I’ve always taken it as ‘look after my people, Peter. See to it that noone falls away from me, from my church.’

Never did I take it literally until I set foot in Uganda 4 weeks ago.

What I encountered there has changed my life, my Christian walk, and my view of God forever.

When you see children starving, no food or clothing, no adults around – the verse takes on a whole new meaning. And now that I have seen, I am responsible.

It has been relatively easy to turn my eyes away from the TV screen when a World Vision ad comes on with a starving child and a plea for money while I’m preparing the evening meal for my tribe, but standing right in front of one of our newly sponsored children as they drop to their knees in the dirt that is their front yard, to thank me for choosing them, is an experience beyond words.

I am still processing much of what God has been whispering to my heart, and the outworkings of that will take a lifetime to journey, but I won’t go back.

Back to a place where the widow and the orphan was a cliche. Back to a time when I hadn’t felt the touch of my little Ugandan girls hand as she tentatively put it on my shoulder.  Before I had met the amazing people who have nothing, yet have smiles as big as the Grand Canyon and love the Lord with everything they are.

Before I met widowed mothers, many HIV positive, who have to work for food for their children, often many miles away from their home, leaving their babies to care for themselves all day….Who are then the prime target of abduction…or rape.

If they don’t work, they don’t eat. What choice do they have?

I am so grateful to have been born in this beautiful country, with the abundance we get to enjoy every day, and I will never take it for granted again.

But a piece of my heart has deposited itself in a country on the other side of the world, and I know that’s exactly where God intended it.

John 14:18 “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.”

We would get all the sheets out of our linen cupboard and spend hours playing house.

One of us would be mum and we usually gave birth to one of our teddy bear babies so we could be a ‘family’.

Nothing is more fulfilling than to see your own children playing dress-ups or cubbies. It’s the best kind of play.

But then I stumbled across some seriously amazing cubbies, and wonder if the children who play in these houses deliver teddy babies?!

Source: Poshtots.com

They are so gorgeous, I wonder how long the children enjoy playing in them? Would the $10,000 + price tag be justified?

The sheets and towels will be coming out of our cupboards again this summer.

Hooray for imagination!!

(Source: Farmchicks website)

One day, I will enjoy a white Christmas! It’s on the bucket list.

But for us coastal Aussies, this is more like our Christmas day if we can get past the traffic on the roads to make the beach!

We eat this:

and sometimes still swelter in the kitchen to produce the hot lunch

We wear silly hats, tell the bon bon jokes over and over (there’s always one that cracks everyone up!) and then curl up in a quiet corner too full to move. Our day starts early, usually about 4.30am, when the youngest (and me!) get up excitedly checking for our names on presents under the tree. By late afternoon, we retreat to the beach, or a pool, to work off the excess pudding before cold leftovers later that night.

How do you spend Christmas Day? What are some of your traditions?

The first is   “Another place at the Table” by Kathy Harrison.

Here’s an excerpt from her epilogue:

People still ask me how I stand it. How can I tolerate the misery and hopelessness of it all?….. “Doesn’t it scare you?” they want to know. “Wouldn’t you rather teach again or sell towels, for goodness sake? Anything but continue to do what you do?” The truth is, there isn’t anything I’d rather do. I think keeping a home and raising up children is a good and noble calling. I say I am a foster parent with my head held high. It’s hard work and not for the faint of heart. It is sometimes a job for a warrior.

And a piece from the beginning of the book:

“When children come to me they are shattered. In the course of a few short hours they have lost everything than anchored them to their sense of self. They are truly refugees from a war they can’t begin to comprehend. My job is to paste them together until they can start to make some sense of it all. I offer a small island of safety in an unsafe and terrifying world.”

When I read this book, I wondered how Kathy had gotten into my brain and written down exactly what I was thinking!

The next is “Mixed Blessings” by Deborah Lee

This is what Random House Publishers had to say:

There are around 20,000 children in foster care in Australia, but how many of us would actually open our hearts and homes to help? With husband Cedric, Deborah Lee is one of the unsung heroes of foster care, having fostered scores of children, many of them so-called ‘difficult cases’. In Mixed Blessings, Deb tells her story. If you have ever loved a baby, you will love this book. Because every child deserves to be loved the Deb Lee way.

Definitely made me laugh…and cry. A great inspirational read. I will be reading this again over summer.

Then we move onto the harder books to stomach:

Dave Pelzer’s books: “A child Called It” and “The Lost Boy” are two books that will at times, literally turn your stomach at the atrocities inflicted on a child. But there is also hope, and the story of a courageous child that no matter how deep his wounds, has come out victorious.

Melissa Fay Green’s “There is no me without you”

and Cathy Glass’ books are all deeply disturbing. If you finish one of her books, and don’t feel compelled to do something, check your heartbeat!

For deeper research as to the ‘why’ behind abuse, the authors of “Ghosts from the Nursery” produce compelling if not controversial evidence that violent behaviour is learned and cultivated in the first few months of childhood development. Even more startling, the authors Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley believe that a predisposition to violent behaviour can be learned before birth. A “chemical wash” of toxins such as drugs and alcohol, combined with a mother’s stress hormones generated from rage or fear can directly effect the babies brain development.

And one of my favourites – not specifically on the subject of fostering, but rescuing the ‘least of these’ – the children, is Wes Stafford’s book “Too Small to Ignore”

Children are too important and too intensely loved by God to be left behind or left to chance. Children belong to all of us and we are compelled to intervene on their behalf. We must invest in children–all across the world.

Do you have any great reads to add to this list? Leave a link here, or comment and I will update the post as I hear from you!

She pours her time (and a lot of money!) into making precious keepsakes for our children. I appreciate it more every year as I have taken on the love of creating gifts for my family.

A tepee for the village chief! I can just imagine the hours that my nephews will spend in here, and the imaginative play that only dress-up time can provide.

I adore the beading on the dress! And the bright red and aqua are gorgeous.

My parents leave Queensland in a few days time, to head down south with their campervan loaded to the brim with presents for their grandchildren.

It will probably look something like this!

or this

If you see something like this on the Princes Highway between the Gold Coast and Wollongong, say Hello to my parents! Dad will be the one wearing the long-suffering grimace and Mum will be the one with the tinsel earrings, flashing reindeer badge and singing Ho Ho Ho at the top of her lungs!

But, our trusty carpenters continue on regardless! Jamie, the newest member of our building team, moved to the Illawarra recently from Bathurst, NSW. Another country boy with impeccable manners and great work ethic.

I am in love with our turned balustrades! There is a lot more detail to go on here yet, with brackets, newel posts, and finials to add that country flair!

All our decorative trim comes from TMP Group, who you can find here.

This is the book I bought on a wintery day in a Southern Highlands bookshop which has been a great resource for me while designing our home. It has so many beautiful photographs focussed on details like chimney shapes, finials and post brackets, front gates and window decoration. A great addition to my design library!

Have a super weekend….only 23 days to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I bought this for myself for Christmas!! All wrapped and under the tree waiting for me to open it with a look of surprise at what a great present my husband bought me!!)

This weird weather we’ve been having…first hot and humid, then cold and rainy, has been awesome for the vegie patch! Everything seems to be growing as we watch it!!

On the left of the wall is the side of a Furphy water cart. The motto on it says, “Good better best, we will never rest until our good is better, and our better best!”

I love to meditate on that as I weed the garden. The star jasmine smell divine on the warm spring air, and the gardenias along the driveway are adding to the wonderful scents.

The corn is reaching to the sky, and the sunflowers are so high! I can’t wait to see the flowers opening to the sun.

The bounty we get to enjoy in our country. Fresh produce right from our own backyards. We live in the best place on earth.

We are so grateful.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.

Have you used one to say “thank you?”

{William A. Ward}

It’s never easy hearing things about yourself that might not be so great, but it’s always valuable when it comes from someone you respect and has no malicious intention with their words.

(Not me, but what we were doing yesterday!)

Now, if you don’t know me, stop reading! You won’t care what I say from here on in. But if you do, or want to get to know me better, read on.

Maybe what I share might resonate with you…possibly help you also.

My friend said that I keep people at arm’s length. That I don’t let anyone close. So close that they see my vulnerabilities. She said that everyone ‘loves us’ yet many of those same people don’t really know us and she struggled with why they would love us without a close relationship where I give of myself on a deeper level. That she would not be in a relationship with me unless I was able to go deeper than ‘surface’.

I’ve pondered this all night!  Thank you, friend, for helping me to see how I can come across. Let me share a big part of the reason why I came to be this way.

Back here, I told the story of being bullied at school by a couple of the popular girls who turned the whole school year against me, causing deep wounds over a 2-year period form Year 4 to 6. They alienated me, making life miserable. Whispered lies became cruel taunts, and my world fell apart. My mistrust of females was birthed.

The cruelty they showed impacted my life greatly.

I became a solo agent. I lost myself in a world of books, played with my older brothers male friends, joined male sporting teams, (baseball and touch footy) and became extremely tight knit within my family.

What we go through defines us.

Noone can suffer trauma and not have it affect them in some way.

If you’ve been physically hurt, you will always be wary – even though you can learn to love again.

If you’ve lost everything financially, you will always be cautious – even though you can learn to be generous again with what you have.

What happened to me as a 10-12 year old has resulted in a few things:

* I cannot stand ‘CLIQUES’. Small groups in the playground gossiping and whispering and pointed looks at the odd kid left unchecked become gossiping, cruel, malicious adults. I will leave a conversation where people are talking about an absent friend. Want to get me angry? Start talking about your girlfriend in a not-so-nice light.

What do you say about me when I’m not there?

I read that you can’t be trusted with my heart.

* I am an INCLUDER. If I have a family over for a BBQ at my home, I will invite 5 more families as well. If’ I’m having 20 people over, why not 30?

I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

* I can’t stand to see people left on the sidelines. That’s why my husband and I began  a CONNECT lounge at our church. To ensure that newer people to the place, and those who haven’t found some friends to chat to after the service will always have somewhere to go.

* I am more comfortable with men than women. I am working on my female friendships, (I actually asked some girls to come to the movies with me, instead of going alone like I usually do – big breakthrough there!!)

If there’s a footy or cricket game going on, I will join in rather than sit on the sideline commenting on the players on the field.

* I will scan a room and go talk to the ‘loner’. I don’t want them to feel even one minute of isolation because other people are chatting with their mates and don’t notice the person in the corner.

* My favourite thing to do is put on celebrations – big parties, wedding, family gatherings, or church picnics…anything that brings people together.

I’m not great at one-on-one, but I can do BIG well! I will ensure you have a wonderful time, and take it personally if you don’t enjoy yourself. I work hard as a host to give of myself, so that you ‘feel the love’ while you’re here. I’ve had total strangers to my home on Christmas Day, because they had no family in the area and I didn’t want them to be alone on the best day of the year.

* It’s probably a part of why I came to be a foster mother. The thought of a child left alone, mistreated and neglected sends shivers up my spine. If only I had the capacity to take them all in, but I know this is unrealistic.

* I know that in life there are only ever a handful of people who you really, truly be who you are – warts and all.

My husband and my children are my safe haven.

* And finally, it is why I want everyone to come to know my saviour Jesus. Because even though the world says that all good people go to heaven, it’s just not true. Only those saved by faith in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

And I don’t want anyone to MISS OUT.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

(anon)

I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street,

I met a man who had no feet.

{Denis Waitley}

It is Gratitude that compels us to head to Uganda in just under 6 weeks.

*

Gratitude for the extraordinary life we enjoy here in Australia.

Gratitude that we were born in this country, where abundant food, water and utilities make life easy.

Gratitude that we have the best health system in the world. That our children will not die of preventable diseases.

GRATITUDE FOR FREEDOM.

For a home to call my own.

We are only going for just under 3 weeks. Doesn’t seem like much sacrifice when we have been gifted with so much.

Things have been super busy around here.

We had a little break-in at our office and all our computers were stolen, so there have been a lot of late nights re-working our office and catching up on lost paperwork.

We blockfilled our fireplace walls, ready for the roofing iron to be installed next week.

Our valley can get very high winds so we decided to be over-cautious and utilise the fireplaces as extra ‘grounding’ for the house by filling the walls with concrete.

My cheeky nephew was 1 in September, and my brother just sent this gorgeous pic of him waiting so patiently for cake!

Hope you are all having a great week.

Back to the paperwork…..