Our Stance of Hope!

Our Family!




Brandi Dawn Leister

We love you Brandi, we are missing you with the Father's Hope!


In 2009, us Leisters, living in Kenya visited the USA ( I am sure I have mentioned this before ). As a family we gathered for this once upon a time occasion, giving us an unforgettable opportunity to have a Family Portrait taken. Something I have always enjoyed!

This Portrait was taken by a wonderful friend and family member, Ange Movius! She has an incredible eye when looking through the lens of her camera and a tremendous heart for God! You can see what a success these two create when she makes a photo! Thank you Ange, you have been given such a gift!

Once, while I was sitting in our church sanctuary praying, I received an open vision! God showed me a huge Portrait setting! It was incredible, hundreds of thousands of people standing side by side, it just seemed to go on and on!

God’s joy and righteous pride was all around me! I knew that I was looking through the Infinite, eternal eyes of the Father as He snapped the shutter, just like a Photographer would! This was His, Family Portrait!

Looking through the Father’s eyes is such a honor and most definitely gives us a different perspective than our human eyes let in! As I looked with amazement at what Holy Spirit was showing me, I began to catch what it was that He really wanted me to see.

Even thought the Portrait seemed full, every now and then there was a gap, where just a silhouette appeared and sometimes more than one! I knew that whole connected groups were missing!

The silhouettes were not just empty spaces where the others could have squeezed together and made the picture look more symmetrical and complete. The silhouettes were defining shapes of missing family members, that can not be replaced!

God knows our name, He knows who we are inside and out, He formed us before we were! We are His children!

His heart opened to me and I felt His loss for those missing but also His tremendous, undeniable Hope in their return!

I remember thinking of Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal son in Luke 15:11 “ There was a man who had two sons. 12) The younger one said to his father, “ Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them.” NIV

Not long after that, the younger son grabbed his stuff and set off for a distant country to squander everything that had been given to him! Soon he was living like the pigs of that country!
Remembering who His father was and how much he had given up, he decided to humbly go back! (Phyllis Leister paraphrase)

20) “ but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” NIV

Holy Spirit nudged me and I could feel Him compelling me to look at the position of the Father! The Father’s Stance was, a Mountain Top one, of watching, searching, drawing his son back by the shear will of His Hope and then not waiting for his son to get to him but running out to meet him!

Horace and I love our Family Portrait, we keep it, right where we can see it everyday! Each one of our family members mean so much to us, it hurts! We know that their lives represent generations of lives not yet seen!

They are each a precious gift from our Heavenly Father! And like our Heavenly Father we look at this Portrait with a different perspective than most people would! There is a silhouette in this picture! Someone is missing and can not be replaced, because she is missing there are others missing as well. Our hearts yearn for their return!

As a family we have several prodigals and with this knowledge, I remembered the picture God painted for me, in Luke, of the Father’s Hope, inspired by His love that can not be denied.

1Corinthians 13: “ 4) Love Is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5) It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6) Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7) It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ) Love never fails!”

This picture of God’s great Love and His proceeding Hope has inspired me to a Mountaintop watch for our Prodigals!

Let each of us who have children missing from our own and so the Father’s Portrait, join in His active Hope, as His heart searches for each of them! He will find them and carry them back with the Hope that we share! I know that their return will be celebrated in both Heaven and earth!

Luke 15:4 “ Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home, rejoicing,….. “ NIV

As I share all of this, my prayer is, that we be encourage to make Hope an active part of our Motherhood! Not just for those in our immediate family but for those in God’s worldwide family! Many are still missing because they have no hope and have not heard or see this love of the Father described in 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s take our Mountain Top Stance for them also.

And may our Stance of Hope in a eternal Family, designed by God, inspire our children to see themselves as very intricate, essential members of this Family, that they may take their Stance too !

Phyllis Leister Loving the Father

Citizens of a Heavenly kingdom!

This last week, I had a dream. In this dream I was with all my family! How happy I was and glad to be among them! I love and cherish all of you so much and miss not being with you!
The dream went on and I saw an open book, Hebrew’s 14:11 was written there. I remember waking up thinking “ there is no Hebrew’s 14”! So I looked up Hebrew’s 11:14, I wrote it here with a couple extra verses:

“ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14) People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15) If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16) Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them!” NKJ

Does God’s word ever challenge you like it does me? Have you read Hebrews 11? If you haven’t, I pray that you will! If you have, did you ask yourself; how these people stood in the place of faith that they did? I have, I ask myself “ did God just make them different or can we all who believe stand in that place and withstand what they did?

While reading a very interesting book, I read this: “We are not members of a religion but Citizens of a Heavenly Kingdom, it resides in us and we take it where ever we go. It has the power to change where ever we are and whom ever we are with. “

I liked this, I know that it is our purpose and our Royal position, as Son’s & Daughters of the king (John 1: 12, Galatians 3:26, Romans 8:14)), to lead others to a right knowledge of His kingdom (Matt. 28: 19 “ therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you ..! )

I just read an article online, interviewing children about who their mothers are to them and what they do for them!

The answers of course were adorable and very entertaining! “ My mother is suppose to kiss me when ever I feel bad about myself!” one little boy said. Don’t you just love that, I do!
There were many answerers but not one that stated, “ my mother is suppose to introduced me to my Savior & King!”

One Mother’s Day about 6 or 7 years ago, when all our children and grandchildren attended church with us!
Our Pastor gave a wonderful sermon on “ What makes a Mother “ his verbal description included unlimited quantities of mercy, love and kindness!

I remember smiling to myself as I caught the eye of my grown children sitting about the sanctuary, envisioning the mother they had grown up with!

My purpose as a mother, after I received Christ as my Savior, has always been to make sure that my children would never wonder who Christ was ( like I did for 23 years) and always know that they were Citizens and Heirs of His kingdom and never doubt it! I desired for them to have an opportunity to serve their king and His kingdom, young!

They were to be tough and not fear, so that when it came for them to stand and not fall, they would! “Buck up, you are not truly hurt” was a common statement heard at our home!

My children would see themselves as Royalty in the strictest since, being as Christ, although being a king He humbled himself, serving mankind on to death that all might have life everlasting.

“ What did “you” do?” they would hear when ever faced with childhood conflicts. I would always challenge them to see their part in what was happening!

Doing my best to remove from their path any stumbling block of confusion, they heard God’s Word spoken frequently, so much so that at times, “please mom, no more!” were words I came to know, not that they deterred me!

From the time our youngest birth son, was 8 until all our grown children were married with children of their own, we did foster care, over 150 children who needed temporary care & a home came and went.

Thankfully as our family grew, so did I and some of my tactics took on a softer feel but my purpose never changed! It was not always a calm & comfortable home and many times I forgot that it is God’s mercy that leads us to repentance!

Needless to say, the looks I received back from my children that day were ones of humor and Knowing!

Later as we gathered for our Sunday Family Prayer ( something I truly miss but knew then, was a limited time gift) I expressed my thoughts to them and apologized for being the “Warrior Mother” instead of the soft Cuddly one! What could they say, they forgave me!

Right about now you are wondering where I am going with all of this! Well, I am hoping that this is more than just a confession that my methods have not always been the right ones!

The encouragement I am trying to convey is this, even though, obviously, we want to establish a motherhood of love & mercy with our children, let us not forget that we are building a structure here that can not be moved! An architectural “Masterpiece” in this instance, built on the Rock of our Salvation!

We can never start to early or to late, building a Motherhood that characterizes our children’s rightful Identity & Citizenship and points them toward their true home & country! Like the men and women of Hebrews 11:14, God has prepared a city for all of us.

We have our 2 youngest daughters with us here in Kenya! The eldest has often said to me “ Mom, am I different?” Yes! Troyanna, you are different, Praise God! This family has always been different, Peculiar I hope!
Psalms 90:1 “ LORD, through all the generations you have been our home.”

Have a Blessed Mother’s Day!
Loving the Father! Phyllis Leister

The Great Tapestry!

My friend Bea!


Does'nt reading, just take your mind so many places? While reading the book of Hebrews; I was reminded of a Great Tapestry!

The creation of a tapestry is much like that of a painting, the unique color and texture that is used by the weaver to persuade the visual story, just waiting out of sight, to come into view, is much like that of a painter with an empty canvas.

Tapestries have been used since at least Hellenistic times. Some being preserved as far back as the 3rd century BC. These works of art were used to tell many a life story. Hanging on walls for warmth and remembrance!

Each individual thread picked for it’s color & shape, placed in the exact position, destined to ultimately bring a successful completion to the finished work!

I believe our life story ‘s, grow and build in resemblance to these tapestries!

Beatrice Likalama is a recent gift to my life, another gold tread! We met in Dec. 2008! Referred to me by a friend, she applied for work here at Tumaini Children‘s Center!

With 11 infants & toddlers, 2 exhausted preteen daughters and one exasperated husband, at home. I found myself with a couple day stay at a Kenyan hospital!

Treated basically for, exhaustion & sever dehydration, I was ready to repent and seek help!

God is so good! All the time! ( Psalm 103 ) Bea was willing to work for what we were offering and did not back away even after I explained the continuous, repetitive work of dishes, diapers and household cleaning we were expecting of someone willing to help us!

I could not imagine anyone wanting to do what my heart was compelling me to do, in the day to day care of these wonderful, needy, orphaned children!
God tells us that pride comes before a fall and I had definitely fallen, to the end of my physical self!

I could describe Bea to you, as my housekeeper, because we now have 4 women who work with us under her in the house but truthfully she has become, so much more! She is my dearest friend & partner in faith!

Bea is a Pastor’s wife, her & her husband Francise, Pastor a Calvary Baptist Church here in Eldoret Kenya! Bea is a Mother of mothers ( something we will talk about in the future)! She gathers and guides the Mamas in her church and where ever she finds them.

Each mama young & old are another opportunity for Bea to spend day & night hrs helping them to see the work of God in their lives! Counseling, encouraging, exhorting, loving with the unlimited love of Christ, she tries to lead them to a closer walk with their Lord !

Shedding care filled tears for all mamas, Bea and I join in prayer and fasting once a week! What a honor it is to call her my friend and sister in Jesus Christ!

She said to me just this last week “ Mama Phyllis, Do you know, God loves Mamas! Mamas were those who tenderly went with Jesus’ body to the tomb, they got to see him first, after He was risen!” Oh how he loves us!!!!

Our Father God is not only a Master Painter but a Master Weaver as well, of course, being the Master of the Universe all art flows from Him!

From the beginning of my walk with Him, God has Graced me with great mothers of faith, each one a golden thread woven with precision in and through my life, Bea being the most recent!

There have been so many before her! I thought about listing all of you but it would take much more space than I have here!
I hope & pray that you know who you are and that all of you share this life with me!

Never forgetting the specific thread of faith, courage, exhortation, unlimited love of Christ, God used you to weave into my life, forever changing my story, for eternity!

I realize, I have known the same kind of Hero’s, described in Hebrew’s 11 !
So many wonderful mothers, young and not so young who have mothered me in their Spirit of Faith!

Remember when; we were talking about the artistic force that brings life’s breath to our art? Well, it begins with God and then He brings in a great collaboration of His faithful!

I hope you will read all of Hebrews 11 for the 1st time or the 100th! God left the door open for many more Hero’s of Faith to stand on these shoulders! My prayer is that you will know some and become some!

The end of this scripture says, (Hebrews 11: 40 ) “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.’’

Woven together like threads of a great Tapestry. God knows that it will take us all, to bring about what He desires for each of us and this world, Christ’s perfection!

Philippians 3: 12 “ Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

We are God’s soil, out of our motherhood grows the fruit of all the promises of God through Christ!

Pressing on together, let us join Hearts and Spirits across time & continents to continue this most important mastery of motherhood!

A desire for excellence opens Heaven’s gates for us! Not a pride for perfectionism but a true desire to see our lives take on the excellence of our king!

Loving the Father, Phyllis Leister

Details

Marvin James Leister, 2009, High Diver!







When admiring a beautiful piece of art, what makes us look at it and study it intently, Detail!

The small defining elements the Artist works into his creation, pulling all together, to make a whole that adeptly captures our interest!

With out detail we might glimpse but ultimately we would pass right by because it would simply blend in with everything else !

Our youngest son , Marvin, loved “I Spy books” when he was young ! If you have never seen these books and I will bet you have, they consist of a series of large colorful pictures with a conglomeration of items all set out in a seemingly order less pattern.

His fascination with these books, was that in all their plethora ( there’s that word again) of items, he had to find one or two, as instructed. It took an attentive eye for detail to accomplish the task. Quite spellbinding for a inquisitive young mind.

Marvin loves a challenge, and as a 4 & 5 year old he would sit for hours navigating through the chaos, finding the designated objects!

Coming and setting the book up on the kitchen counter, so that I could see it, no matter what I might be doing! He would challenge me, “ Come Mom, look with me, help me find ….” Oh, how I miss those childhood days, Marv!!

Proverbs 25:2 “ It is the Glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”

God has set forth truths we must search for and be diligent to find even in a world filled with so much distraction and obscurity!

Our children’s lives can go by with out any definition, everything running together as if all had the same distinction and value!

We must give them an eye for detail so that they will seek out these truths, changing their perspective from looking at the whole picture to looking for God in the picture!

There was another series of books that were similar that Marvin also enjoyed! The “ Where is Waldo” books! Instead of finding a particular object in a menagerie of others, you had to find a funny character name “ Waldo”, of course, as he travel through different back drops!

The thing about these books was, as soon as your mind became familiar with the details of Waldo’s form, your eyes would instinctively be able to quickly pick apart the picture to find him.

In the beginning my eyes would see him 1st, being more practiced at picking out detail but it wasn’t long before Marvin was triumphantly pointing Waldo out to me!

Once we found him, when ever we would return to this picture, the figure of Waldo stuck out like “sore thumb” ( a term my mother used) ! Basically we could not look at the picture with out seeing Waldo, our minds would ask us “ Now, how did I ever not see him there? “

Proverbs 8: 17 says “ I love those who love me and those who seek me find me!”

God is visible to those looking for Him and when we finally recognize Him in every backdrop of our lives, we will never again loose sight of Him!

We begin pointing Him out to our children but soon they are pointing Him out to us!

As I look at my work of Art ( my motherhood ) I am reminded of a Artist I once admired, Bev Doolittle, she painted beautiful western art scenes.
If you looked at the scene long enough, you realized the fascinating details she was able to bring out in her paintings revealed, a picture with in the picture!

I pray that as we apply His details, the Master is shinning through our Masterpieces!

John 17: 20 “ My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” NIV Loving The Father, Phyllis Leister

Helpmates

Horace Leister, Eldoret, Kenya  2010

I married this great man, I love, Horace Leister June 7, 1975!

God created the earth, gave dominion over his beloved creation to the man he created in His own image, that he may rule, but he did not want one man he wanted men. In fact commanded this! ( Genesis 1:28)

God could cause men to spring up from the stones, as He told Moses on the mountain but God did not want men of stone but a family made in His own image, so He gave man a helpmate to accomplish this.

Have you ever run in a 3 legged race?

Marriage can be kind of like that, in the natural. It takes the full strength of both participants to get from point A to Point B, let alone win the race!
If you fall, each participant can lay there and blame the other but in all truth, unless you both get up and try again you are out of the race.

Thank God marriage is more binding than a short piece of rope at the thigh and ankle.

When I looked up the word “ helpmate”, I found “ wife “ as the primary definition.

Helpmate, literally means the one who comes up under their partners arm pit and carries them, if need be, as far and as long as is required.

While being our partners support, our husbands arm is covering us with God’s mandate, to forsake all else and others for a relationship of oneness with us, his helpmate. Genesis 2:24

Even after Horace and I made decisions to follow Jesus Christ as our savior, our marriage resembled the 3 legged race, for sometime, thankfully we did not give up on it and would pull each other up and try again.

Eventually God brought us to the point where we were willing to see marriage as He sees it, a supernatural state of being. Two lives flowing together to make one with the help of Holy Spirit. Not two separate lives tied together awkwardly.

Partly this took place because of a prayer Horace began to pray for me, his helpmate, the mother of his children.

You can read this prayer in Proverbs 31:10-31. “ These are the sayings of King Lemuel-an oracle his mother taught him” NIV Describing a wife and mother with the character qualities to raise up kings and queens.

We are in the possession of kings and Queens in the making. Just as king Lemuel’s mother was. As we have said all along here “ Superior works of Art, envisioned in the heart of The King of Kings!"

When presenting a work of Art, the Frame makes all the difference, it is really what can catch the eye.

God showed me as I was writing this how our character as wives in relationship with our husbands as there helpmates is the frame work needed for our labor of love, motherhood.

Let us close our eyes and envision the frame that would give our masterpiece the best presentation to bring Glory to our King and Father God.

A note for mothers with out husbands, God has promised to never leave us or fore sake us. He is our Husband and the Father to our children. Psalm 68:5 “ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in his holy dwelling.” NIV

Loving the Father! Phyllis Leister

Words, the strokes of our brush!

My husband Horace Leister and our daughter Jessice Leister Movius!


Another form of artistry I have always enjoyed is the art of words.

Our eldest daughter Jessica helped mold this love in me! She took my passion for words and ran with it! Reading one of her favorite books, the dictionary as a small girl,she would try all the teasures she found out on us her family! Teaching us the proper pronounciations & definitions!

Jess, you defined my motherhood by being our 1st born and you continue to strech & clarify my life with the quality of yours! Thank you, I love you!

I learnt to read at age 6 or 7! Words captured me and I became a instant reader! I was and always have been captivated by their ability to do likewise for the writer what the empty white canvas does for the painter! An unrestrainable thrill of creation!

We learn by sight and sound 26 symbols referred to as vowels & consonants! Placing these together in a plethora ( this just means " a lot " but it is fun to read, isn't it?) of ways, you can form every word in the English language!

With these words we put the brush to the canvas and out leaps the literature that empowers our minds to transport us anywhere, be anyone and do anything! An unending source of adventure and fulfillment, for me anyway!

Words can be as definitive as a quick tiny stroke of yellow, representing a single Lilly in a massive field of color exaggerated flowers or as broad as the slow deliberate strokes of red/orange that spread themselves across the width of our canvas producing an illusion of the sun just lost behind the ridge!

I truly did read the Bible at age 9! I was compelled! I had just spent the entire summer of my 3rd grade year, memorizing portions of it!

Sunday School was not a place I got to often but when I did, they were always reading the Bible! I just had to have a copy of that beautiful Black Leather bound text and read what all the fuss was about!

A Baptist Church was offering just such a opportunity, so I joined the group of children that came together to learn and earn such a prize! At the end of the summer, we would each present our memorization's before the congregation and receive, what I was coveting most, at that time, a book called the Bible!

The amazing part of this story is, I got sick at the end of the summer, real sick! I had my tonsils removed and spent a couple weeks in bed! I could not stand up with the rest of the children and recite, there for completing my task to earn my Bible. Do You know what I found out?

God wanted me to have that Bible too! Our Sunday School Teacher brought it to me anyway! It opened the Kingdom of God and began for me a unprecedented life journey! It has taken me years but I have found out what all the fuss is about! Have you?

God led men to write, that word’s are capable of bringing life or death! Proverbs 18:21

He used them to create the world and everything in it, “ then God said “, Genesis1:3

Also inspired, the Apostle John wrote about Jesus, relating to Him as the WORD! John 1:1

Spoken or written, words are pretty powerful artistic tools, if you ask me!

When mothering we need to use words carefully, tempered with Godly wisdom! Our efforts are labors of love applied to living masterpieces, first envisioned in the mother heart of Father God!

When dipping our brushes for the next stroke, we want to make sure it is 1st soaked in oil, provided by God's precious Holy Spirit, a dry brush does not draw paint well and may damage our canvas.

How is it looking?

Loving the Father! Phyllis Leister

The Source

Luken & his Grandma Phyllis!


Did you know, one of the descriptive definitions for “Mother” is “ source” ?

I love to pick a word and chase it down for it’s total meaning by finding the source or root!
In this way I discover many methods in expressing it, until the word bursts forth visually, doesn’t everyone?

Your thinking “this women has to much extra time on her hands!” Actually no, I do not have any extra time on my hands! I live in a house with 12 other people 9 of whom are between the age of 9 months and 3 years! Where hot water comes from a kettle on the stove and dinner prep begins 2 to 3 hrs before serving, all of which I love!
As for the time needed for this blog, I believe,God given passion always finds a way!

" El Shaddai ", this name for God, literally meaning the " breasted one "! Signifying God as our unlimited source of Blessing!

I believe this name depicts what we have been looking at, as the mother heart of God !

In this picture I am holding our newest grandson, Luken, one of the 1st times I was privileged to do so.
Luken is the son of our eldest daughter, Jessica and her husband Jeremy. He was born in June, 2 months prior to our visit home in 2009.

I was not there for his birth, that was a tough one for this mom and grandmother!

Each time I look at this picture I can still feel the baby warmth of him! His body drawn up precisely to receive the maximum contact with mine! At this moment I am his total source, what an honor!

My mother’s heart yearns to hold each of my children & grandchildren like this at any given time of everyday no matter how old they are or what their need is! I believe God’s heart also has these yearnings!

Matthew 23:37 " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." NIV


All art represents the source of the artistic ability in the artist! To create more than a work of art there must be a unique artistic source to draw from, a source that brings life!

Every painter, writer, sculptor, photographer exc. craves for this kind of life source to be part of their artistic process.

With out it, their art will be nothing but substance! It might even be great substance but what they desire, what they long for is supernatural, a Masterpiece! Because only then will their work live forever in the minds of men and change the world, making them an Artist!

Father God the supreme Artist sent His only son, the ultimate Masterpiece, Jesus, to represent Him. (John 3:16! ) " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!" NkJ

Mothers, let us climb up into the arms of El Shaddai, drawing on Him as our unlimited source, representing Him, as we access the supernatural life that will define our works of art as Masterpieces! (Our art being motherhood and ultimately our children and their's!)

Thank you Heavenly Father that you give us, your children, unlimited entry to your open Heavens and Your Heart!
Loving the Father, Phyllis Leister

Foundations

Jacob & Randi Leister with their children Caedman & Addison




Jacob & his daughter Addi!




Our second son, Jacob, whom we are very proud of ( along with all our other children) is now 30 years old, wow!

The day he was born began my redefining process! We had a hard time of it, that day! I had just turn 23.

After caring him an extended time of over 10 months we had a very quick delivery! We then spent a few hrs in a iron lung of sorts! Our Dr. recommended, I not do this again.

When asked how many children I wanted, my reply had always been” oh, 20 or so“! In truth, I thought for sure I would give birth to at least a dozen!

The news that Jacob would be my last pregnancy was just the beginning of the redefining that I mentioned earlier.

I grew up with a loving father who drank heavily! Things were never easy! We were poor for the most part and my mother was sick a lot of the time. I married a good man who also drank and alcohol had left it’s mark on me and my family! No matter what we tried to build for our lives, it seemed like sand, sooner or later it washed away!

The day Jacob was born, I knew for sure, I was mortal and my life would end.
I found myself wishing something different for my children. I did not want them left with the same mark! I wanted their lives and mine to have a stability, I had never known!

At the foot of my hospital bed was a bag, full of “take home” gifts, in it was a card with these words on it! “ Would you like your newborn to have a Bible with his/her own name on it?” and a place to fill in my name & his.
I was to leave it with the nurse!

Two weeks after being released from the hospital, our home got a visitor, with such a Bible!

The Baptist minister who carried it, promptly introduced me to Jesus Christ! I received His gift of new life that day! This new life, redefined my life and so my family’s into eternity!
How would you define your life and so the lives of your family?

When creating anything we have to start somewhere, on something! What we start on will define what we have at the end and how long it will last!

My reference always goes back to painting because I see God with a brush in His hand!

When picking a canvas to start painting on, it has to have certain qualities! If we pick anything less we will be very disappointed with the end product! We will miss our mark of Masterpiece!

1Corinthian’s 3:11 “ For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Mothers what foundation are we working on? Let’s be sure it can hold the test of time! Phyllis Leister

Where do we begin?

Phyllis Leister, Kenya 2010


At the beginning I guess! When I was a small girl I always wanted to be an artist! My Aunt Loretta painted! I believed her to be the most profound person I knew! She was blessed or cursed ( I still have not decided ) with a multitude of freckles, as was I.

Of course, she had what I defined as beautiful red hair that framed her freckles and I had nothing but plain brown but she always made me feel that we were soul mates and I could accomplish anything she did!

I loved the colors and the slapping of the oily paints on the canvas, my Aunt would share with me! It just never quite looked like hers though, go figure!

As I grew she continued to paint and I continued to try! What drove me to try was my fascination with the evolution of the canvas!

It began so white and empty and then as I applied the paint, there would be a swath of Bright blue sky,a puff of a fluffy green tree,some round yellow flowers and I would be transported to a place all bright and new, that had not existed just minuets before!

No matter how immature it was, at first glance, I was so pleased with what I had created! Later I would admit it took quite a bit of imagination to extract what I myself saw but no matter,I loved it, it was mine! I use to hang them everywhere and give them away as if they were gold!

The 1st time I read the Bible, beginning with Genesis, I understood God's contentment and feelings of goodwill towards all that He had created! I know that this is over simplifying what God did in creation but I was 9years old, at the time and a bit idealistic!

To get to the point ( you who read this will soon find out, it can take me awhile) In Genesis 1:31 God looks out onto what He has created and with what I believe is His mothers heart, declares the good of it all!

As we read on (and do if you never have )man & his helpmate were also created out of what I believe to be the mother heart of our Father God! If you look up the definition of Mother & Motherhood, you will find the Heart of God!

This is where we will end today and start the next time! I encourage you, as mothers, keep painting! We are working on God's Masterpieces! Phyllis Leister