Marsha's Blog

  Happy New Year (almost)!   Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the short story by James Thurber called, “The Night the Bed Fell”, but we had a similar event last week.   First came Christmas Dinner at Nathan & Kylie’s place (since it’s big enough to accommodate all of us). It was a huge feast, enjoyed by most all our Aussie relatives, and a couple of friends to boot. There was enough food to feed a small army, which is good, because the next day …   … we moved camp with the gang (about 15 or so of us) over to our house for a ‘leftover meal’, showcasing several new dishes and uncountable desserts.   Finally, most of them went to their separate homes, and by God’s Grace managed to get safely inside before a major storm hit the Gold Coast later that night. Tragically, it was killer, rather like the kind of tornadoes we get in America’s Midwest, but covering hundreds of square miles and lasting most of the night. Our own house missed most of the damaging wide and rain, but the nex

 Merry Christmas Everyone! After many months and heaps of trials, Marsha and I are finally back in our own house in Australia. The place is a mess, we’ll be unpacking and sorting until July, and every day brings a new “settling in” challenge, but boy, does it feel good! I know all of you are at least as busy as we are during this time, so we’ll try not to be a distraction. In a quick nutshell, we’re so blessed to have Nathan, Kylie, Chris, Nicki, and a good part of their own extended families all together today and tomorrow for a time of celebration that I’ve missed for way too long. At least half a dozen times a day this past week, Marsha and I have stopped, taken a deep breath and whispered, “We are Soooo blessed!” Now I know that’s not politically correct to say anymore, because the unspoken finish to that sentence is, “And you’re not.” Of course that’s not true, and I’d be happy to preach a sermon or two on the subject, but fair enough, there’s a lot of folks around us here who are

  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! In fact as I write this, we’re headed to our “Christmas Extravaganza” at church that has become the norm since Covid.  Before that we had more production-based evenings, but relaxed and neighbour friendly is good too. Since many of you are super busy with all the festivities of our Saviours birth, I thought I’d just tell you about a missionary from the mid 1800’s that became the Southern Baptist’s “patron saint” if you will.  She is the one our annual offering is named after. That offering sponsors not only all of our 4000+ Southern Baptist missionaries, but heaps of projects, initiatives, etc throughout our world of missions.  This offering has been going for around 175 years. Lottie (Charlotte) Moon was born on Dec 2, 1840 in Virginia, USA.  Her family were farmers and were quite wealthy, resulting in the girls of the 7 children, being allowed to become quite well educated, against the norm of keeping girls at home.   Lottie was exceptio

 Good Morning All, I don't know about you, but between moving back into our house after 2 years and Christmas looming, stirred in with a heat wave that's made the news, it's been quite a week. But as I sit here writing this, much later than I usually do, I have to say my heart is full. Just when we were at our wit’s end physically (it's amazing how feeble we've become over the last few years, where we can't seem to just lift a couch and move it across the room for the carpet layers to get access), both kids showed up with muscles, food and lots of cheer.  Somehow that and the pool made the weekend a success. (Please keep in mind that we're not rich; most Aussie homes, at least in this area, are more likely to have a pool than an air conditioner) But the greatest blessing this weekend was a short word I just heard at my son's church.  They had their annual Christmas pageant, and our 3rd grandchild, Micah, had a significant part, so of course we all wanted

 Good morning friends, Thank all of you who follow me.  I noticed an increased number of readers over the last couple of weeks, so I hope I can find some more exciting stories of God's faithfulness to share. On that note, God has certainly continued to be faithful this week, but it's pretty mundane.  For those of you who have ever moved, you can imagine how non-exciting that is. We were apart from our possessions for almost two years and the end result is that we lived quite happily without all that 'frip frap'.   But on the other hand, it's a nostalgic joy to see a few things that we love.  We decided the things we love are things that elicit happy memories, for example, ramen bowls given to me from a favorite group of ladies in Japan, or a grandson's first artwork.....We had a laugh about those well-off Egyptians who got to carry a lot of their favorite 'stuff' into the tomb to be with them (Sadly, we see how that worked out). But in the effort to embr

 Hello all, Last week you'll remember that I told you the story of my friend Tatsuo, and his interesting family. You’ll remember that the fire bombings in Tokyo had wiped out just about his entire family along with the Hagiwara family business, which was huge. Today we'll see more of the Hand of God, and less of death and destruction. But first, I need to let you in on another story as well, and that concerns Tatsuo's mother.   At the time of the fire bombing, she was a little girl of 6.  She had 11 brothers and sisters; again a prosperous family with a big house. Her first name was pretty, but the Japanese characters in the name carried the meaning, "enough". As I understand, that was apparently how the family felt about her. When the bombs came, her family lived in a different section of the city and so was evacuated to another elementary school than the one guarded by Tatsuo's grandfather in last weeks story.  When she got there, the school was already comp

 Good Morning,   While we were in Hawaii, we met an amazing man named Tatsuo Hagiwara.  His story was so compelling, I had to hear it a couple of times to get all the facts straight.  The day before we left, we had the privilege of meeting his mother who is now in her 80's.  She'd come to visit a couple of her kids, including Tatsuo.  She mentioned to someone in the room that her husband (significant in this story) was "getting older and didn't like to travel as much".  I think he's in his 90's. And so, here's what I've understood.  We encouraged him to write a book, like the one we wrote about our pastor and friend Naoki Noguchi, "Sacrificed: Given to an Empire, Saved by God".  They said they'll "think about it." So, come with me to March 10th, 1945. The war is in the final stages, but the atom bombs won't be dropped until August 6th and 8th of that same year, bringing everything to an end on August 15th.   But back to

Good Morning,  I’d like to share a thought-provoking story I heard just before we left Hawaii. Tony was preaching at the Chinese Baptist Church, and afterwards, we were visiting with the Sunday School teacher. This is the story he told:   He had gone to a popular electronics shop to buy at TV.  The shopkeeper promised that they would remove any old TV when they delivered the new one. The new TV was delivered, and when they saw the his pre-21st century monster TV, they tucked and ran, saying there was no way they could wrangle such a monster. After some discussion of the situation with his wife, she reminded him of those newlywed days of poverty when he worked in a call Center.   "What was your advice on handling upset customers?" she asked. "Oh," he recalled after a moment, "I was told to ASK the customer what he wanted." So, he pulled up his socks, as the Aussies say, and went into the store and found the manager.  The conversation went something like thi

I heard a good speaker, maybe you know her. Her name is Jennifer Rothschild, who is blind, by the way, and she spoke from the Book of “Lamentations".  I call that the “clean part” of my Bible, since I so seldom go there.  What she had to say resonated with me.  She went to great lengths to explain the difference between "Lamenting" and "Complaining", explaining that lamentable things happen over which we have no control.  She had gone blind from some rare malady when she was just 15.  Then there was Jeremiah the prophet, who had a pretty miserable time his whole life.  And don’t forget King David. We can see through several of his Psalms that he was no stranger to misery.   Closer to home, I was reminded of a brilliant young man I once knew in Japan. He had come from Ghana on a scholarship to study Mineralogy at one of Japan’s top universities, and we crossed paths through our student ministry.  There were several in his group, and I soon learned that they were

 So last week I told you I'd give you a little preview of some of the amazing things we witnessed on the mission field, in terms of spiritual warfare. Here goes… It seems obvious to us, in light of the evidence all around, that Satan is definitely alive and well, but that in some of the countries we’ve lived, he’s better at staying hidden. I think he chooses to operate at whatever level “works best” for his evil purposes. In some places that mean open and overt in-your-face activity, while in others, he’s comes across as more subtle.   Anyway, I mentioned before the small prayer group made up of broken and discouraged missionaries. For the first several weeks, we never looked at each other; we just fell on our faces, figurately and sometimes literally, praying for ourselves and our own needs. Then one day, we started noticing each other. In tiny steps, we began to pray for the other people in the group. And to the amazement of us all, God heard us. At first, we just asked for encou

  Good Morning Friends, I know last week I promised you some ‘spiritual warfare’ stories, but begging your pardon, I’d like to interject just one more interesting story I found this last week. We were involved in a “Writers Workshop” this weekend. In addition to both of us doing a large share of the teaching itself, this was a big part of the reason for our coming to Hawaii, so it meant a lot to us.   Reading thru the comments on people’s evaluation, we think it was a huge success, thankfully because of your prayers.  We are doing what we love to do, and we’re glad you can be a part of it. And in the course of researching for this event, I became, this last week, obsessed with finding a poet that I remembered from our time in Japan. Because I'm getting old, I suppose, I could only remember that he was paralysed and that he’d become a Christian because of a missionary who passed by.  The way it happened was the missionary stepped into a store to buy something.  In Japan, stepping in

 Good morning friends, This last week has been a busy one and I think that will continue till we leave, as Tony has finals and evaluations, as well as a Writer's Conference and a Journeyman retreat with our friends form 50 years ago. But in the midst of all this, we got a letter from a friend saying that he wasn't satisfied with the SBC Sunday school's material on Spiritual warfare that they were offering this week. I don't know what proportion of you use that material, nor do I know what it said, but since both Tony and I have some opinions on this, we happily wrote up a few vignettes of what we'd experienced on the field, and sent them along.  He wrote that what we wrote was a little more personal and he’ll be using them today. Ever the dovetailer of time, I thought "Oh, I can use that as my blog this week!", but the more I thought about you waking up to me and reading that, I could envision you sitting down to your cereal and reaching into the box to fi

 Good Morning Friends,  If you're reading this, that's good, because we 'moved house' today and we’re not sure we'll have internet where we're going. We find that living in guest houses sometimes has calendar problems, such as previously booked guests. So with the two weeks gap we’re looking at, we’re going to move out to where a friend has graciously made his apartment available. He spends most of his time as a missionary overseas, so it’s a real God send for us.  If there’s a downside, it’s just that the apartment is WAAY out on the wild and wooly west coast of Oahu; but we’re looking forward to a little respite from Big City Waikiki.   Thank you all so much for your encouraging letters after my last rather whiny blog!  I didn’t mean to come across as so needy, but you seemed to know what I needed.  I mentioned on Facebook how blessed we were last week to meet a young man who’s gone from a newish Christian last year when we were here, to, thanks to the leaders

 Hello My Friends! Here I am again, still in Sunny Hawaii.  We laugh at the weather forecast which always seems to be the same, "Sunny, about 28 degrees (80 F), light winds......."  ...... and that's about it.  Who cannot say Life is good here?     But even paradise has its downsides.  I mentioned to someone the other day that my blog seems to have fewer responders lately, and the suggestion came, "Why don't you write about something more relevant than about being a missionary?" For a minute I was stumped for an answer.  Then I realised that being a missionary is about the only thing that really floats my boat. I could write as I did last week about how "hard it is living here with Tony immensely fulfilled and me just tagging along", but somehow I don't think most of you would relate or would even be interested.   However, Missions and evangelism will always be who I am.  I remember being nudged by God when I was a naïve 17 yr old in a youth Bi

We'll, I think we've passed the middle of our time here in Hawaii since the calendar says we only have about 7 weeks left!  It's been quite a bit different than our stay last year.  This time we've been at the church guest house in downtown Honolulu which creates a very different living situation. We still wake up every morning to the sound of crowing roosters. We learned this time that the thousands of feral chickens all over the Hawaiian Islands is the result of a huge hurricane back in the 90's that totally destroyed the industry and carried the chickens freed from their coops to every corner of the state.  Along with the roosters, we are now greeted with the sounds of the city: doors slamming, cars racing, drunks yelling and the almost constant scream of sirens. I guess this is true in any city, but it’s a new experience for us. Fortunately, we're finally acclimated and are sleeping well.  But being right in the middle of things here has given me an opportun

 Good Morning, Last week Tony preached at yet another church that we didn't know about until they called him for pulpit supply.  I love this life we have, constantly meeting new brothers and sisters and enjoying time spent with them.  During the service, they showed a video announcing Hawaii's call to prayer for evangelism.  After a moment, I realized that the speaker was a young kid we’ve known for over 25 years! He came out as a teenager as part of a mission team when we lived in Sydney. He and our son bonded immediately, and still stay in contact to this day. But here he was on the video, a distinguished mature gentleman with a GRAY beard!  How's that for making you feel old? Looking at him on the screen, it occurred to me that in many ways, Hawaii's been in our blood even longer that Australia.  Our initial visit to Honolulu was on our first trip to Japan as career missionaries in 1978. Any way you cut it, that was a LOONG time ago!  Over the years, we’ve dropped in

  This weekend, you have the option of celebrating TWO holidays, depending from which continent you're reading this.  In Australia, it's Father's Day.  Mother's Day is the same no matter what hemisphere you happen to be in, because after all, we mothers operate on a different level, where “things” are not as important as relationships. Just give us a flower and a kiss on the cheek, and we’ll be happy. Father's Day, on the other hand, has to remind our men that it’s spring time out there. So naturally that brings to mind power tools.  So Father’s Day south of the equator is today, at the beginning of spring. For those of us in the north, we’ll have to wait until June 16th. Whichever, I trust all of you today are either enjoying a great barbecue prepared by a father with a new set of utensils, or else an equally great Labour Day picnic.  For myself, I find both holidays have their own similarities. Besides the food and family time, both days seem to shout out a great

  Good Morning!  I thought you might need a break from Hawaii events/history today.  I'm happy to say that we're fine, if a little hot. Tony's classes are going well and he enjoys learning from the students. So today I'd like talk about something that happened to me many years ago.  I'm however, still learning from this rather humorous lesson. But first let me start with a joke to help explain. Apparently a man and his wife were out in a little boat fishing.  They hadn't caught anything and were getting cranky.  They decided to talk about what they'd do IF they did actually catch something, thinking that would cheer them up. "So when we catch it, I'll pull it up and you take the knife and cut the line" the husband instructed. "No, you need to use scissors to cut the line" the wife interjected. "Knife" he said "Scissors" This argument got more heated until he threw her overboard and said "Knife!" As he hel

 This week has flown by.  By the number of concerned messages I've been getting, I know you all are watching the news and know that the islands of Maui and the Big Island, Hawaii, have had devastating fires.  Our island sits a little to the north, and while we had strong enough winds to knock our electricity off for a while, we weathered the storm without much drama. I am happy to report that the relief efforts are going well and we’re all rejoicing that one of our churches, in the very city of Lahaina, where the fires were most devastating, was untouched. Today let me tell you the story of the BAPTISTS here in the islands.  As I mentioned last week, by the mid 1800's, missionaries were beginning to arrive and Christianity was growing.   However, it wasn't till the early/mid 1900's that a Baptist came along.  His name was Joseph P Tyssowski, an attorney from Texas and an ordained Baptist preacher. When he arrived, he was happy to find one small church, located a little

  Hello from Hawaii,   I was planning to continue a series of interesting facts about Baptist's in Hawaii, but today I need to “interrupt this program with an important news bulletin".   A few days ago, I started getting notes from friends sharing their concerns about the terrible fires here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, since we’ve only just arrived, we were lacking both the time and the opportunity to look at the news.   Imagine our horror when we turned on the tv and saw whole towns in flames. Fortunately for us, this was happening on two other islands, not the one we’re living on, but seeing the news was reminiscent of the terrible bush fires in Australia not long ago, and the images called up memories best forgotten.   Then tonight I listened as a lady spoke to a group at church with tears in her eyes.  Her best friend had just escaped with her life and then watched her house and all she owned burn to the ground in just minutes.  It was a trifecta of bad event