a thousand blue fish

Oh my goodness I have so many word racing around in this tired brain.  There is so much I want to share with you to tell you about this amazing place!  We are stunned speechless, I think it could also be the exhaustion by God's faithfulness, His majesty and the blessing of this opportunity.  Japan is incredible and that is just our little... suburb...I will learn the correct word. Hope you are well Much love  Philippa And please if I can pray for anything, please let me know

I'm feeling a little teary and my tummy is sore and my nose is leaking.  In 2 days we say goodbye to family and hello to a new life.  I am so excited for the new journey, but my family is so important to me! I am the eldest of 4 children, the almost oldest cousin and niece and in 2 days I say goodbye to them. It was the loveliest Christmas I have experienced in a very long time. It was free from worry and stress and the Grinch was not so grinchy.  The Christmas tree was the prettiest I remember it being.  There weren't as many presents, but there was so much love.  I missed my sister and her little family sooooo much!  We were thankful.  It was a sweet spot, a safe place and my tummy is getting more sore as I write this.  And I'm battling to see the screen as the tears pour down...and my nose is leaking... I am privileged and excited and I am nervous.  And the littlies are a bit unsettled.  Our God is most faithful, most loving, mo...

My husband suggests I change my e-mail to swolleneyegirl@something.somethingelse.  It has something to do with the look of my right eye.  Little children, mine, were playing rough in my bed.  One child, the boy, pushes the other child, the girl, and that child lands on/in my eye.  What happened as a result is a fracture in the bone behind the eye.  Not really a problem, but I blew my nose a bit later.  This pushed air through the fracture in the sinus and it popped my eye out of the socket.   Luckily I was able to put it back.  I have to rest my eye and not blow my nose for 10days.  But God is so faithful, it could have been worse, the eye doctor blessed us with huge discount and another patient offered us a free family photo shoot. And in other news we will be picking up our visas on the 28th of December!!!!!!!  God is so faithful and we have seen miracle upon miracle happen!  We know He will continue to move all mountains! ...

Ooh its Christmas so very soooon  and I can't wait... to go to Japan!!!!!  I love Christmas  normally, normally I have all these ideas in my somewhat jumbled-mama's head (only a mother will know what it means to have a jumbled head) about the kind of Christmas I want for my family.  And most years I don't get it right, and next year I know I will, but this Christmas all I can think about is... Japan.  And Christmas movies! We watched Polar Express recently, it was a treat for Alexander which went down favorably with me.  And I just loved that the message behind the movie was that the celebration was about the spirit of Christmas not Father Christmas, or the gifts, but friendship and loving one another.  Please don't get me wrong and wonder whether I remember to put Christ in Christmas, I do and I don't.  I so believe we should honor the birth of Christ, but 25 December is a bit off.  But I also believe that it a wonderful time for people to...

If God is love (which He is) and we believe that we are God's representatives then shouldn't our first response be to love?  For the longest time I have felt more and more strongly that God wants us to live simply.  He will continue to bring revelation and new words and heal and do miracles, but He will do it all out of love.  And His instructions are really clear:  "Jesus said, 'Love the LORD your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.'  This is the most important, the first on any list.  But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.'  These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." Matthew 22: 37-40, The Message    This kind, beautiful, strong, gentle man, Jesus, loved people.  He lived among people and laughed with them.  He favored the company of "sinners" to that of the religious "right." Passing along, Jesus saw, a man at hi...

My kids are not good at waiting.  They look sweet here but in the real world if they had to sit or stand anywhere waiting for us they'd be moaning.  In the same way if anyone could tune into my frequency they may hear a bit of a moan.  Actually they'd hear a rumbling nausea.  Its not a panic, because I know as I know as I know that God is doing exactly what God does.  And I trust Him.  Its just something like: there is so much that I have no control over and so much that still needs to happen, how Lord?. And there have been a couple of low days and then amazing teaching.  A low day happened on Friday when the wheel on our beloved twin pram decided it just couldn't anymore.  And it happened in a busy shop and nobody helped me.  And that was after the lady in the Post Office determinedly avoided smiling at me.   But I had been reading something about that in Oswald Chambers.  I can't quite remember exactly what he said-I just know...

I woke up this morning to a smell I couldn’t quite place.   It was a manly smell that I haven’t smelt in a month as my husband has been participating in Movember.   Before I’d even had time to put my glasses on (which means my seeing eyes are not seeing much) he’d handed me a stone shaped like a heart with the most perfect hole in it.  I kissed him and wished him happy anniversary.  At this point he jumped out of bed and grabbed a small black and gold bag out of his cupboard.  Inside the bag was a box and inside the box was the most beautiful, thoughtful present I could ever had hoped for.  Emiel had, in the last couple of weeks, found a coin from Swaziland. He had taken the coin and had it put on a silver chain… for me.  Swaziland is my heart place, my safe place if ever a physical place could be that.  We went there for a few days on our honeymoon because I wanted so badly to show the man I loved the place I loved.  And it was a...