Marsha's Blog

Today has been a cold and rainy winter’s day on the Gold Coast.  We hurried home so that we could ‘go’ to a Girls’ camp in Farmington, Maine.  You’re right to scratch your head, we did too when they asked us to be Camp Missionaries this year! It seems that perhaps one of the good things to come out of Covid was that we all, even us oldies, have really discovered the internet!  Now, thanks to technology, we enjoy chitchats with friends all over the world and can be AT camp, even though we are actually be 16,048 miles away here in Australia (I Googled that factoid, so it must be right!).   So I hope and pray the camp goes well these next few days.  We were planning to kick it off with a live ‘Zoom’ connection, but when we tried a practice run, the satellites in that part of the world just couldn’t keep up, so we had to suffice with sending over a pile of pre-recorded videos instead. Please pray with us that lives will be touched.  But one real, live ex...

You may remember my confession last week … something to the effect that from henceforth I will stop trying to “micro manage” my happiness. At best, it can be both frustrating and time wasting, as I try to keep my assorted ducks in a proper row; on the other end of the scale, I think it borders on sin when I replace my trust in God for the never ending quest to be happy, healthy and wise. Well, not coincidentally, I came across a passage in Zechariah this last week - God’s words to Israel in captivity- but maybe also speaking directly to me. It goes like this: Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the...

Three Missionaries walked into a bar….. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me continue: It was actually three missionary families and we walked into a city park.  Back in our days in Sendai, Japan, there were only about 100 foreigners in a town of a million and most of us were immersed in Japanese ministry. As a result when we could occasionally get together with other English speakers, it was a real treat.   This particular occasion, a few of us decided to have a combined birthday party for the kids among us. We would bring whatever food we could to the park, share it, and then since we were across the street from Sendai’s one and only MacDonalds restaurant, we would go and get some things for the kids to enjoy. The three families that gathered that day represented, by coincidence, the three variations of financial support on the mission field.  #1 was Us.  Fully supported with a living wage from our mission board, the Southern Baptists....

Happy Fourth of July! Tonight I’m going to be short and simple.  I’m guessing you’ve had a big weekend too!  Tony got to preach twice in two languages in REAL churches after our restrictions have lightened up a bit.  Because of that, we’re pretty tired tonight but we had a great weekend.   On the actual fourth, we had a nice time with our kids, and grandkids, riding on the John Deere mower (blades disengaged) and picking oranges. It’s pretty chilly here, so we cancelled the bag races and headed inside. There, by a roaring fire, we sat around the table ‘explaining’ why we were celebrating.  Because we’re in Australia we felt the need to have a little history lesson to these Aussie kids about their American roots. We explained about how American was ‘settled’ by mostly white pilgrims from England.  At this point they corrected us to stop and include the Native Americans, so it’s clear that they’ve heard a few things in their 5th, 3rd and kindergarten cla...