I Know the Plans

 Hello Everyone,

Tony here. Marsha kindly relinquished the keyboard this week so I could say a few words about the amazing Hand of God at work in all our lives. And especially now.Where to begin? We left Spain a couple of weeks ago and flew over to London. Everything was perfect, from the blue skies to the experience of attending Evensong at Westminster Abbey and sitting in the choir loft where just a few days later, as we watched TV with the rest of the world, a portly gentleman would occupy the seat I had been in while he attended the Queen’s funeral. Never could figure out who he was, but I could sympathize with him as I watched him squirm in the hard straight-backed pew.

From London, Marsha and I decided to use our Eurail passes for a trip up to Edinburgh, Scotland. Just a few minutes outside the city, it seems, there’s a small village called “Penicuick”. Since my son-in-law goes by the same name, we thought it would be interesting to check out his ancestral heritage. 

We weren’t disappointed. Penicuick is a delightful place, with quaint shops, friendly people and even a restaurant called “Penny Cook”. What caught our eye though was a sign directing us to Penicuick Baptist Church. As we got closer, it looked like the church was a rather imposing centuries-old edifice looking over the village, but closer still revealed a humble building just beyond with the PBC sign out front.

We walked all around the place, but there was no one there, so we just pressed our noses to the window and tried to absorb some of the atmosphere. Then I saw it: a huge poster inviting any and all to come worship on Sunday. There would be singing and Bible study followed by refreshments. Too bad we wouldn’t be in town to join them, I thought. Reading on, I saw that the church had displayed its “life verse” that was intended to demonstrate who they were and what they stood for.

“’For I know the plans I have for you’, declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” Jeremiah 29:11.

I stood there, speechless. The verse was inspiring, of course, and had been so to uncountable readers over the centuries. In my case, the words first gripped my heart on a summer morning in Japan, August 9, 1989. I was following my “Through the Bible in a year” plan, and included that morning were Jeremiah’s words.

“Great message,” I thought to myself, pulling a red pen from my pocket and underlining the verse, adding the date in the margin of my Bible. I had no way of knowing, but those words were about to test the mettle of my faith. Our first-born son, Trevor, was about to lead us through a valley the likes of which we had never seen, falling into leukemia and suffering for eight months before passing away as we held him in our arms. Later, we would learn that this particular version of leukemia, Burkitt’s lymphoma, was first identified in northern Zambia. It’s viral in nature, and all indicators suggest that he was infected while in the womb as were serving there as Journeyman missionaries. It lay dormant for 15 years before rearing its ugly tentacles and attacking his chromosomes.

If you think the devil made a heyday out of that, you’d be right, but that’s another story.

In the same year after Trevor died, Marsha and I travelled to Russia, going on the word that there were “thousands of children” needing to be adopted. The “word” was mistaken, and in fact we were told when we arrived in Moscow that the government restricted adoption to foreigners and we had wasted our time in coming.

A week of visiting orphanages pretty much confirmed that, and we started packing to go back home. But then our translator called to say, “I’ve found a little girl! The orphanage director is desperate, since she is three years old and can no longer stay there. But she has no place to go, and since her eyes are crossed it’s not likely she will ever be adopted.”  

“Great!” I said. “We’ll check it out tomorrow. Where is the orphanage?”

“In a town called Armivir, about one thousand miles south of here.”

“One thousand ….. No way! We couldn’t possibly…..”

“Her name is Marsha.”

That was enough. What are the chances that we would be led to a little girl halfway around the world with same name as my wife’s? In fact, her name was Maria, but with the Russian endearment added to children’s names, it came out as “Ma-sha”. 

Well, I’ll make this short. You can read the whole story in our daughter’s book, “A Hope and a Future”. And yes, Jeremiah 29: 11 is Nicki’s life verse.

‘Why is it her life verse?” I can almost hear you asking.

On that day in Japan when I marked the verse in my Bible, halfway around the world, she was being born. It would be three more years before we met her and learned her miraculous story. But God knew all along. 

What plans do you suppose God has for you? Whatever they are, be assured, they are for your good, not for your harm. And when all hope seems to have faded, remember that God never fails, and He keeps His promises. Every time.

Hang in there,

Tony (and Marsha)