Making room in the nativity?

I have one dilemma about Christmas that I will need to figure out in the next few years – what to do about Santa? When she is old enough to understand what we will tell baby? Being in a multi-cultural marriage we don’t have one common tradition – I grew up with Santa, hubby didn’t. [...]

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The Movement of Christmas

I associate the build up to Christmas with movement – hustle and bustle, busyness. Rushing to the shops to make sure that you have everything you need, trying to get to the post office to post cards in time for the international delivery dates (sorry didn’t make that one!). Going from one social gathering to [...]

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Lighting Up Hope

Last night was our Carol Service – this year it was relocated to Living Hope and combined with the first ever turning on of the Living Hope Christmas Tree. Normally I struggle to feel Christmasy in South Africa – the temperature is just too high and singing Carols in short sleeves feels wrong. Yet the [...]

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Denial, King Herod and the Magi

I promise you my blog won’t become baby obsessed but obviously baby stuff is what is on my mind at the moment. Over this last month as baby’s kicks and pokes have been getting strong I have found myself amazed a bewildered by the thought of those ladies who go into labour and say that [...]

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Looking Forward to Our Saviour

 I’m not sure if you are someone who looks forward to Christmas or not? The pressure to get everything done means that by the time Christmas Day arrives we are often exhausted. I struggle with Christmas here in South Africa – I miss family and the cold weather. But it is not the family we gather with, [...]

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Boxing Jesus

  (sorry this post is longer than normal – it is the sermon I gave on Boxing Day at King of Kings) According to Wikipedia the exact origins of the term “boxing” in Boxing Day is unclear and there are several competing theories, none of which is definitive. The European tradition has been dated to [...]

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The shocking wonder of Christmas

When I think about Jesus at Christmas I am in awe and wonder that the Son of God voluntarily became a vulnerable baby, that he voluntarily gave up his majesty and power so that he could live amongst us and then die a horrible death to pay the penalty for mankind’s sin. Martin Luther said [...]

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Joseph: just a plain carpenter

  The best and strangest nativity plays that I have ever seen were when I worked in Malawi. In one the Holy Spirit was a man under a sheet jumping out at the different characters like a ghost. In another the Wise men really had difficulty getting permission from their sceptical wives to follow the [...]

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What are you chasing?

Last night we did battle in a big mall (well actually I have seen it worse!) – our mission was to buy a bike for a bike chaser. A little boy we know, whose late Dad was my husband’s best friend, is apparently driving his family mad up in a village in Malawi – every [...]

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Kissing the face of God

As Christmas approaches, at a far faster speed than I prepared for, my mind keeps turning to the people involved in the first Christmas. I have had a song stuck in my head from last weekend when Kingdom Dancers danced to ‘Mary Did You Know’. I have been fascinated by this line: And when you kiss your [...]

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