Jo’s Jovial Jolly Jocular Journal

We all have different cringes.
I have saying grace in restaurants cringe.
I also seem to have tourist cringe.
Perhaps many of us do….
I admitted it to the girls today. Sometimes, when there is a good photo moment, I may see it, but due to photo cringe, I keep walking, then behind me I realise that the […]

Choosing God
Choosing to let your child be born in poverty
and of doubtful parentage
Choosing an occupied country with unstable rulers
Choosing the risk of him dying in a dirty stable
after a long journey by a pregnant teenager
Choosing to let him grow up poor, and in danger,
and misunderstood by those who loved him
Choosing God
we doubt the wisdom of […]

Keeping up the boxing day tradition!

T Day
I decided that in the interest of my language skills, I needed to have a couple of days a week speaking solely Spanish. Having 3 other Australians around all the time has meant that to speak English is fairly easy, so I made a rule that on days starting with T I would have […]

Holy Father,
some day
the burden of today`s toil-
the goings and comings,
the successes and failures,
the hopes and near despairs-
will all be transformedçinto blessed reality!
Hope will be no more….
I reach the point of near absurdity:
of thanking you that I live
during the difficult phase
in which hope is […]

Hardcore Factor: High
Since we have been in Xalapa the hot water heater has been broken. This means that the residents of the house has been showering bucket style, heating the water up on the stove. I, however, am much more hardcore (or lazy) and have been braving the cold water showers of Xalapa. As it […]

Xalapan Tea Culture
This is the title of Cara’s final University research paper. And I don’t know whether Jem was just blessed with so happening to come across two passionate tea loving Australians to accompany her in her year in Xalapa, or whether her tea evangelism found ripe ground with Cara and Gabbie here in Xalapa. […]

God, our hope and our desire,
we wait for your coming
as a woman longs for the birth,
the exile for her home,
the lover for the touch of his beloved,
and the humble poor for justice.