Skip to main content

Chocolate and Alien Cards

We are completely overwhelmed by all of the treats and yummy things we walk by every day. The Japanese really seem to love their sweet stuff.  It has really not helped that fruit and vegetable are pricey, meat is not and the deli food tastes better than my cooking at the moment.  Aagh !!!! I could really pull my hair out!  My children were eating so well! My husband was eating so well!  Aagh!!!! The truth is I cannot understand a word written on the labels of any product in any of the stores.  We're also waiting to pick up our Alien Cards, then we can open up a bank account and then get a credit card.  We've never wanted to do that but for our particular needs online shopping is a necessity.

Tomorrow marks two weeks in Japan!  We have gone through a whole range of emotions, many of them calling us home to the freedom and space and familiarity of South Africa, but more importantly to the warmth and comfort of family.  Friends, we miss you too, but family longing is something else.  God's calling is however louder so here we will stay and live and laugh and pour our lives out for the beautiful children we'll teach.  I was so aware of the space to live Christ out the moment I met my class.  And we were reminded that the Christ in us will communicate with the Christ in others, no translation required.  We know this will bond us with our church and a community of people who do not know the goodness of God.

Alexander is so happy in his new school and I am so happy teaching.  My class is bubbly and alive.  It is a little different having my little boy with me, but I see the blessing in it. I think it's so funny that I am teaching again.

I must tell that we were so blessed meeting the people in our new church.  It was really daunting as the language barrier is very real, but there is a warmth and it is because of our children.  And because of our children one woman blessed is with a huge present.  It is a heated carpet!  God so knows my heart.











 
And the rice is so good one can understand how it is the most important part of the Japanese diet.

Much love you
Please pray for us, we're trusting for a few things.
Philippa


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for commenting, I really love hearing from you

Popular posts from this blog

Longing for Winter

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." — E.E. Cummings  "Unbeing dead isn't being alive." — E.E. Cummings "We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." — E.E. Cummings   I had not intended to start with anything like the above quotes, but aren't they amazing?  What I had wanted was to find a poem about winter.  In the spider-webbed, cardboard-boxed-up mind of mine I remember something and I decided it was e.e.cummings but even though the internet is oh wow! I can't find it. Or maybe it's the dust.   My husband needs all of the credit for this post.  We discuss our life continuously.  We look at the good and the bad, what we are doing right and what is going horribly wrong....
6 comments
Read more

Hope and Mercedes Benz's

So my weekend went like this: My hope is not what it should be, hoplessness is starting to creep in Emiel leaves for camp I watch a stupid movie and feel scared My hope fades just a bit more I do my very best to keep my little people happy and content while their daddy is away Alexander is really not happy his daddy is away My hope continues fading I have plans to go my parents for Saturday Phone my dad who says my mom has had another allergic reaction to a medication I end up trying to clean and leave later then expected Get a text message from my dad saying I need to get there He needs to go out and my mom doesn't want to be left alone Suddenly it dawns on me that this reaction is quite serious My hope is fading fast I arrive at my parents' house with the littlies in tow I rush to my mom who has been trying to sleep She asks if her eyes are red Her face is swollen This is the third reaction And this time it was to Paracetamol (one of the components in the other meds) My mom...
2 comments
Read more

Grief

I have started without finishing more posts than I can count.  I have and still do find it very difficult to put down the words that will most likely open the sluice gates I am not sure I am willing to open.   We were living in Japan when we received the phone call from my mother telling me that my father had chosen to take his life.  My mother felt it necessary to tell me before I read it on Facebook.   I don't want to talk about suicide now or how damn angry I am with him, I will at some stage, I need to share what life is like for those left behind.  I do want to talk about how grief is like the scene of a train wreck.   For years I had prided myself in my ability to self-evaluate.  I new I was insecure, or if I had treated someone unkindly.  I was able to prejudge my emotions and navigate them before they caused damage.  I have always been deep, but I had moved clear of the precipice leading to despair.   Grief comes l...
Post a Comment
Read more