Mele Kalikimaka!
Aloha!
In a few hours, I will be boarding a jet plane for a two week trip to America…via Honolulu! Hooray! Because of this trip, I will be taking a blogging break. There will be plenty of pictures when I return. Cheers!
BFF Award
Surprise! Surprise! I was given an award! Heart of A Mommy surprised me with this award today! I came across her blog recently and discovered that she is studying Firm Foundations with mutual friends of mine from New Tribes Mission. Actually, I had their granddaughter as a student. Before I married, I was a missionary teacher with New Tribes Mission. It’s so fun to make friends through blogging! Thank you!
Happy Thanksgiving!
To our loved ones in America…..we wish you all a very very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
We will be watching the Peanuts classic, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on YouTube. I’m so thankful to have found it there. My Love has never seen it before. I am thrilled to share with him one of many American Thanksgiving traditions.
“Let’s have a parade!” - - - I would love to be able to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with My Love. Thanks to EarthCam, I can watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with My Love! Thank You to my sister-in-law for guiding me to EearthCam. I have never heard of it before. EarthCam will be showing a live webcast of the parade. Let’s see…parade time is 9 a.m. . . . that means midnight for me! I’m going to need a nap today! 
If only we could get some football on the telly here. The Detroit Lions will be facing the Green Bay Packers on Turkey Day. I’ll be looking to Fox Sports for some highlights the day after. Instead of football, cricket will be on here. After all, it is summer Down Under.
While you are all enjoying your Thanksgiving feasts on Thursday, I will be preparing for my first Thanksgiving married. We are celebrating it on Sunday, when Mum & Dad can join us. I’ll be blending traditional American Thanksgiving staples with local Australian fare. It will be Thanksgiving with an Australian spin. I will post pictures.
I have so much to be thankful for this year!
* Loving Husband - by the way, he’s wonderful
* Comfortable Home
* Loving In-Laws - by the way, they are great, too
* Trip to America after Thanksgiving, but before Christmas
* New Country - it’s pretty neat here
* The Country of my birth - so thankful for my freedoms
* The technology available to us to keep in touch with family and friends - makes the distance seem less than it truly is
* God’s faithfulness, tender mercies, loving kindness
* Jesus
* Bible
The Book Destroyer, aka a post about Thanksgiving…
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Aaron. I am Australian and 8 1/2 months ago I whisked away the creator of this blog to my home country, where we now live. She is my wife and I think she’s the most beautiful thing God ever gave me.
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia; we don’t have an equivalent recognised day and in my humble opinion we are the worse off for it. People over here are colder and more cynical these days. We lust after more and more things while ignoring what we already have. We dig financial holes trying to fill our lives with meaning when only the spiritual can provide. We must realise what we have been given. We need to realise what we have been given. And we must give thanks.
My wife has been exercising her creativity in many ways lately, one of which has been writing a book. It’s also a way for her to worship, as the book has many spiritual connotations and overt references to Christianity. It was a sweet book, a nice book. And I destroyed it.
Our computer had been giving us some grief…I do not exactly, have the patience of Job when it comes to computers. They are things to do a job and when they don’t I have visions of throwing them out the window.
Anyway, I decided that the hard drive had to be wiped. No big deal…so I put everything we wanted to keep, on CDs. That way I could reload all our files back on to the computer after I wiped it. Only, my wife had saved her story in a place I did not look…so, 15 minutes later, the computer had been wiped, everything was back to its factory-installed settings, and the story was gone. All 11,000 words of it !
In place of great disappointment, my wife was forgiving and gentle. In place of frustration, she was patient and kind. Instead of dwelling on what had been, she was eager to focus on what would be to come. I don’t deal with setbacks nearly as well as she does. She is the perfect complement to me and I know what I have to be thankful for, every day. I am thankful for my beautiful wife.
In a world that does not always know the meaning of gratitude, one day where we focus on what we have been given and not what we do not have, could not be more needed. This Thanksgiving I know what I will be thanking the Lord for.
What will you be thanking Him for ?
Thanksgiving Proclamations
Since the Pilgrims first sat down with the Wampanoag Indians late Fall 1621, thanksgiving has been offered to God for His blessings. In succession, beginning with William Bradford, proclamations to give God thanks have been ordered throughout America’s history. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theordore Roosevelt, proclaimed days of thanksgiving to God for bringing them through the trials and tribulations of their times…days of “public thanksgiving and prayer”. Thanksgiving of today, celebrated the fourth Thursday in November, has become more about food, family, and football, than publicly giving God thanks.
On October 11, 1782, one-hundred-and-sixty-one years after William Bradford and his fellow pilgrims gave thanks to God for the bountiful harvest, new land, and peace with the Indians, the United States Congress gathered in Philedelphia and drew up this proclamation:
By the United States in Congress assembled.
PROCLAMATION.
IT being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplications to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of his providence in their behalf: Therefore the United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these States, in the course of the important conflict in which they have been so long engaged; the present happy and promising state of public affairs; and the events of the war, in the course of the year now drawing to a close; particularly the harmony of the public Councils, which is so necessary to the success of the public cause; the perfect union and good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between them and their Allies, notwithstanding the artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to divide them; the success of the arms of the United States, and those of their Allies, and the acknowledgment of their independence by another European power, whose friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these States:—– Do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these States in general, to observe, and request the several States to interpose their authority in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the twenty-eight day of NOVEMBER next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to GOD for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.
Visit the History Channel for more information.
May your Thanksgiving be filled with praise to God for his tender mercies and bountiful blessings!
Five Thankful Things
I’m thankful for:
1. Pretty Pendants like those pictured above. I found them here. In case my husband is reading this, they would be a lovely Christmas gift!
2. International Flavors French Vanilla Cafe…haven’t found it here, yet.
3. Free on-line Christmas music…here, here, here, and here.
4. Friends
5. Family
Radiant Lit
Love to read? I do! Radiant Lit is an excellent site to check out what’s new in the Christian literary world. Today I received my first book to review for Radian Lit. I am so excited about this book ___________, no, I am not going to tell you the title or author. You’ll have to check out Radiant Lit for my review. I will tell you this, it is historical fiction…that’s all I’m telling you now. You’ll have to bookmark Radiant Lit as one of your favorites to catch my review! Oh, before I forget, my sister-in-law over at MommieDaze.com, is doing a review also for Radiant Lit. Catch up with us at Radiant Lit…we’d be happy for you to read our reviews…coming soon!
I’ll Be Home (Be)for(e) Christmas!
Home for (in between) the Holidays…Well, what up until 8 months ago was “home” to me. I’m a married woman now, have been for 8 months and 7 days! It’s amazing how time flies when you become a wife. I love it!
I’m very excited about cooking up my first Thanksgiving dinner for my new Australian husband and his parents. It will be very interesting. Thanksgiving in Australia…I never imagined this. Today my British mother-in-law, hailing from Yorkshire, England, helped me look for a turkey. Chicken, pork, beef, ham, lamb, and even kangaroo meats aplenty…where are the turkey’s kept Down Under? Considering Thanksgiving is quickly closing in on us…only two weeks away…I was surprised not to find any. Well, discouragement didn’t prevail, we decided that surely the grocers would be bounding with turkeys closer to the holiday. However, Thanksgiving is not a holiday here! Hmmm…I may have to dress up some other kind of animal and make believe…kangaroo might do…they have pouches for the stuffing…Ha!
Christmas decorations covered the mall. Every shopping center, all types of stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc…brimming with Christmas tinsel. To my surprise and delight, a Nativity was set up on display in the mall! Not something often found in America. Yet, amidst all this yuletide cheer, it doesn’t seem like Christmas is any where near. Why? Because it is 90 degrees, sunshine and blue skies, palm trees, flowers blooming everywhere…”Surf’s up, Mate!” Christmas?! Surely, not. Summer is here. Where else in the world does the Toys ‘R Us Christmas flyer come with Target’s swim wear sale flyer?!
My trip home couldn’t come at a better time…just after Thanksgiving and just before Christmas. I can see the Lord’s hand in the timing of this trip. He knew I would need this to help with the adjusting to my first Christmas with my wonderful new husband miles away from all that is familiar to me…snow…ice…below freezing temps. Ah, yes, I will appreciate so much the balmy Brisbane Christmas waiting for me.
Santa will be riding in on a surf board this year!
…my life is soooooooooo different!
11/09 Novel Writing Update
total word count to date: 11,300
goal: 50,000
deadline: November 38,748
words needed: 38,700
Refiner’s Fire
Feeling pressure? Under the heat? You are in good company!
Things that take a lot of heat and pressure:
1. 
2. 
3. 
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.” Zechariah 13:10
