Marsha's Blog

  Good Morning Fellow Travellers, I’d be fooling myself if I said it’s been a stellar week. My sister’s in the hospital, (although I think she’ll be released today or tomorrow),  our best friend in Japan has a grave illness.  To add to that, an old saintly missionary friend just went to glory. Face it, we’re a little homesick.  I often think of the words of my favourite poet, Robert Frost, who said in one of his famous poems, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep …... and miles to go before I sleep.” As much ‘fun’ as it is to travel, sometimes the thought of our own bed and loved ones around me has certainly been a draw. Someone commented this last week, “I love to hear you complain so creatively.” I thought it fit the ticket pretty well. But we don’t need to complain.  We’re on this journey just like any of the rest of you. Yes, you say, we’re on a cruise, but it’s still lonely and far from home.  I am thankful that I don’t have...

 Greetings, we’ve arrived in London, taken in some of the sights, met up with old friends and hopefully, as you’re reading this, are in Cardiff, Wales.  We will be staying with a nice guy we met in our Australian church who said, “You should come see me!”  and so we did!  Better be careful about throwing around invites. And then next Tuesday, we’re boarding yet another cruise, this one not as luxurious, that gets us around the Baltic and gives us a chance to see some cities and friends that have been left unattended by us.    But on this last cruise, I decided, “When I grow up, I want to be a luminary!"  If you're like me, you don't even know what that means, so let me 'enlighten' you. Webster says a 'luminary' is a person who inspires or influences others, especially one prominent in a particular sphere." So there you are, I'm sure I'm speaking to a large group of 'luminaries' now. This cruise, in its aspiration of being a 'high en...

 Tony and I were reading our favourite devotional author, Oswald Chambers, and on May 30th, he says, (based on Luke 9:61), “Lord I will follow thee; but……). Oswald’s poses the question, “Supposing God tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense …… what are you going to do?” We had to stop and think.  We haven’t  EVER thought we did something on the Lord's instructions that was contrary to common sense, but we laughed when we agreed that a lot of you might agree that THIS trip might be just that.  I’ll have to say that we’ve had a fair few ‘adventures’ lately that might have been avoided by us staying home. But again, we feel the warmth of His Hand, guiding us thru the days. But then, as we continued talking, we remembered an escapade what might be called “against all reason”.  In 1977 we went to Africa a second time, after leaving Zambia in 1975. It may have been against ‘common sense’ but I don’t think it ever felt that way to us....

 Hi Ya’ll, I’m writing this from our cruise ship.  This has certainly been a very long cruise, as this is our third Sunday. Sadly, until yesterday I had not even met one Christian on board.  We crossed the Atlantic with only 1/3 of the guests they can accommodate, which was nice, but since the Canary Islands, we’ve been almost at capacity.  I met the Christian as we were touring a mosque in Casa Blanca, Morocco.  The guide said this mosque allows “non Muslim’s”, otherwise known to them as ‘infidels” to come inside, but we aren’t allowed to PRAYi The lady next to me said, more or less under her breath and in a Southern drawl, “I’d like to see them try to stop me!” And I grabbed her arm and said, “Finally I find a Christian!”  Fun to find like minds. But what I need you to do today is PRAY.  The guide told us, as we were passing stock yards full of bleating sheep, that tomorrow (Monday) is the annual feast of Abraham. Yes, we share a common Jewish father...

Greetings From the Middle of Nowhere, If you’re reading this, we are still afloat, somewhere in the eastern   side of the Atlantic. (during hurricane season, I might add). When and if this goes out, we will have been at sea for eight days. With any luck, in a couple of days Tony and I will be snorkelling in St John.  Everyone says it’s beautiful, but have they seen the Great Barrier Reef?  Who knows, I’ll let you know. There is a little codicil that you need to be able to swim, which may be a challenge for me, but hopefully…… But thinking about things nautical reminded me of an old story that came from Buddy, Tony’s Dad.  You probably know that his folks lived many years in Taiwan and so beach combing was a favourite pastime. In fact, many of the missionaries there enjoyed this exciting hobby.  As proof of their success, several families displayed the old glass balls that were used in fishing nets. They’re obviously very old, since nowadays everyone uses pl...

  Awhile back, I mentioned that we didn’t feel that we had ever experienced ‘Self Sacrifice’.  The Sunday school lesson in a little church we visited a couple of weeks ago talked about the Blessing of Giving.  As I sat there listening, I really was convicted that, not only had we not sacrificed for the Kingdom, but I wondered if we’ve even given enough over the years.   In reply, Tony offered a comment from the “History of the Bible” course he’s been teaching in Hawaii. It was about a guy named Polycarp, and his attitude is one we might take to heart. Rather than try to paraphrase the story, let me just give it to you as it was written, which I believe was a quote from another source:   “Warned that his arrest was impending, elderly Bishop Polycarp left his home in Smyrna and hid in a farmhouse. Smyrnans had recently executed several Christians for their faith, and now a mob was demanding the bishop’s life. “Kill the church leader,” they reasoned, “and h...