Consider this

            We all make mistakes, right?   However, most of our mistakes do not cost us $25 000.             A while ago, I came across the story of a Newfoundland couple who was in the process of building their dream home.   Everything was going well.   They hired a contractor, found a lot that they liked in a nice neighbourhood, they had the basement dug and the cement walls were poured.   Everything was on plan and on schedule until the building inspector showed up.             He informed the couple that their basement was 9 centimeters too close to the property line.   Now, when you are talking about a city lot, 9 centimeters is not much.   A playing card is approximately 9 centimeters long.   However, rules are rules and so the inspector told them that they would have t...

            When the sun came up, the tired fishermen thought, “We should have just stayed at home”.             As they had done many times, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John and two others had spent the night on the Sea of Galilee.   Unfortunately, this was not really where they wanted to be.   Until recently, they had left fishing behind to follow a new teacher named “Jesus”.   They thought he was going to bring about a new earthly kingdom and they were looking forward to being part of it, but that did not happen.   Instead, Jesus was arrested, tried, crucified and buried.    Their hopes were also “crucified and buried” and now they were fishing again.             As they came to shore, a voice called out, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”    When they replied “No” the...

            Dashrath Manjhi did not want to be famous.   In fact, if given the chance, he never would have chosen the circumstances that made him so.   However, his life changed the lives of countless others.             Manjhi was born in 1934 and grew up in a poor labourer family in Gahlour village near Gaya in Bihar, India.   Soon after his marriage, his wife became ill.   The nearest doctor was located in village that was 70 kilometres (43 miles) away, but before he got her there, she died.   Not wanting others to suffer the same fate as his wife, Manjhi spent the next 22 years (from 1960 to 1982) digging a road through the mountain that separated his village from others.   His 360-foot-long (110 meters), 25-foot-deep (7.6 meters) and 30-foot-wide (9.1 meters) “through-cut” reduced the distance between the villages from 70 kilometers to one...