Marsha's Blog

So, as they used to say, "We interrupt this program with a special bulletin".  While you continue to read thru my book, "River Crossings" from years ago,  I thought I'd jump in and catch you up with life on the road thus far. This week, we left the beautiful island of Oahu, and have now landed safely in Los Angeles.  Tony finished his four-month term as guest professor at Gateway Seminary’s Hawaiian satellite school.  He confessed that it’s going to be a shock to no longer be known as “Dr. Woods” by everybody we’ve had any contact with. And with the shortage of pastors all over Hawaii, it’s been a feast of opportunities to preach at least once every Sunday, sometimes twice. For Tony, it’s been like pouring gasoline on a fire. We just don't have sufficient words to say how fun, rewarding and inspiring it’s been for both of us. Proverbs 27:17-23 comes to mind as a passage that best describes what we’ve been experiencing these last 4 months: “Iron sharpens iron...

(Note to Reader: This is another in our series of “River Crossings” blogs, written while we were inThailand (2009-2011). Enjoy!)  I’m getting more confused. Today I asked in flawlessThai where there was an air-conditioned cafe, followed their directions in Thai, found it, went in, sat down, wiped off some of the sweat and very politely… ordered a SKIRT!(It’s that tone thing again; never mind).We were visiting the world’s largest (who’s measuring?) outdoor market. I really don’t like the place because as soon as you step ‘in’ you’re lost. I had a list. I wanted to find seeds to grow some mint (OK, maybe I’m a little bit homesick) and maybe some fresh vegetables. Instead, we walked thru millions of fish, dead, alive, or struggling.Then there were the deep-fried bugs, a real treat for the gourmand, I’m told, the illegal endangered birds who aren’t being taken care of well a tall, and of course all the temple furnishings, tourist frip frap and enough jeans to cover all the legs in the ...

  Happy Easter 2022 Everyone! Just to clarify, today's blog is still a rerun from the past,  but related specifically to Easter. In the real world, we are still in Hawaii, but our time here is quickly coming to a close. Tony is preaching his last sermon before we pack up and head east on Wednesday. We'll send along travel updates as we can, interspersed with "River Crossings" excerpts. Stay tuned! Good morning! I’ll keep this short so you can tie that Easter bonnet on…….(or in the case of my antipodal friends, eat another Cadbury egg). We’ve just returned from a great day at Funabashi Baptist.  They studied the Anagion course that Tony’s busy creating, wished us all goodbye and then we all worshipped together with a great sermon and Lord’s supper.   The pastor made a thought provoking observation.  He postulated that perhaps Mary Magdalen didn’t recognize Jesus  at the open and empty tomb because she was looking for a dead body, not a risen Lord. ...

 (Note to Reader: This is another in our series of “River Crossings” blogs, written while we were in Thailand (2009-2011). Enjoy!) You’ve heard the phrase ‘what goes around comes around’. Today I’d like to tell you a story. It involves (1) two fresh faced young missionaries a lifetime ago and (2) Tony getting a suit made this week. In the early 70’s we were going out on our first assignment to Africa. We were young, we were enthusiastic and idealistic, we had NO IDEA! (but that’s another story). There was a guy at the mission board to train us; he was quiet and unobtrusive. He rarely spoke up and although I remember him, I remember very little. I think he was old… maybe 40 or something. He didn’t really make any huge impression on us except that he’d been somewhere in the world for a long time and maybe he didn’t have the best clothes or the latest haircut. That’s all. Now fast forward to this last week. We were taking a short cut from our mission office to the train and were passi...

 (Note to Reader: This is another in our series of “River Crossings” blogs, written while we were in Thailand (2009-2011). Enjoy!) The word for ‘acquaintance’ in Thai is “Rui Jack”. It’s not spelled that way, but that’s how it sounds. Funny sounding, really … so much so that I remember it by going back to that silly movie, “Kangaroo Jack” and associating it with an ‘acquaintance”: just sorta ‘hopping’ in and out of your life. Yesterday we went to a Japanese concert organized by the two groups we work with in town. We caught up with a lady and her family that were in the Japanese church in Hong Kong where we pastored briefly in 1996. We hadn’t seen her in 14 years, but of course in the family of Christ, it was just like yesterday. Then last night we had dinner with a missionary and reminisced about people we’d known and worked with years and years ago but are now lost to us. We were ‘rui jacks’ and now they’ve ‘hopped’ out of our lives… maybe till we meet again in heaven! Do you thi...