Marsha's Blog

Hello from a different spot on the globe!  We finally made it to Hawaii!  I don't know if it's age or circumstance, but we seemed to have more dramas than usual.  Maybe it’s post CoVid but it seems that every plane these days is now jam packed. Since we fly standby, we were thankful to get the last two seats on the flight we wanted, but we were separated from each other back in the “hang onto the wing”section. Fortunately, a nice Japanese man was willing to juggle around seats so that Tony could be the one shoved up against me.  Our two pieces of luggage took two entirely different routes, but again, fortunately, they managed to arrive together in Honolulu about the same time we did. And best of all, we were met by our dear friends, Bob and Gail who took us to their place for a couple of days of recovery before getting to work. Things kick off tomorrow morning with a chance to preach at a nearby church. Technically they’re Chinese, but they speak English so that’s a ...

Hello All,    Thank you for putting up with me lately.  We are still moving.  It’s been a crazy week, but Lord willing, we’ll jet over to Hawaii on this Wednesday and you’ll hear from me next week from our new challenge; Tony teaching seminary for one term! We are excited, to say the least, as well as happy to finally have resolution on our house dramas.  The couple I mentioned last week are moving in as we speak.  I think it’s going to all come together. Speaking of God’s Providence, and things ‘coming together,’ let me share this story that I’ve come across.  If you ever wonder about circumstances, grab a comfortable chair and have a look at this story.  You’ll be, as I have, amazed.  I’ll tell you a more personal story following these lines next week. In 1921 David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa, to what was then called the Belgian Congo. This missionary couple met up with the Ericksons, ...

Good Morning Fellow Travellers, I heard a compelling discussion about that line in the Lord's Prayer the other day.   It says "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". I wonder how many times we've mumbled along, saying the Lord's Prayer corporately but never giving it a second thought.  The leader of this particular discussion directed our thoughts to Romans 4:4 "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. (ESV) And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”  And then he skips ahead to verse 8 where it says, "Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin". I think perhaps it's a bit 'timely' that this thinking about forgiveness is in my mind this week. We have rented out our house for the last 18 months as we've been travelling out of Australia. Now the 'day of reckoning' has come and we're...

I heard about a fella whose wife had taken a nasty fall and hurt her leg. Her husband called for an ambulance, and said, "My wife's been in an accident and I think she needs you to come take her to the hospital." "Yes, of course, Sir,” the dispatcher said. "What is your address?" "47 Eucalyptus Ave", he said with confidence. "Ok, could you please spell that?" the dispatcher asked. The husband paused, then offered, “Tell you what; I'll drag her over to Oak Street, and you can pick her up there." I’m not sure if that story relates to the dream I had last week, but I’ll let you be the judge: In my dream, my son had suffered some sort of accident at a house where we were staying. It wasn't terribly serious, but no one was available to help, To make matters worse, when I tried to call for help, I saw that my grandson was on the phone with the ambulance people. And like the guy who couldn't spell, my grandson was not exactly c...

Two things happened this last week that left me thinking about some 'end of life' issues. The first one was the news that went worldwide about the tragic loss of the Titanic visitors. I’m not sure, but I think I felt a sigh of relief over the news that the 'catastrophic loss of pressure' most likely resulted in instant death. The other event was me falling off a Segway.  Let me explain:   We were on our little 'vacay', as the young people here call it, to Fraser Island. Things were going a bit slow, since Nathan was sick, so for a treat, Kylie (Daughter in Love) and I decided to sneak off and have a go on a Segway tour.  Neither of us had ever done it and so she was keen and I was terrified. After all, I'm 73 and moderately out of shape. We got there, put on our helmets, and accepted a little help "boarding' the wiggling wobbling little platform.  From there, the leader showed us how to lean forward to accelerate.  She told us that if we leaned back...