Marsha's Blog

 Dear Friends, Well, what a week it’s been!  Looking at my calendar, I see that last week we were trying to get out of Turkey.  This week, between that “Crowdstrike” thing along with a lousy airline, we were stranded over night in the terminal, spent an exorbitant amount of money on the last room in the only hotel within driving distance, then while waiting for a new flight, spent that much money again on hot drinks in order to keep a seat in a coffee shop rather than face the chaos out on the terminal floor. But we did finally manage to get to Paris. We had wanted to celebrate our 55th anniversary in Paris, but my sweet daughter pointed out that August 1st would be smack in the middle of the Olympics, so we tried for the week before. We did find the nostalgic hotel we’d stayed in 35 years ago, and had a lovely time walking around all the ‘happy places’ that we love, even though most of them were cordoned off due to Olympic stuff going on.  We saw enough, and then cu...

 Dear Faithful Followers, Well, we finished the “Revelation Tour of the 7 churches” It was definitely a highlight of our life, but not for the timid or unsteady (as we were frequently).  Every day was over 100 degrees and ruins have a funny habit of being dry, dusty and out under the open blazing sky. We had such a fun (and young) group and we all came away with a deep appreciation of each other’s life journeys as well as of Paul and all those other church fathers, who didn’t have big air conditioned buses!  So if you’re reading this, we have made it safely out of Turkey even though all thru the week they were experiencing a lot of forest fires, with the smoke closing the airport, and making all kinds of inconveniences! But as we continue………. So another unbelievable affirmation I had from God was in the form of making a comment about someone’s jacket We were still in Cardiff, at the church we mentioned before.  Like I said, we were in a funk emotionally (homesick) an...

 Good Morning Fellow Travellers, As you’re reading this, we should be in Turkey, getting ready for a “Tour of the 7 churches of Revelation”. We’re excited about this, especially since Tony just loves reading, teaching and preaching from this book. We’ve been trying to fit this tour in for years, and the opportunity came recently to not only join a tour, but also to accept a discount and help lead it. I’ve been making a little list of things that have greatly encouraged us in our faith lately, and I’ll be sharing a couple of stand outs over the next several weeks.  Things where God has really spoke to my heart. First was in Wales recently.  We stayed with a couple that we have met (him) in Australia a few months ago.  He said we should come and visit him and his church, so we did.   We spent a lovely evening with them, he even presented us with a beautiful and authentic curry. The next morning we got up and were just chatting with the guy as he cooked breakf...

 Well, we’ve had a better week. My sis is home on oxygen, slowly recovering from double pneumonia.  Fortunately, she has a helping husband and lots of friends.  In the middle of all that, our friend in Japan I mentioned last week is starting chemotherapy soon, and Tony and I are looking into the possibility of diverting our trip and popping over to see him. Son Nathan is recovering as well.   So this last week found us in some interesting countries, including Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Sweden. We were especially cheered up by visiting Nathan’s high school roommate from Japan who lives and works in Estonia.  He gave us a lovely tour of the town of Tallin, a beautiful place.   Each of the other cities offered their own different charm and interesting history. But the one we found most ‘inspiring’ has prompted me to share this story with you from Sweden. So, there was this guy in 1496. He was born a Viking, and he was a really tough guy.  I...