Marsha's Blog

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are now crawling out from all the good food and memories.   One of our best ‘memories’ this season, apart from the wonderful family, adorable kids, much anticipated gifts and all, was a deluge of much needed RAIN!  We came out of our church’s Christmas Eve service to buckets of sweet warm RAIN! It’s been 6 months without a drop in many drought and bushfire stricken areas so you can imagine we all had shouts of joy and some crazy wet dancing, all for the Glory of God and for answered prayers. It continued on and off all Christmas day and beyond.  Our yard is coming back to its original color and the temperatures have dropped from record breaking heat as well.  We are truly blessed!  Yesterday, I was trimming hedges (a summer job I know, and a nasty one at that, since I’m the ‘main hedge trimmer’ for awhile till Tony pulls himself together).  I decided to take them all down a notch or two, since as long as I’m going to hav

Today for a little twist, since it’s Summer Solstice here, and Winter solstice there if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) I thought I’d share with you a song we sing with gusto (at least my grandkids who have it completely memorized), the “Australian version of Jingle Bells”.  It’s written by a famous Australian Christian Children’s singer, Colin Buchanon.   You can sing along or just watch the video below.   Here are the words.  I’ll explain in (parenthesis) in case the ‘language’ is too difficult. Aussie Jingle Bells Colin Buchanan Dashing through the bush In a rusty Holden Ute    (Australian brand of pick up) Kicking up the dust Esky in the boot    (Eski is a cooler, boot is the trunk or truck bed) Kelpie by my side  ( Kelpie is an Australian breed of sheep dog) Singing Christmas songs It's Summer time and I am in My singlet, shorts and thongs  ( tank top, shorts and flip flops) Oh! Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Jingle all the way Christmas in Australia On a scorching

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with my youngest grandson, who’s still very little.  He’s the baby of the house and therefore, 1) may be prone to getting his way more often and, 2) is the most adorable of course.   Here’s how things went.  He wanted a mint from my purse. He knows they’re there because they often come out when we’re waiting for something, or otherwise offered in a time or place where you might need a mint for courage.  He’s also learned that it is not good to help himself, rummaging thru my tidy arrangement of purse things.   And so he asked  most  politely if he could have a ‘waiting pill’ as he calls them. I, at first, said no, because we weren’t in a place that needed something to distract, but then relinquished because he was just so... well, cute. I made the mistake of opening the lid and offering him the whole lot.  Usually, (I forgot), I take out just one and put in his grubby little hand.   Of course he dove in with both hands and fin

Last week I talked about Christmas and I want to keep that theme going, but let me indulge you with an experience we had the other day, then I’ll get back to the eggnog and chestnuts. Promise!   But first let me make a quick announcement:  Weaving Sunlight , the story of our lives in 400 easy pages, has now reached the proof copy stage. Once that’s checked over this next week, we’ll be able to release it to Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle versions, so standby!  Anyway, the first part of the book talks about a bear coming in and wrecking our tent while camping in Yellowstone on our honeymoon. We’ve compared him to that critter who roams “to and fro, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And whenever something like this latest challenge comes knocking, we say to each other, “The bear is back.” Or maybe better said this time, “The Bear is lurking and we don’t know what it’s up to!”  It concerns this on-going slugfest with Tony’s cancer. Nothing new, don

Hello, and Happy December!   If you’re reading this in the USA I guess you’ve survived Thanksgiving and Black Friday!  Here in Australia neither holiday has taken on as yet, although the merchant community is trying their best to convince us to go shopping. For the most part, it’s business as usual, except for the fact that many of our schools ended last Friday for summer break. Come to think of it, this may be a different kind of ‘Black Friday’ for some parents, especially if they’re working!   We enjoyed watching the grand children sing their Christmas performances. But of course nothing the school could produce held a candle to our son Nathan’s annual Water Slide Party. It seems they have a larger than normal back yard with a pretty impressive slope down to the Crown Land forest. And oh yeah, the yard is pretty well de-nuded of every tree that used to flourish there, thanks in part to our gift of a chain saw awhile back. That may have been a mistake, but I s

This afternoon, as I’m writing this, we just returned from a 3-day conference of Japanese Christians.  Only a few people remember that we actually started this annual gathering back nearly 20 years ago and it’s rocked along, hit and miss since then.  Then, about 3 years ago, it really got to moving and this was the third “new and revised” event, attracting about 150 Japanese and associates from all over Australia, New Zealand and beyond.  We stayed in a Christian camp which was nostalgic of our younger days but reminding us again we’re not that young.    To say “Mune ga ippai” (our hearts are full) would be an understatement.  Quite by accident we’ve become the elder statesmen of the group, and we heard “Tony and Marsha” so many times in so many situations, from those first memories, to continuing excitement about Tony’s doctoral Bible study called “Anagaion”. And of course there was plenty of shock and concern to go around in light of his recent diagnosis.   While hiding in my ro

When I was a little girl, maybe 10 or 12, I think even then I was a little, shall we say, PLAN oriented? I do remember plotting out my life and putting it to paper.  About this time I was coming to grips with the Second Coming of Christ, and so I had to include that in my plan. I was going to finish school, possibly becoming a doctor.  Then I was going to marry a real hunk of a man, like in the movies.  We would live in perfect harmony and have two beautiful children, first a boy and then a little girl. And then when the kids were about 8, Christ would return in a bolt of lightning and take us all away.  I chose 8 as the perfect age to end the parenting responsibility because, well, I’d helped the teacher in Sunday School and I figured after 8 these little guys just weren’t worth saving.   As fate would have it, some of those dreams actually came true, and some not so much. At 17, I committed my life to Christian service, whatever that meant to me at the ti

If you’ve been following us for awhile, you’ll remember that right before all this heath drama snuck in, we went to Fiji for a few weeks.   Tony always has folks looking to do his   Anagaion   course and we were delighted to hit the road again, meet with church leaders there and being able to preach and teach all over the place. You may remember too, that because our daughter is a flight attendant for Qantas, we can fly ‘stand by’ for about half price.  Most of the time it works smoothly.  But not on this particular day.  We had to fly first down to Sydney to catch the 4-hour flight to Fiji. So, watching the internet bookings carefully, we were confident that we’d sail right thru.  There were people waiting to pick us up in Fiji, so we really wanted to make it on time as per schedule.  The Gold Coast check in agent felt the same way, so much so that he took our luggage and checked it right on through; straight to Fiji so we wouldn’t have to recheck it in Sydney. Well, as thing