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A Glimpse of Namibia

This church {Christuskerk: Afrikaans for Christ Church} in Windhoek is such a landmark and memory for me.  In the foreground is the Tin Tin Palace, or as we fondly referred to is, the ‘fishy park”. 

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My sisters and I celebrated many a birthday in these gardens. 

My fondest memories, however, are picking up little, orange “lucky” beans for our family collection, and scooping out strings of frogs eggs from the {disgusting} fountains and smuggling them home in drinking cups.

We loved “growing” our very own tadpoles and frogs!

Below right is the very {colorful} old man who always sits outside the Kalahari Sands {the very fancy restaurant each of my sisters and I were taken when “aunt flow arrived” {if you catch my drift} as a celebration of our ‘womanhood’.

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Above is one very real Herero woman, with one very fake {stuffed} Herero woman in the background.  I thought it was funny.  On the right {above} is one of the many markets selling Serpentine or Soap Stone sculpture.

Below is the playground of the church we grew up a part of. 

In my enthusiasm to be back in my old stomping ground…I broke the steering wheel off.  Sorry All Nations Christian Church.

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Here’s my babe who {miraculously} managed to get our miniscule rental car {a Taz} up and over a hill we failed to see marked with “All Terrain Vehicles Only” sign. 

It was quite possibly the scariest ride I’ve ever been on/in {and keep in mind…I had bungee jumped just 2 weeks earlier}.  Yeah, about that.

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Daan Viljoen, where we spent countless family holidays.

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We packed ice-cream…and forgot spoons.  Doh.

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The beautiful dunes of Swakopmund, another family favorite made famous by the highly-publicized birth of one of Brangelina’s {many} babies.

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A {massive} termite mound.  Hubs was enthralled.  I was back home.  Once you’ve seen one gigantic termite mount, you’ve seen them all. 

Not really.  They’re pretty impressive, actually.

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The exquisite {unseasonably rainy} drive back from Swakop to Windhoek.

We loved our time together in Namibia.  God did an awesome thing in my life and I will never be the same again…but that’s another post for another day.

And just look at these two…they have no clue their lives were about to change forever.  Baby #1 was brewing.

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{Gosh, my husband looks funny with hair.  Or at least, some}

This is what he looks like now:

Day one Howie and Debbie 276

Related posts:

  1. 3/4 of the {Sister} Crew
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Travels

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Simply Bloom exists to empower women to embrace their stories, live out their passion with purpose, and leave a legacy of love.
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Hello there! I'm Joy. Speaker, designer, author & coach, and creator of the #weROARproject. Welcome to Simply Bloom Co., where passion & purpose collide.

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May you remember that God is not only the God of d May you remember that God is not only
the God of destinations, but of detours.

When life takes you somewhere you never intended to go,
may you recognize that you have not been forgotten.

May you have eyes to see the people in front of you,
hands willing to gather the sticks,
courage to shake off the snakes,
a heart willing to welcome and be welcomed,
and faith to believe that even here,
especially here, God is at work.
What if the place you keep calling a detour is act What if the place you keep calling a detour is actually part of the story?

Paul was headed to Rome. Instead, he ended up shipwrecked on Malta.
It wasn't the destination. But it mattered.

A reminder for all of us: don't waste the waiting,
the detour, or the place you didn't choose.

🎙️ 042 | Make Malta Matter | Finding Purpose in Divine Detours
  The latest Oh, Good Grief Podcast episode is out now.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #MakeMaltaMatter #SimplyBloomCo
Instagram post 17924817765424628 Instagram post 17924817765424628
What if the years you thought were wasted… weren't What if the years you thought were wasted…
weren't wasted at all?

In Part 2 of my conversation with Leah Harvey,
we go deeper into what it means to trust
God when the outcome is still unknown.

Leah has spent years carrying the ache of infertility,
and she doesn't offer a tidy answer or a spiritual shortcut.

Instead, she talks about restoration.
About eternity.
About choosing Jesus over her preference.
About looking for treasure in the middle of the story.

And about the surprising realization that there
may not have been wasted years after all,
because God was present in every one of them.

He is.
Even here.
Even now.

🎧 Part Two with Leah Harvey is live now.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #StruggleWell #StayRooted #SojournTogether
Instagram post 18091972097640684 Instagram post 18091972097640684
What if trusting that God is good doesn't mean bel What if trusting that God is good doesn't mean
believing He will give us everything we ask for?

That's one of the questions my friend Leah Harvey
and I wrestle with in this week's episode.

Leah and her hubby, Jake, have walked through years
of infertility and the kind of unanswered prayer that
doesn't just hurt once—it asks you to keep
trusting God over and over again.

We talk about grief, surrender, the questions we sometimes feel afraid to ask, and what happens when we stop trying to put tidy answers over messy pain.

This is a tender conversation about choosing Jesus over our preferences, embracing the mystery of God, and learning to believe that His goodness doesn't depend on whether He gives us the thing we're asking for.

Part One of my conversation with Leah Harvey is live now
🎧  040 | The Goodness of God in the Waiting

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #StruggleWell #StayRooted #SojournTogether
Before the world told you who you needed to become Before the world told you who you needed to become...
Before fear taught you how to survive...
Before shame convinced you to hide...
God looked at you and called you His own.

Not because you had healed.
Not because you had figured yourself out.
Not because you had become your best self.
Simply because you were His.

You are still becoming.
And you are already loved.

Keep coming home.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #SimplyBloomCo
What if the goal isn't to become a different type, What if the goal isn't to become a different type,
but to become more fully yourself?

We've spent the last several weeks exploring the Enneagram:
our gifts, wounds, coping strategies, and the stories we
learned to believe in order to survive.

Now it's time to come home.

Episode 039 closes this Summer Series by asking
what happens when self-awareness becomes surrender.

The Enneagram can help us understand our patterns.
But it was never meant to become our identity.

You are not your number.
You are not your trauma.
You are not your coping strategy.

You are a beloved child of God.

🎧 Oh, Good Grief — Episode 039 is available now.
Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, m Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, my Bible and a book of maps in my lap, and the sun on my face, has me thinking about how strange and beautiful life can be.

It’s no small honor to be given the opportunity to preach at our church from time to time. Had you told the broken, shoplifting, lying, giving-her-body-away-for-free teenage girl I once was that one day she’d stand in a pulpit and talk to people about God’s goodness and grace, I would have laughed at you.

But maybe that’s exactly why God delights in using the messy, the unlikely, the misfits. Because these are the stories that make His redemption impossible to miss.

One of my favorite lines from The Chosen, spoken by Mary Magdalene, sums it up perfectly: “I was one way, and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between was Him.”

That’s my story, too.
And if I were to hazard a guess, it's yours as well.

It’s one of my greatest joys to dig into God’s Word, share what He’s laid on my heart, offer some encouragement and conviction, confess the uncomfortable things, and ultimately point people back to Jesus.

Because there’s no denying the extraordinary power of redemption when you’ve lived it yourself.
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