inspire-ations : Brett Fish

Taboo Topic: Living with Special Needs – meet Sarah, mother of Keller [Autism]

family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people

Taboo Topic: Living with Special Needs – meet Sarah, mother of Keller [Autism]

When we moved to South Africa seven years ago, being an American family and transplanting ourselves into the middle of a new country, new culture, and living in a township community, we knew there would be many challenges ahead. There is so much we have learned while living in South Africa, and our lives and hearts have grown in so many ways on the journey. We never could have imagined that our greatest challenge in [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-31T12:58:22+02:00January 31st, 2017|family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people|1 Comment

Do you speak life? And have it spoken to you?

inspire-ations, life, the beautiful Val (tbV)

Do you speak life? And have it spoken to you?

"You can be anything you want to be!" is a lie some parents tell their children. Take a member of the Proteas cricket team for example. There are 11 players on a team. So the moment the 12th enthusiastic parent tells their child, "You can be a member of the Proteas cricket team if you want to be", something has gone wrong, unless they quickly add, "as twelfth man, serving them drinks". Because some things [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-24T11:31:32+02:00January 24th, 2017|inspire-ations, life, the beautiful Val (tbV)|0 Comments

Taboo Topic: Living with Special Needs – meet Karen, mother of Tim [Aspergers Syndrome]

family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people

Taboo Topic: Living with Special Needs – meet Karen, mother of Tim [Aspergers Syndrome]

So I offered to write something for Brett about parenting a child with Aspergers, and I immediately went blank. What do I know? Sure, Tim, my son is nearly 16, and he has Aspergers. But what can I tell you that might be helpful? I dithered, wrote things, deleted them. Tried again. And so finally I decided, let me write up the questions I most commonly get asked, and the answers I try to give. [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-23T09:53:12+02:00January 23rd, 2017|family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people|2 Comments

Taboo Topics: Parents of young children – Meet Hilary Mushambi

family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people

Taboo Topics: Parents of young children – Meet Hilary Mushambi

I’m. So. Tired. And I’m scared. Scared to admit how hard I find it. Scared to let people in to see my struggle. Scared of the judgment I expect to see. Because I knew motherhood would be hard. But I never expected it to be like this. It’s like boot camp. You get dumped in the deep end and you learn to swim through it, while somehow in the process you earn entry into the [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-18T08:13:33+02:00January 18th, 2017|family, inspire-ations, Taboo Topics, thorts of other people|2 Comments

Saturday Reflection: Prevalence of whiteness

inspire-ations, South Africa, things to wrestle with

Saturday Reflection: Prevalence of whiteness

Two quick thoughts about whiteness that have been inspired by pieces that two amazing women [Jess and Jana] have written for my upcoming book on race. Less than ten percent of people in South Africa are white, by way of introduction and context. [1] Does living in the suburbs give you the illusion that most people in South Africa are white? In Cape Town at least, there are suburbs where this is true, and still a [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-14T09:55:13+02:00January 14th, 2017|inspire-ations, South Africa, things to wrestle with|0 Comments

How do we harness the Christmas/New Year’s Shalom?

inspire-ations, South Africa, things to wrestle with

How do we harness the Christmas/New Year’s Shalom?

Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. Shalom comes from the root verb shalom meaning to be complete, perfect and full. [Strong's Concordance] i was thinking about this on our recent camping trip in the Cederberg. How is it that everyone is peaceful and loving and kind on Christmas Day... and then again on New Year's Eve? And then they're not...? [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-05T13:52:10+02:00January 5th, 2017|inspire-ations, South Africa, things to wrestle with|0 Comments

My word for 2017: Interdependence

activities, inspire-ations, people, positive ideas for change

My word for 2017: Interdependence

Interdependence: The dependence of two or more people or things on each other [Oxford English Dictionary] i have just returned from an incredible few days camping at the Cederberg with an assortment of pretty amazing people. Much fun and games and dam building [yup, we literally built a little dam and it made the one pool rise about a meter - impressive stuff] and time and reflection and food and words and Extreme Bocce Ball matches [...]

By brettfish|2017-01-03T20:45:29+02:00January 3rd, 2017|activities, inspire-ations, people, positive ideas for change|0 Comments

Money it forward in 2017

activities, inspire-ations, things to wrestle with

Money it forward in 2017

How do you spend your money? The forbidden, mysterious, never-asked question. i'm not quite sure why, but that's a subject for another post. In this one, all i want to do, is encourage you to be intentional with your money and to choose some good things and people to spend it on in 2017. Recently i wrote about five different areas we can look to be proactive in that will help us have a Super [...]

By brettfish|2016-12-29T11:19:09+02:00December 29th, 2016|activities, inspire-ations, things to wrestle with|0 Comments

Whose mentor are you anyway?

activities, inspire-ations, people

Whose mentor are you anyway?

Do you see yourself as a mentor? As we head into 2017 looking to make it more significant than 2016 was, this is a key area. i speak about it a lot but i don't think you can encourage it enough. And it goes two ways: Who are you mentoring? But also, is there anyone who is pouring into your life? i tend to be someone who looks to mentor people quite easily and naturally. i [...]

By brettfish|2016-12-28T09:13:16+02:00December 28th, 2016|activities, inspire-ations, people|2 Comments

Here’s to a much improved 2017!

activities, adventures, and other animals., inspire-ations, life

Here’s to a much improved 2017!

2017 is just around the corner... A lot of people agree that 2016 wasn't a super great year... David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Ronnie Corbett, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Kenny Baker [R2D2], Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, Andrew Sachs [Manuel from Fawlty Towers], John Glenn, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Michael. Those are just some of the names of famous people we know who died this year and maybe this felt [...]