Marsha's Blog

 A very good day to all,   And it has been.  After seemingly countless hours of waiting and watching, today we emerge as grandparents to our 4th little boy! YEAH!     This week I want to give you one of J. John’s “Heroes of the Faith” with just a little twist to what’s on my mind right now.   I find myself comparing this hero to my son-in-law, Chris.   So first let’s have a look at Joseph.  Yes, you guessed right, this is not about anyone in the recent past, but of Joseph and Mary, of about 2100 years ago, or as is more often stated, “Mary and Joseph”.   J. John refers to him as one of the “Heroes in the Shadows”; and that fits perfectly with our new daddy, Chris.     As we read in Matthew 13:55, Joseph was a carpenter. Chris uses his tools to create masterpieces in the IT world. In Matthew 1:19, we’re told that Joseph was a ‘righteous man’. Personally, I’ve always rejoiced that the description fits Chris as well. We know from the fourth chapter of Luke and the first chapter of John th

This week I was checking something on the website of our lifetime employer, the International Mission Board, and I came across something I hadn’t noticed before.  It was sort of like the "column 8” of a newspaper.  There it was: a full color, carefully crafted Obituary page (and pages and pages) of all of those amongst our more than 4000 missionaries who have “Gone Home” this year.   Talk about interesting!  And here I am writing about Heroes.   I was mesmerized for almost an hour, just gaping at all the names. There were so many that I knew from our long history with the Board; people who had stood alongside with us in Africa and Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong and of course so many in Japan. Added to that were the people we’d met in passing on our Stateside Assignment years, when our paths crossed while speaking at different churches. It’s hard to explain the ‘camaraderie” that one feels when you find someone who’s walked a similar path with so many shared values and experiences.

 Hello from Chilly Australia! If you’ve never thought the words “skiing” and “Australia” go together, just go to the internet and check out for images from one of our many ski resorts at Thredbo, down in the Snowy Mountains.  Granted, as a Colorado girl, I still miss the dry powder snow from my childhood, but for Down Under, one can’t complain! This year is particularly cold and they’ve been able to start the season earlier than usual, so much so that we may be able to go down and have a peek tomorrow.  Tony and I are in Canberra this weekend, celebrating the Queen’s Birthday (and my own, while we’re at it), but we came mainly in order to look up an old and very dear friend, Hillas Maclean, retired Head Librarian of the nation’s Parliament Library.  He’s a hero to us; he and his wife were our first Aussie friends. I’ll never forget coming here to settle permanently so many years after that first meeting, and finding beautiful cards written and individually posted to each of our childre

Hello fellow readers, I’ve been enjoying traveling with you to different parts of the world on our search for Heroes.  I thought I’d grab another of Canon J. John's heroes for today.  All is well here in chilly Australia except that we’re (the country, not us) battling an “Indian strain” of COVID.  Because of all the news, I’m seeing a lot of people turning their thoughts toward India and perhaps dredging up some past prejudices.  However, J. John has recounted an interesting story of an Indian woman I had never heard of. It’s a story I think needs to heard and remembered.  Pandita Ramabai was a truly extraordinary woman: reformer, educator and evangelist. She was born in 1858 into a British-ruled India that was dominated by the Hindu caste system. At that time, people were placed in rigid social levels and women were considered definitely as inferior to men. Her father was a high-caste Hindu priest who, defying tradition, taught both his daughter and her mother to read Sanskrit, t