Marsha's Blog

Well, I’m happy to say that as of this morning, we are well and truly HOME.  Thankfully, it was a non-eventful (albeit three flights and 20+ hours) home. We decided to go straight to a hotel and sleep for about 24 hours before seeing the kids. That made it easier for our German friends as well, since that gave them one more day to pack before moving out of our house and starting on their own incredible journey back to their homeland. So I want to tell you about a story that is still in the process of unfolding, that I was privileged to hear in Hong Kong. It was a fantastic weekend at the International Baptist Church there, with Tony. Leading a discipleship seminar on Saturday and preaching on Sunday, followed by a visit to a high-end Chinese restaurant and enough yum cha to feed the whole city, compliments of our wonderful friends at IBC. We rejoiced with them that we’ve been in and out of their lives for almost 30 years!  Wow. Besides the familiar faces, one of the first I noticed was

 Good Morning World! As you’re reading this, it’s Sunday night here in Hong Kong and Tony and I, if we’re even back to our room, will be dragging in the last few steps of our 4 month trip.  Tomorrow, we fly a circuitous trip HOME, transiting thru Singapore and Melbourne, but then we’ll be HOME!!   I want to share something with you we learned on our Tour of the Revelation Churches back in July. Remember the 7 churches?   I think the one that sticks in most of our memories is the church at Laodicia.  And why you ask?  Do you remember? That’s the church that God reprimanded for being “lukewarm”.  He says in Revelation 3:15, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!”  But one thing I never realised here, is that God is not saying, “Be Hot for Me”, or “Be Cold for Me” but He’s saying “Don’t be watered down with other things so that you’re not hot or cold”. Hot is Hot and Cold is Cold.   That is the situation we saw there in the ancient

 Hello Fellow Travellers, First of all, please let me apologize for accidentally (possibly) sending you not one but TWO old blogs yesterday.  I was doing some ‘cleaning up’ on my laptop and must have pushed the wrong button.  It’s probably good that I can remain humble when it comes to technology. Anyway, this last week, we were able to get away from Europe. When we stepped off the plane in Thailand, we certainly breathed a sigh of relief, the humidity, the sounds and smells, all of it suggested “home”.  Europe had worn us out.  The crawl onto the plane thru the crowds in the Amsterdam airport had taken over 4 hours, just to get to the gate!  Needless to say, it was exhausting. Settling into Bangkok, we began to relax.  We saw old friends, Tony visited his favourite hospital for X-rays and consults to find that his knee is ‘on course’, recovering well, even though it’s still sore. I went for a “Thai massage” which to those of you who know, is like a round in the ring.  I haven’t had on

 So would you believe this blog is now coming to you from our old stomping grounds in Bangkok, Thailand??  For those of you who have commented that we’ve been on the road for entirely too long, you’ll be happy to hear that we’ve come around the back stretch (with a sigh of relief to be out of crazy Europe) and will be back where we belong in Australia in just over three weeks! It has been, I admit,  a rather gruelling time, mixed with wonderful family visits, ministry opportunities and just plain tourist stuff, but each time we set out on something like this, we’re driven by two motivations: first, we want to pack all we can into this time and money investment, and second, each time we say to ourselves, our advancing age is going to put a stop to all this pretty soon. I think maybe that second motivation is rearing its head lately. Maybe it’s just that Tony is recovering from knee surgery, but I suspect that’s more to it this time. Traveling has been HARD; and right now all I can think