Marsha's Blog

Good Morning Friends, All is going along here pretty well; so much so that I’ve resorted to what I do when not living life under the “Tyranny of the Urgent”: I’m getting serious again with my reading of the yearly ‘Through the Bible Plan’. And because I’m negligent, I’m still back in the Old Testament. I love the Old Testament, don’t get me wrong.  I think we need it to know who we are, but admittedly, it can get a bit dry between all the battles and the “so-in-so-begat-so-in-so”. But then as I wandered into I Kings, chapter 16, I began to perk up. I love this story about Elijah and his troubled relationship with King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. 1st Kings 18:16 has Elijah meeting Ahab, who even then was wanting to kill him. This led up to the amazing show down on Mt Carmel, where Elijah did some of his best work, calling down fire from Heaven and literally proving to the 400 Baal prophets that the Almighty God was the only God.   Then he slaughtered all 400 of them and Jezebel ...

 Good Morning,  I was planning to write you about a dear friend who passed into glory this week, but fortunately she’s in Heaven now and we can talk about her next week.  I think of that song, “Ring the Bells of Heaven”. You may remember it. It may not really apply here, because no one became a Christian, but that’s the way I felt when I heard this story. Maybe the angels were rejoicing just a little bit. We have been shepherding a lovely, committed to Christ young couple from Chile for the last couple of months.  They came to us thru a recommendation from one of our missionaries in Santiago, singing their praises as being hard working, dedicated Christians. As you don’t always have something like that fall in your lap, we went for them like the last piece of chicken at a Sunday dinner. And we realized they were even nicer!  They came prepared with all the documents in order to find housing and everything, she’s enrolled in English language school, and he’s alre...

 Dear Friends, We arrived back from Bangkok Friday night, safe and sound although wondering if travelling as 'standby' is really the way to go at our age.  We like the price but the body isn't sure if we're cut out for the athletics of dashing onto the plane and and grovelling to whatever seat is left! ha. Enough whinging.  We are safe and happy, luggage intact, kids to pick us up and a warm meal with friends before we crashed. And because we got home, we were in time to attend the funeral of a dear friend. Tony and his wife Beris have been church members with us as long as we have been here in the Gold Coast.  3 1/2 years ago Tony just couldn't recover from a double knee replacement and it was finally discovered that he had Motor Neuron Disease.  Usually the incurable illness (including variations like Lou Gehrig's and others) is fairly untreatable and carries lifespan is 3-5 years.  Tony probably had had it for 2 years by the time it was diagnosed. We wer...

 He is Risen! I hope this finds its way to you from where we are in faraway Thailand.  We will be worshipping with old friends this morning and thanking the Lord for all of you, and mostly for our Risen Saviour. Being in Bangkok these last couple of weeks has been wonderful, catching up with so many friends, making presentations for some of the stuff Tony's been teaching, looking up old eating places and generally remembering this city as the place we have enjoyed so much in the last 15 years. But I have one story that came to me the other day as we were riding in a taxi. Once you determine whether there’s a meter or not, then settle on a price, taxis are the way to go around here. There are of course the motorcycle taxis that are even cheaper, but we try to avoid those as much as possible. More often than not, the driver and his bike are not as wide as our bodies, especially the knees, so you can imagine the experience in terror associated with every trip. A motorcycle taxi z...

Good morning All, Today as you read this, I believe it’s Palm Sunday. I’ve been trying to tell this story for a few weeks now, and have hit that many incomprehensible difficulties, including actually losing the whole script about twice.  I’m no computer whiz, so it’s no surprise that I’ve lost it, but this ‘problem’ seems to have a supernatural flavour and has baffled the best. Because you see, the subject is……….Satan!  But then, with all this technical difficulty,,, isn’t God’s timing good that here we are on April 2nd!  Which marks Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Now why talk about Satan, you say, and why THIS week, you say.  But think about it, this has to stand as the most active week in the history of the world for Satan to be at work.  Additionally, if you listen to the news, with the shootings and all you might want to think the times have never been worse. Don’t you think that’s how Satan must have felt as Jesus headed for the cross? This was his ...