Marsha's Blog

(Note to Reader: This is another in our series of “River Crossings” blogs, written while we were in Thailand (2009-2011). Enjoy!)  I met a couple of interesting people this week. The first one had just had her very first ride in an air-conditioned bus in order to come and speak to a group of us ladies in Bangkok. Speaking through an interpreter, she introduced herself as ‘Mam’. She’s a second-year seminary student at a mission school in northern Thailand. She’s about four and a half feet tall, 90 pounds soaking wet, with long dark hair and a beautiful smile. She comes from a hill tribe called “H’Tin” and there are a very few of them, scattered through Laos, Thailand and Burma. She has a proper Thai name for the registry, as well as her H’Tin one, but either are probably 14 or 15 letters long, so even her family calls her ‘Mam” She began by telling us of her life in a refugee camp where she was born. I’m not sure we westerners can really appreciate how terribly desperate a displaced...

We'll, we have almost successfully crossed the Atlantic.  By the time you read this, we'll have arrived in Europe, but as I write this, the only land we’ve seen has been the Azores. I'll have to say, it has to this point been the perfect crossing.  Our waiter at dinner said he's never had so many days at sea without even a ripple and we told him half the world was praying for us!  Our dinner mates (who are also Christians) piped up and said the other half was praying for them! Aren't we egotistical, with so much going on in the world, to feel so blessed?  Seriously, I may have become a fan of these smaller, but more elegant-feeling boats. The Queen Elizabeth is not a Cruise Ship but one of the last true "Ocean Liners", made for smaller numbers, exquisite comfort and speed. The crossing is taking only 13 days. The 'entertainment' consists of High Teas, symphony orchestras and lecturers brought along to teach us things about astronomy, geology and th...

(Note to Reader: This is another in our series of “River Crossings” blogs, written while we were in Thailand (2009-2011). Enjoy!) Today I’d like to give you a little geography lesson. We live in an area of Bangkok that is absolutely full of Japanese businessmen and their families. This is a good thing, because we work mostly with Japanese, and Japanese businessmen are not poor. Our little duplex pre-dates their arrival and sits humbly in amongst all the fancy high rises. To illustrate this point, I must say that I did some hand-to-hand combat with a GIANT cockroach last night. Actually, I went into battle gripping some kind of can with a picture of a lemon on it that shot out yellow goo. I’m not sure who won the battle because after I had trashed the kitchen, I ran upstairs to hide. Anyway, we have been interested and amused to watch a new little outdoor mall being built at the end of our street. It’s called “Japan Town” and now that it’s opening up, we find that it sports several upsc...

 Good morning, As you are reading this, we’ll be two days away from leaving the USA. With over 3000 miles and 14 states clocked up (including Hawaii), enough barbecue, grits and TexMex to feed a small village, it’s been a great 7 months!We’re in Florida now, working our way to the docks in Fort Lauderdale, and decided to have a treat and go to Perkins Pancake restaurant, known for their great breakfasts. With all the distractions, I wasn’t prepared to be blindsided by grief.As we were ushered to our seats, I noticed that the waitress had on a t-shirt uniform that said, “We are happy to support ‘Make a Wish’ kids”. As I tried to place my order, I got all choked up, explaining that 30 years ago, ‘Make a Wish’ gave us our last week with our son Trevor, and it was, to use a Disney cliché’, “Magic”.   It had been a heart-wrenching 8 months, watching him deteriorate in spite of all that could be done.But God was good, giving him the stamina to have a happy outlook as we were tr...