a thousand blue fish

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 to...

I am so tired and I am sure I am going to be called away before I even get to write what is on my heart. Today has not been the greatest.  It has been twilight-zone-ish.  We are in this really intense place in our lives and because everything is moving so quickly a slow day feels even slower.   And my heart is really quite sore.  After our big walk  Emiel and I watched the movie The Bang Bang Club.  Oh, my goodness.  I have always been so against Apartheid and for years actually felt embarrassed for being white.  I was horrified watching this movie, that I know so little about the struggles in my beloved South Africa.  I felt mortified by the human depravity and the brokenness.  And it strengthened my resolve to live the way Christ did on this earth.  I want to love as he did.   I want to treat people with respect and see the Christ in them. While we watched the movie my mom phoned to let me know that a guy from our previ...

I am sitting in front of this laptop in my walking gear.  I am pretty tired and my feet are sore.  But we accomplished it!!!! God really blew us away today. Yesterday I was despondent.  Very few people had asked how our preparations were going and our sponsorship list wasn't increasing.  In the midst of all this self-stuff, I felt God just telling me to look to him and not to people.   I am not battling in trusting that God is going to do miracles and move mountains.  I guess I just thought it would be through people and well... through our efforts. I was already emotionally tender and then I felt physically sick.  I was in pain.  My children have both developed an allergic reaction to the stuff our blustering wind brings.  Alexander has been coughing and Beatrice leaking from the eyes and nose, Oh and she is teething!  This morning (we woke up at 4) Emiel had a spasm in his back.  He says it felt like someone punched him. ...

I used to believe family referred only to blood and marriage the church I went to and then to marriage.  I don't believe that anymore. In an e-mail from Japan we were told that our church family over there has donated furniture for our new home.  And then a while ago we were told how they'd moved it into our apartment.  This really boggled my brain.  People we have never met are looking forward to our arrival.  And then I was reminded that the Body of Christ is a family.  Why has it taken me so long to know that? For years I've ranted about church unity.  I think it is far simpler than church unity if we remember we are family.  Children with the same Father who loves us.    God has not made His desires for us so complicated or to high to reach, we have. Hope that gets you thinking a bit Much love  Philippa     

I recently made an observation (by way of a comment from my mom) of my life.  I have changed.  I have grown.  I have blossomed.  And it would not have happened if life had not been so grossly uncomfortable for the last bunch of years. Hindsight really is a gift.  I was able to look back, ok maybe for the first time in many months, and see the thread weaving through.  I can see why one door closed and how another opened and how, while one path crumbled (think Indiana Jones type path crumbling), a new one appeared.  (So wierd, but my brain is seeing this in video game format.)   I can see that my heart broken, body rocking crying was not for nothing.  I've started to feel life pumping through my veins.  Please don't get me wrong, and think that I was unhappy being a wife and mother, this is something I was made to be.  But something was missing in me. One of things I have realised is that my ...

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care--then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedi...