Analects - Emil Rem

Regions Beyond

by Emil Rem | Jan 17, 2025 | Analects

My first assignment in London, as an accountant, was the audit of Regions Beyond Missionary Union. The Methodist Centre comprised a large, marbled mausoleum of a building. There, I was introduced to Janice, the head accountant. She seemed to have stepped out of an...

Hope

by Emil Rem | Jan 2, 2025 | Analects

As we roll into 2025, those extrapolating the past year—Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, a new US president, countless deaths through forced migrations—may wonder if Hope exists. A 99-year-old war veteran, painfully pushing his walker round and round his garden every day to...

Saturday Chores in Larnaka

by Emil Rem | Dec 26, 2024 | Analects

Saturday was laundry day in Larnaka. By nine in the morning, the sun shone benignly upon me as I carried a hold-all filled with my week’s dirty clothes. Anna, a five-foot-nothing scrawny blond from Poland, in her thirties, oversaw the laundry room at the Petrou...

Christmas With The Asletts

by Emil Rem | Dec 19, 2024 | Analects

Weeks before Christmas, the Aslett women would gather at Flo’s—my foster mother, the grand matriarch of the clan—to make pasties, fruit cakes and mince pies. Coins from the past—copper farthings , ha’pennies, silver shillings, sixpences, and half-crowns—were stirred...

Stone Town

by Emil Rem | Dec 16, 2024 | Analects

“Felix, can you walk me through Stone Town today? It’s been 30 years since my last visit.” Felix was my go-to guide in Zanzibar. We crossed the square in front of my hotel Serena to enter a warren of runaway, intertwining, meandering streets. I had...

Pains In The Neck

by Emil Rem | Dec 5, 2024 | Analects

Coming home last week from a six o’clock breakfast meeting, I noticed our neighbours’ lighted window. The curtains were undrawn, two boys—7 and 8—were scampering hither and thither, their mother running in opposite directions. We also had two boys. Now adults. I can...