1960s and 1970s, looking for Soviet moles. Angleton at one point named former Canadian prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Lester B. Pearson as possible Communist agents, and it is probably no coincidence that Barr and a few other young Mounties began Operation Featherbed, a mole-chasing exercise that ended up investigating hundreds, if not thousands of Canadians, including journalists and, reportedly, Trudeau himself.
“We did probably cast the net too wide,” says Archie’s ex-colleague today. “But we knew we were penetrated, and operations were going sour, and we did what we had to do.” Featherbed was sealed decades ago, and remains sealed today.
A frightening power
Being part of operations such as Featherbed almost certainly had something to do with Barr’s conviction later in life that intelligence agencies need leashes. Justice John Major delivered a scathing report in June 2010 on the RCMP and CSIS and the way they handled the 1985 Air India bombing. He called it a ‘cascading series of errors.’ (Canadian Press)
It may have even contributed to his belief that intelligence agents and reporters were not adversaries, but, in their own ways, support systems for democracy, something he tried routinely to convince his colleagues of. We both attempt to uncover bad behaviour, he once told me, we just report it differently.
That’s not to say Barr was everyone’s source. But he would pick up his phone, and he would answer serious questions, and reporters who bothered would learn that there are real threats to Canada’s security and that dealing with them is a serious business. He provided some insights I will never forget. People never see themselves as they truly are, he used to say. Even the smartest ones. If you understand that, and you can understand how a person does see himself, you can exercise a frightening power over that individual. That is how a good spy handles his agents, and that is how cult leaders exercise their hold on people, and that is how good managers manage. It is also why reporters can be so easily manipulated, and realizing that is essential if you want to do the job properly.
Deniability
From time to time, I felt I could recognize Barr’s theories and musings in accounts by certain other journalists. Often, it would be those accounts of politicians who loved having secret organizations at their disposal, and who wanted results, but of course also wanted deniability in the event something went wrong. And things did go wrong. Archie’s personal demon was Babbar Khalsa, the Sikh extremist group almost certainly responsible for the Air India bombings in 1985. CSIS was a young agency, still running on RCMP rules, and it failed, probably more because of human error and imperfection and bad judgment than laziness or malfeasance.
From where I sit, Archie Barr was a Canadian patriot. More reporters should meet spies like him.
He may have sinned. We all have. But he was among the very few responsible for making the shadowy world more accountable to the public it serves.
A footnote: I was sued by Bob Coates for the story about his adventures in Germany, and in the course of testimony, a rather foolish ex-boss at the newspaper for which I worked blurted out that Neil Macdonald had a source in CSIS.
Coates of course wanted the name and I tried the journalistic stonewall, but the reality soon became clear. I had a choice: Name Archie Barr or lose the lawsuit. I finally called him, and he told me that if it became public that he had spoken to me, he’d be finished at CSIS. That said, if the newspaper promised to appeal, he would come forward himself if the case was lost in the high court.
Eventually, he said, we all have to take responsibility for what we do. As it turned out, Coates dropped the suit, so it wasn’t necessary. But I am certain Archie Barr would have stepped forward.
Like I said, he was a pro.
August 20, 2012
This week marks the end of Ramadan, the biggest holiday of the year in Malaysia, when everyone heads to their home town for a week of festivities. We decided to take this week to do something that we were unable to do until recently: explore more of Malaysia by car. Accordingly we headed off the Kuala Terengganau, the most Muslim state in the country that boasts some of the nicest beaches on the north east coast of the mainland.
Forgive us our Western cynicism, but truthfully we were not expecting too much, having seen what some locally run tourist sites look like near KL. But after just the first day, we can’t believe what incredibly beautiful sights have been just four hours away from us all this time. The drive across the central highlands of this country has always impressed us with its beauty, but the water on the East Coast looked just beautiful, and the further north we got, the more lovely it seemed. We landed in Kuala Terangganu, the capital of the state, and booked in to a very nice hotel with Wifi in the room, decent cable TV (Johnny English, yay!) and some comfy beds.
We got an early start and had the joy of watching from our balcony as the the sun rose over the South China Sea. A short drive south again brought us to Marang, hard on the coast, and graced by an enormous mosque that would have done KL proud. Just ten minutes by fast boat from the Marang Jetty lay Kepas Island, a little known and relatively undeveloped tropical island surrounded by crystal clear warm water and awesome banks of coral. We headed to the nearest beach hut cafe for a coffee and a watermelon juice to talk through our strategy.
We spent hours snorkeling over an underwater water world, watching literally hundreds of different species of fish in the most amazing colours and sizes. For a brief moment I almost panicked, thinking I must have drifted far from shore in order the encounter this beauty but I lifted my head up and realized I was about twenty feet from the sand. The charcoal black sea urchins with their diamond ‘eyes’ were startling and dangerously abundant. The little clown fish in their soft coral fascinating and elusive, the enormous purple mouthed clams that would ominously close as you approached were mysterious and strangely beautiful.
We headed home, tired and having had a little too much sun, marvelling that the Creator of such beauty could love and care for such as us. And tremendously grateful for the privilege once again of seeing His awesome beauty on display in His underwater kingdom.
July 25, 2012
For a variety of reasons, I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of home. We have just returned from a wonderful visit with family, friends and colleagues in “our home and native land”. Now we are settling into another year in our adopted home in KL.
It was such a joy and privilege to spend time with Greg and Liz as they settle into their first home together, the very home in which Greg grew up. We spent lovely days in Ayr, reconnecting with our grandkids in the home that has been a secure haven for them for the past three years. We even had a lovely visit and dinner with Milan, Sara and their boys in the condo which I suppose is somehow our home in Ontario since we own it and it is filled with most of our earthly belongings, such as they are. We also had the joy of staying in my brother’s home enjoying the use of the granny suite that was home to my Dad and Mom for almost twelve years. Without Randy and Syl’s gracious hospitality we would be truly homeless in Ontario!
Today Jon and Nic and their kids watched as the contents of their first family home were loaded into a truck for a move across the continent to their new home in Washington State. It will be both a fun adventure and a huge dislocation for everyone adjusting to life far away from the family and friends they have enjoyed.
In the course of our marriage, we have lived in nine homes on three different continents. The very word home has very strong and positive connotations. We all need to feel connected to a home that creates a sense of familiarity, of belonging, of certainty and security. Now, for the first time in our marriage all of our immediate family have left Ontario, leaving us feeling oddly disconnected, even though we ourselves have been away for over five years. Fortunately we both have brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews who we love dearly along with many close personal friends with whom we will continue to have connection with in Ontario, and who will always play a huge part of our lives.
Along with the idea of a physical home comes the very strong realization that we also have a “home team”. We are so grateful for those friends who listen to us, care for us, laugh and cry with us, share their hearts and homes with us, encourage, pray and support us. We have come to recognize that home for us is not a set place, or a city on a map. It is wherever the people you love are, whenever you are together building memories both happy and sad, that become a part of us wherever we may be. This is very much like the Christian concept of ‘church,’ which properly understood does not refer to any physical building, whether in Rome, Canterbury or down the street, but rather is the people of God gathered in His name. In a similar way, home for us truly is where our hearts live.
July 11, 2012
Well it has been really swell, but it is back to Malaysia for Pam and I. It has been a very fast 17 days, starting in Toronto and ending up in Seattle, but here we are both back in Calgary and tomorrow morning we will be on our way once again.
Over the weekend I flew to Seattle to visit our oldest son who is finally moving down there, having worked for Microsoft for the last three years. He admits that the flying was beginning to wear on him. They bought a beautiful home in a gorgeous community, about a half hour’s drive from his new employer. Their new house offers a view of the Cascade Mountains from their bedroom window and a Starbucks in the center of town. Oh yes, there is the best school in the district, a library, and a community center just down the street as well. It looks pretty close to ideal.
Jon patiently tried to bring me up to speed on all the latest gismos that I could use for the classroom. I am not a total loss in this department, having taught Design and Technology for 18 years, but computer stuff is hard to keep up with, even for those whose living depends upon it. I am hoping I can get some of this stuff up and running when I get back to Malaysia.
To top off a very productive weekend we entertained Pete and Joan, our friends in Malaysia this past year who are now back in Calgary looking to relocate in Canada and tonight we will get together with the family of our daughter’s new husband, Greg. We once again want to thank all those who extended their hospitality to us on our all too brief visit home this year. If we didn’t catch you this year, then perhaps we will be able to get together when we get back in 2013. As I look out over our daughter’s back porch at the beautiful Alberta sky, I am hard pressed to think of a single day of bad weather while I have been home; it has been gorgeous weather all the time. Thank you, Father!
July 2, 2012
Where did the time go? It feels like I just arrived back in Ontario and here we are on our way again, this time out to the West to see our kids. The two youngest, Dave and Liz are in Calgary, which is where we will be headed next, while our oldest is now in Seattle, where I will be flying next weekend. It has been nearly a year since I have seen any of them, so I am looking forward to that leg of our stay in Canada.
This week has been all about seeing our grandkids, who will be shortly joining their Dad in the States, our daughter-in-law Nicole, who has been holding the fort back here in the East, and our friends, supporters and natal families. It has been a whirlwind of meetings and meals, events and conversations. To those we have had the opportunity to see, many thanks for your kindness and hospitality. We wish we could have stayed longer. For those we missed, we are awfully sorry and hope that we will see you next year.
Being missionaries on furlough – even tentmakers like us who don’t have a host of supporting churches to visit on our all too brief annual trips home – means that our time is not our own. It is basically at the service of what we like to call “God-appointments;” those dear folk that the Holy Spirit directs us to minister to in the short time we have at our disposal. However, God is not a hard task-master, and He has allowed us some time of reflection on our journey. We did get a very nice walk through Springbank Park of an evening and a hastily conceived and much appreciated trip to Ipperwash Beach to watch the sun go down in a blaze of glory into Lake Huron.
Now we will have one final visit with our grandkids before we have to say goodbye to them for another year. That will be hard. But it is a great comfort for us to know that they are being brought up in a godly home by parents who love them dearly. With all the turmoil in the world, both here in the West and in Asia where we live, that is a great blessing.
June 26, 2012
I come from a family of three children. Pam and I had three children. Our oldest son and his wife have three children. Three generations of threes; is there something in that? I remember reading an article during the space race as NASA transitioned from the Gemini program, that was all about earth orbit and space docking, to the Apollo program, that actually put a man on the moon. They did a number of studies that seemed to indicate that three was the perfect number to put in a small enclosed environment like a space capsule. Something about having enough room psychologically to deal with interpersonal stress as there was always another person to make an alliance with if you were having problems with one colleague. Guess this argument breaks down somewhat at the marriage partner level, doesn’t it!
Anyway three seemed to work well for our children and it works well for Jon and Nic’s as well. No person’s life goes perfectly smoothly and if you are having a poopy spell and you are an only child that it can be tough to handle. But if you feel like opting out of whatever is going on and there are three of you, well the other two can carry on playing together while you get your issues sorted and feel like participating again. Not that our grandkids were being particularly poopy, but everyone gets out of sorts when things don’t work out exactly the way you had thought they would.
Eli and Abi had a lovely little visit in the wagon on the way to school at the end of the day to pick up Ben. The sun was pleasantly warm, they had sufficient toys along on the ride to promote interaction and they were able to create their own little space as they moved effortlessly down the sidewalk. However, Ben had an armload of projects to take home at the end of the school year and there was only room for Eli on the return trip. Abi was miffed. But Eli was happy and Ben had a lot of explaining to do about his construction work on his Styrofoam and sandpaper collage so Abi simply had to get over herself, which she of course did. All that is all to the good for how she will later have to deal with setbacks in her adult world.
The other factor is that Grandma was happy to substitute a piggyback ride for the wagon and that delighted Abi no end. This is not only another good life lesson but an illustration of the importance of the extended family in the lives of our children. Mom and Dad are obviously fundamental, and the argument that single parents or same gendered parents can be as effective is simply seeking to rationalize what is essentially dysfunctional. But of only slightly less importance is the connection to grandparents and neighbours, cousins and uncles that not only enrich our children’s lives, but provide other sources of love and acceptance, life-lessons and role-modeling. I had one grandparent growing up, and although she was a dear, it was a poor substitute for the full complement of family that our circumstances disallowed. Our grandchildren have four loving and doting grandparents, and although they don’t see Pam and me often, we let them know when we can just how important they are to us. It can’t help but make a difference to their view of the larger world.
