Marsha's Blog

 Last week I wrote about an Angolan refugee boy named Jose.  As soon as I posted the blog, Tony and I began berating ourselves. "Why had we lost contact with Jose?"  I'm sure he was literate, had access to mail and all the other ways of communicating. What a blessing he was to us! And yet, why did we 'forget' about him? I think you can see where this is going.   Over time, how many people have you simply 'lost track of'? Why is that? The Japanese have a saying about people who don't lose touch, “Only the moles don't know who she is". At our age, it’s impossible to count the people who have crossed out path. Yeah, there are a few who are best forgotten, but those other thousands have slipped into the fog of time, completely beyond reach, barring some recollection miracle.  Trying to justify ourselves, Tony and I point to a whole litany of evil that seems bent on removing those potentially life-changing people from our consciousness. The one hel...

 Well this morning I promised you something less gloomy, so here it is.  In fact, for me it's a real joy. When we were missionaries back 50+ years ago, we were serving a two-year assignment in the country of Zambia. There was a refugee camp that accommodated Angolan boys who had escaped the violence there and were trying to start a new life. Word came that they would be thrilled if we could come once a month and lead them in a time of worship.  From our home in Luanshya, it was a three-hour drive west over a rough dirt road. It was known that terrorists were based in the area, but most of their activity was focused on Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) to the south. While in Zambia, they were model citizens, and even attended many of our churches in the area. While we were never certain of their identities, we tried to maintain a peaceful relationship with all. Admittedly, this was hard to do sometimes, knowing that when they crossed over the border, they would be targeting p...

 Happy Week Two of the New Year!   How's it going? Still on track with the New Year’s Resolutions you made? Okay, I won’t go there. Full disclosure, Tony and I have been on a small cruise for the last few days with some church friends. Not a really big trip; just down to "Tazzie", that little island off the bottom of Australia.  I guess technically this blog is coming to you today from even farther away. I got a lot of good comments last week about Matthew Henry's thoughts on life in general, but still somehow, even on these good, surreal (cruising) days of life, we sometimes have a bit of what David talked about so well in his Psalm 94 (see below).  We have some friends today who are in a deeply dangerous country where any misstep could lead to what he refers to as "Dread of the Enemy". Every day for them is a challenge as they do what God has called them to do.  He referenced this beautiful psalm as one that he refers to on the worst days. It goes like th...

 Good Morning and Happy New Year!! Some of you out there are probably glad to be seeing 2025 in the rearview mirror. We think of you often and pray for a “new and improved” 2026. We, on the other hand, have to say it’s been a pretty good year. We still wake up every morning reminded that the aches and pains of aging are getting harder to manage, but I guess that comes with the territory.  I came across this thought from an old friend of mine, Matthew Henry. When I say “old”, I mean born in 1662 old. But his name was tossed around a lot during seminary days, and I can still find a commentary or two of his on our office shelves. I’d like to say we still refer to him a lot, but to be honest, Mr Google can find him and more like him quicker with two or three clicks on the mouse, so that most of the books in our library these days are more for decoration. But I can also add this: Matthew’s books may be no more than an impressive backdrop for our Zoom meetings, but what’s inside tho...

 Good Morning Friends, Here we sit 'between the holidays'. If you're like me, you've had plenty of opportunity to (over)indulge yourselves with both love and food over Christmas. So many Kodak moments.... By the way, does that communicate with you younger folks out there? Back in the Dark Ages, when pictures came from a thing called ‘film’, there was a company (Kodak) that wanted you to buy and expose as much film as possible. So they encouraged us to see everything in life as something significant, deserving of a picture … a ‘Kodak moment’. I want to hesitate on that thought for just a second, and then illustrate it through the life of an amazing woman who learned that Kodak moments don’t require anything out of the ordinary; that you can achieve what God intended for you to be “Just As You Are”. It’s in times like these, ‘between the holidays’ that Tony and I are always tempted to think maybe we’re being a little too lazy.  The ministries that so wonderfully take up o...

Last week I talked about the “Oranges in the Stockings”, and those simple joys of small gifts on Christmas morning.   Christmas stockings go way back in both the Woods and Smith family traditions. For us, it was a way to postpone the feeding frenzy of opening presents until after breakfast. In my Smith family growing up, we had stockings, a proper hot nourishing breakfast with clean up, and then, and only then, we’d push on to the real business of presents. But that’s another story, maybe best for the shrink. For many years Tony & I played the game of gathering and hiding “stocking stuffers” all thru the year, then finding a way to sneak them into their appointed places on Christmas Eve. Now that the children have grown and gone, the mantle of responsibility has gone along with them, and we love hearing the stories of how they have produced the magic in their own homes. Without giving it much thought, we always ended up, after placing the small gifts inside the stocking, r...