Marsha's Blog

Last week was Father's Day where many of you live, and a cousin of mine posted an interesting shout out to our Great Great Grandfather to mark the occasion. Of course I knew about him vaguely, I even remember posing for a picture with his daughter in law Libby for a "Great Grandmother picture, but let me share some of my research with you. His name was Martin Van Buren Smith.   If you google him, you’re going to need to get some popcorn, because you'll be reading for quite a while. As you search though, I don't want you to be confused with Martin Van Buren, the 8th president of the United States.  That Van Buren was about 50 years ahead and probably was an influence in naming him. Our 'Van Burens' have manifested themselves through several people in our lineage as they have jumped on this auspicious name.  Our ancestor gave himself and his name to many of his 11 children (10 who reached adulthood).  We have my grandfather, Charlie Martin, my father Robert Marti

 Hello all, This last week, Tony and I juggled our schedule a bit and went on a little getaway up in the hills, not that far from home, but mentally it felt like miles and miles away.  We wanted some time to reflect, reconnect and get some writing and planning done.  The area was called “Wallaby Ridge”, and it couldn’t have been more appropriately named. In fact, when our host went away (as he frequently did, since it’s off season and visitors like us were rare), wallabies were our only companions. And they are nice to have around, really. As you probably know, wallabies are like kangaroos, just smaller. They’re cute, and love to nibble on the succulents next to our window. But I wouldn’t call them great pets. Even when they look your way, they never focus on you, but seem to be gazing at something far off in the distance, and certainly not at you. One morning while trying to make friends with a mob of wallabies in the flower bed, I commented to myself, “I might as well be all alone.”

There was a time in our lives when I seemed to be on a daily conversational dare I say?  con-spiritual level with God.  We'd been experiencing a lot of 'hands on' live action things with the Holy Spirit, and I may have even begun to think that we were God's little favourites. One day in Japan I was driving down a narrow one-way street.  It was a quick 'short cut' from one major thoroughfare in our little city of a million people to another that only the locals knew about. Now when I say "narrow" you have to remember this is Japan, and by narrow, we mean one way, with probably three feet on either side of the car.  All the little mom and pop shops opened out onto this street, leaving only a thin walking area.  If you put your arm out, it could be knocked off by the line of aggressively approaching short cutting cars. Then I saw him.  He was walking as if he were a staggering drunk.  As I eased as much away from him as I dared, I heard in my mind a loud,

Hello Fellow Pilgrims,   I mentioned a few weeks ago about a friend (more like an acquaintance) who died in his sleep. He was our electrician, but more than that was a powerful preacher, church leader, musician, you name it. He was 42 ...... six months younger than my son, so maybe that's why I took it so hard.   Last Sunday, we visited the church where he had been a leader, and there was his whole family, come down from the Northern Territory and taking up the first three rows in the auditorium. The funeral had been the day before.     After a moving service, I found myself in the foyer of the church and was introduced to Nathan's mother (yes, he shared the same name as my son, just to make it more poignant). I started to say something and found myself crying.  For you who know me, you know that I don't easily cry, but this time I just had no words. She is an Aboriginal woman and her culture found no problem bundling me up in her bosom and patting me on the back.   I tried