Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Meep
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Heart of the Issue
As some of you might remember, moving up to Auckland was fairly difficult for me. I can say a year on though, that it has been a wonderful place to live and was just what we needed, I was merely blind to this at the time. I am so relieved that God allows us to mutter and moan but still pushes on in His plan despite our tantrums! The home we have lived in this past year was found in a tight spot, where we had a matter of days to leave our apartment and needed somewhere urgently. Although we originally had no intention of living North of Auckland, again, God knew better and we have enjoyed living over the harbour bridge and being a part of this laid back community. The children's school has been excellent and to all intents and purposes, one might wonder why we are moving on.
Hard to say really. The point came when I returned from Tonga and turned to Greg in the car on the way home from the airport and said out of the blue "we need to move to the heart of the issue." And he looked at me and laughed, saying those exact words had come to him during the week. Neither of us are sure why, but we both felt a prompting, and whereas we could have reasoned it out logistically as a bad idea, we decided in our true fashion to push the door, so to speak.
The house we have found is one I think I have been to in my dreams, unlike the current one. As an artist, and after a few experiences as a child that left me feeling like the world had broken, it is very important to me where I live. This desire of course has been surrendered many times, and will be again no doubt in the future, but for now, for whatever reason, the door is open to a place that wraps its arms around me with welcome. It is a home.
Possibly the most special element is the outlook, as this new house is set on the edge of a green farm park in the city of Auckland. Beyond the garden fence, fields lie. For a girl who literally sets up camp in Psalm 23 at times, green pastures speak to me in a profound way and I completely delight in them. Also, to the part of me that grew up on a farm in the savannah, a spacious place is profound and every hemmed in house has me itching for a visual stretch.
The house is an unpretentious typical kiwi family home, four bedrooms with hardwood floors (no more mess on carpets), and white roses in the garden. I will post pictures when we are in, this time next week. Greg, who has commuted lengthy distances to work for over a dozen years, will for the first time, be within walking distance to the office should he every choose to leave his beloved car in the garage. And the schools in the area are highly thought of. But as there will be three more weeks left to our NZ school year when we move, I will drive the children back to the North Shore for school each day. This is not a pleasant thought, but will at least allow them the honour of seeing out what has been a year of challenge and reward, right to the end.
Funnily enough, it turns out after we had signed the lease, that this location is dead centre on a map of the city.
The very heart.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tiny bits
For you Cat, I fought the toddler off the candy pile. Whereas I can't rightly claim to have posted it yet, I can truthfully say that it is sitting in a bag at the door, waiting for an errand's trip. I also cannot claim to really like anything I am sending you, beside the tiny magic elf. But my children chose with me and insisted that these portray an average kiwi family's familiar favourites. I hope you and yours enjoy...
Especially when the marker pens are dry and scratchy and don't give satisfying black letters of inventory. And when the packing tape twists repeatedly due to a lack of dispenser, and when small child keeps stealing the scissors, and when I turn my back for a SECOND, and same child writes on furniture/climbs onto the tabletop/runs away/tips out the washing powder/sets the oven timer/opens the fridge/pours out the bubble mixture/smooshes her iceblock into the carpeted stairs.
Perhaps the greatest, most alarming travesty is her continual mixing up of the toys: barbies, pollies, sylvanians, littlest pet shops and tea sets. This is serious peoples. I cannot move a huge muckup of mis-matched stuff. She also has a terrible cold and feels most unwell, bringing me the syringe and demanding medicine. 
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Carry Light
But the time apart did me no harm, and while away with family in Fiji last week, I walked along the beach at dawn one morning before the babes awoke.

And as His rose of gold rode higher into the morning sky, the infinity of Creation swept over me and a fresh realisation fell upon my faltering steps of burdened motherhood, my broken places, my murmuring lips.

The first thing God spoke into existence was beyond the capture of scales and deftly slips beyond the measure of man.
And there unfolds this astonishingly profound mystery. We are designed to actually carry this full but weightless life, this light, this spill of gold, fresh from the very face of God.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Croc Drop
Last night, our butter-wouldn't-melt toddler had 'an accident' after her bath, on the floor in our master bedroom, semi-hidden behind a painting.Sunday, November 1, 2009
Splinters
Saying goodbye to these guys is stupendously painful. They have been a big part of our journey for the last two years and we love them. But, being purebreds, they need more TLC than I can honestly give and are being rehomed today.
I think I might cry for a thousand years. Love hurts.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Rim of Duty
Probably one of the most extravagent blessings of being able to be in Tonga, was the lack of walls put up by people. I notice how easy it is in our busy westernised lives to scurry about behind our closed doors, down our long driveways, between the arms on the clock face. We make our meals in quick crockpot or pasta ease, view the world through the selective eye of electronic screens and relate instantly through choppy text letters. We churn with effort to keep our plenty managable, juggled and uncluttered in a crowded plastic culture. We lack the flow of community and simplicity.Thursday, October 29, 2009
Bringer of Grace
She sat, brown hands uncurled and open on her lap, while tears ran out from under dark lashes. Bare feet together on the woven mat, we pressed in around her and prayed. And the sorrow of years fell like rain, the disappointments broke and joined the flood and we lifted our voices to the King, the Father, the Healer. To embrace and overwhelm the broken heart, filling and breathing new life into the empty places.Grace and peace be multiplied.
Lifting her countenance, white smile shone through and the gold glinted. She stood and walked while we watched with goosebumps. She was free from the weight of condemnation and shame. In a culture acceptant of royalty, she walked with regal height and head up. We stood and watched her leave, smiling and quietened in the moment of grace and peace.
Journal peek - Day 2
It is mid-afternoon, sleepy time. Apart from the singing shouts of neighbouring children and the incessant whining of a chain saw, the noises of the night are gone. I am assuming in the heat that the animals have gone off to sleep curled up in the shade.

We drove around the island this morning, and I shot the country through my lens, freezing the broken, peeling buildings and dilapidated street side stores. It is poor, run down and some places lie in ruin. There is a slow undercurrent, people move like treacle and sit staring into space, waiting. They walk with casual steps, under the shade of parasols or drapes of fabric over their heads. Dogs roam the streets, heavy with whelping and cattle are tied by the neck to trees and graze amid the piles of rubbish that line the narrow strip road. Tiny striped piglets trot squealing after lumbering sows through plantation green plots and frangipani trees offer twirls of white or pink flowers on their grey twisting arms up to the rainclouds.


The water is serene, wave-less and dotted with fishermen. The cafe we went to for lunch was on the waterfront, simple and bright in the sun and sea breeze. I tried the internet there but it crept so slowly that I lost patience.

Afternoon sleep is elusive, now loud traffic noises on the busy road, and throbbing music beating from a nearby building. I think of the ones at home, in the sunshine and routine, I hear they are playing outdoors, giggling and having afternoon tea. I press my toes into the bedspread, noone is here is ask me for permission to watch something on tv, or to eat something from the lolly jar, and no baby needs me. I am free yet holding back, although not sure why. I would like to cry, and the lump is big in my throat but no words are linking to that place and no tears will fall.
The journey back to remembrance has been stark. Third world mission trip meets the new life I have crafted about me. I am overwhelmed by the separation from routine, the new experiences, the level of need, feeling so small in this place and yet can sense a deeper part of myself is beginning to freefall out of dark folds.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Victory
Hello Darlings, I'm back!With lots of washing, dusty sandals and a heart that has undergone a transformation. Who could ask for more?
Bit by bit I hope to condense some of my thoughts into a couple of posts, at the moment I am caught between children, clothes pegs and working on the images I took while there.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Walking Into the Future
Below is my journal entry from first thing today.
It is early morning and the cacophony still continues but now in the light of day seems softer somehow. Rumbling, rattling diesel trucks churn past the open slat windows in the equivalent of Tonga morning rush hour. The neighbour's china chinks. Birds twitter, geckos bleat and the roosters that began their morning chorus at midnight are still huskily giving the new day song. I have learned something new about roosters. Once one starts, a chain of rooster harmonies ensues. We went to bed at midnight, washing our black soled feet before climbing into bed. My pillow is roughly quilted on one side and satin on the other. I slid constantly off it during the night, while listening to the pig snuffling and snorting outside my window, the cat fight, the generator and during the incessant barking of many dogs. I feverishly worked my ear plugs to try to block out the worst of what was the loudest night noises I think I have ever heard, but I still woke up repeatedly as a crashing animal or shouting person jolted me upright. At one stage I thought I was at home, in my own bed and it took me a moment to make out the back of a sage green door, and the moonlight squares of window, covered with sheer panels of pale green beneath a thick tasselled polyester brocade fabric, tied in the middle.
Our flight was good, and we arrived in the dark. I was taken on a trip to Africa with memories of little men waving us in with batons, and others shuttling the plane steps up to the exit door. We piled our baggage into the van, and joined the screaming baby in the back for the trip to our accommodation, stopping first at a store for water.
We are in a simple home, but palacial by Tongan standards and after driving around today snapping photos of the island, I am feeling blessed to be in such clean surroundings. I even bought my tea bags, I know, silly creature comforts, but it is quite amusing to make my tea, in my own mug amid the geckos and coconut palms when I know that last week I stood in my own kitchen.
At this moment it is dusk, and I am alone in Friends Cafe with pacific music piped out from the speaker tied to the curtain rail. My dinner was the toughest beef curry known to man, and after I had shooed the feral cats away, I settled to post this before I am picked up. Sadly for some reason, no photos will load, but I will try again when I can.
My thoughts are at home, lightly only because I know that thinking too hard will reduce me to rubble. Know that you are loved my little ones. And G, you are missed beyond expression.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Hall to Light - 1000 Gifts

It is not only a wife and a mother of three that is embarking on this trip to Tonga. It is an eleven year old girl, willing to walk back down hallways that used to be narrow and dark. It will be with upturned face that I will see the light. It is the passion I carry for broken women that spurs me on, footfalls through the valley to get me to a place where I am no longer afraid of what has bred my fear to date. It is the dream that gives momentum to my steps. And it is the gift of being able to dig deeper during a shadowy passage, to find that eternal hope, the one that outlasts the terror. 
110. For feet. Will we let them take us to places that need to hear about Real Love?
111. For shoes.
112. For a husband who releases without pressure, gently pushing me to take bigger risks.
113. For a passport, so many have no way to get one.
114. For a delightful diva who lent me her funky top so that I could make one to take with me.
115. For birthday parties.

116. For Sunday papers.
117. For brave daughters.
118. For a great book.
119. For heart song, bird song and watching my three girls sing with gusto to Hoe Down, Throw Down.
120. For laughter, last hugs and e-tickets.
Come away with me.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Crazy Eights

She is walking in that unique girlhood way, through the door of awareness from babyhood to the beginning of wisdom, and shedding the layers as she goes. She was my fiesty baby, picky eater and clinger. I said then that she would probably grow to be an astronaut or inventor so separated from conforming was she. Equality and medocrity irritate this child to the heights of exasperation.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Scrambled Womble Eggs with Diamonds
I am trying not to be defined by motherhood. I am trying to think and speak clearly but it is proving true that my lack of computer time is meaning I am a jumbled up womble. Deep breaths.
While Mishal was asleep yesterday, I worked on creating cute little plastic cups lined with spotty pink paper, filled with pretty lollies for a quick, simple eye-candy party favour for Maddy's party, geared at being gluten-free. I enjoyed using my scrapbooking scallop punch, my pegs, balloons and creating something. I left them on my desk... while on the phone an hour later, Mish climbed up onto my desk and proceeded to feast on the chocolate fish poking up out of the tops of the little cups. Deep breaths.
I am thinly spread, in my head. In that lack, I still place in God's hands, my overwhelming desire to be learning from Him. Time-poor, His inspiration has to be rich, literally nuggets that land like scattered diamonds for me to scoop up on the run. Trying to be alert and watchful to that richness is sometimes difficult when I want to glaze over with survival mode, or when I want to faze out with grief processing, or when I just want to think. But I keep making myself look. I keep singing with the music that pours into my kitchen from Rhema, I keep scribbling down notes on the back of envelopes, till receipts. I have conversations with God while driving, out loud I might add, much to the intrigue of my children.
And its so funny, God is not confined to my limited mental capacity. It confounds me how He meets me wherever I am at. But today, children are calling for help finding clothes (they are camping upstairs in the spare room while their downstairs wing is off limits having a leak fixed), and my sweetie darling is heading off, possibly needing to take this laptop with him, so I am away. Love and miss you my bloggy friends. xx Scuse my typos, no time to re-read.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Of broccoli, words and fat pants
88. For sight. After a fortnight of being unable to download from my camera, I miss the images acutely. I am profoundly thankful that my eyes can take in light and hue, and regularly get the opportunity to feast on texture and gleam. A few days off makes me hungry for this visual smorgasboard but so aware of what a gift it is. I do not take it for granted.
89. For how my husband's hands are always warm.
90. For cherry red nail polish.
91. For broccoli. We are re-naming our youngest daughter, Miss Brassica. She is addicted to the stuff and will easily eat everyone's portions in one sitting. She flicks her carrots to the floor, and the rice is for the birds, but she is monstrous in her greed when it comes to those little green trees.
92. For an outdoor table in the sun.
93. For a neighbour who brought flowers over, arranged in a tall spaghetti jar.
94. For having the leak downstairs fixed, finally. For a landlord who is following through.
95. For leaders that inspire.
96. For hot baths to melt tension knots from shoulders.
97. For little hands that served water and ice in champagne glasses to the table tonight.
98. For ten year old innocence that calls her new revitalising cleanser, her Retavaliser.
99. For middly girl wanting a piece of the cosmetic action, making me pour out the contents of an old deodorant roll-on bottle, and filling it with purple sunscreen to roll under her arms.
100. For keeping my 'fat pants' and not throwing them out. They have been pressed into service in my new expansion of emotional eating :)
101. For rest. I am choosing to appreciate the on-line diet and use it as a break for my brain.
102. For the ability to choose courage despite the internal voices that tempt mediocrity.
103. For reading out loud.
104. For reading in quiet.
105. For the way the sun set last night as I drove home over the bridge through the rainbow river of a sky.
106. For pictionary games with the girls. Hysterical laughing over ridiculous drawings, bendy rules and a timer that turned over and over.
107. For tomorrow. That it comes without question or rebuke, just steadily rolls into newness. What a miracle of creation the new day is.
108. And again, because I never tire of being grateful for it, for life.
109. And love.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
All sorts, like the liquorice

Photo credit - flickr (due to the sad fact that I have nowhere to download my camera to!)
Monday, September 28, 2009
1000 Gifts - Glass Peony Plays the Sax

The more I thank, the more I see to be thankful for.
The more I set myself on the path of gratitude, the further from ungratitude I find myself.
This week has been delightful.
79. He came home.
87. For a place to give voice to both the little and big girls in me. May it always be the sound of truth, and shibboleth, a flow or torrent of life.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Duck bread
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sparkling Buckets of Daughter Joy - 1000 gifts cont...

Gratitude sometimes has to be wrung almost desperately out of the soggy rag that I use some days to mop up the puddle in the bottom of my boat.
Today has been no exception. With my fellow sailor away for the week in Asia, I awoke to the slaughterfield of three cats versus one bird. It was not a pretty sight, feathers are the least of it. I shall not divulge more horror than that, other than to say, it was a close call to swooning with the sheer outrage that these cats deliver me gross offerings everytime Greg goes away. In my gagging, rubber gloved, vacuum-wielding frenzy, I resolved to become a cat-free family. To add insult to injury, Mishal had previously unwittingly headbutted me powerfully in the face while I lay unsuspecting in bed. I felt the crunch of my cartilage and my feet kicked involunarily while I cradled my face, spurting blood and sobbing with the pain. No harm was really done, other than to my white duvet cover and a mulitude of wet facecloths that my terrified children brought to me. It is tempting to crawl into a cabin of pity but instead I will wring each drop of jaw-dropping thankfulness out of the swill that wants to capsize me and allow myself to be emptied and dried out in the Sonshine.
66. For her birthday we took Mish to the aquarium. Besides being terrified of the penguins, she had a wonderful time watching the fish. I am thankful for those smooth gliding forms of the underworld - for Creation and the creatures of the oceans.
67. For Barney and the inspiration that made me melt. She lovingly danced with each of the inflatable penguins in this box and sang loudly to all of them "I love you, you love me, we a 'appy family". She ended each song with a wet kiss to the end of each beak.
73. For J O Y. This little girl has it in buckets, she reflects it but just doesn't know it. Her smile is often lost but my gratitude is there for the way she is sensitive in her acknowledgement of disappointment and delight.




