Marsha's Blog

 Good Morning Friends, Here we sit 'between the holidays'. If you're like me, you've had plenty of opportunity to (over)indulge yourselves with both love and food over Christmas. So many Kodak moments.... By the way, does that communicate with you younger folks out there? Back in the Dark Ages, when pictures came from a thing called ‘film’, there was a company (Kodak) that wanted you to buy and expose as much film as possible. So they encouraged us to see everything in life as something significant, deserving of a picture … a ‘Kodak moment’. I want to hesitate on that thought for just a second, and then illustrate it through the life of an amazing woman who learned that Kodak moments don’t require anything out of the ordinary; that you can achieve what God intended for you to be “Just As You Are”. It’s in times like these, ‘between the holidays’ that Tony and I are always tempted to think maybe we’re being a little too lazy.  The ministries that so wonderfully take up o...

Last week I talked about the “Oranges in the Stockings”, and those simple joys of small gifts on Christmas morning.   Christmas stockings go way back in both the Woods and Smith family traditions. For us, it was a way to postpone the feeding frenzy of opening presents until after breakfast. In my Smith family growing up, we had stockings, a proper hot nourishing breakfast with clean up, and then, and only then, we’d push on to the real business of presents. But that’s another story, maybe best for the shrink. For many years Tony & I played the game of gathering and hiding “stocking stuffers” all thru the year, then finding a way to sneak them into their appointed places on Christmas Eve. Now that the children have grown and gone, the mantle of responsibility has gone along with them, and we love hearing the stories of how they have produced the magic in their own homes. Without giving it much thought, we always ended up, after placing the small gifts inside the stocking, r...

 Good Morning All, As the ‘lead up’ to Christmas is in full swing, just like most of you, I’m wondering what to get for so-in-so ………. trying to think of what they’d really like. I’m beginning to think teen grandkids are the hardest of the lot.   Thinking about this, I had a flashback to my daughter’s first Christmas with us.  God led us to her in a lovely Russian orphanage, 3 years old and beyond the age of government support, but with nowhere to go.  She’d been treated well, but as we got to know her, we realised that there had been some ‘scarcities’.  Thankfully they were only material things, like food and clothing; it was obvious that she was much loved, but still she’d had been experiencing an austere life.   Finally arriving at her new home in Japan, we geared up for Christmas – the first one for 3-year-old Nicki. When Christmas morning arrived, she was absolutely delighted to find the mandarin orange in the top of her stocking.  (I’ll ...

 Dear friends,  Well, we all got thru our Thanksgiving season and I'm guessing that now you're thinking about Christmas! Tony got our Christmas lights up a week early this year, strictly against tradition, but he claimed his authority as Patriarch. But rather than pontificate about Christmas just yet, I'm going to pass this little ditty along just in case you haven’t come across the story and might like to spread some 'Good News' around.  Please enjoy.    It’s the story of a candy maker in Indiana who wanted to make something that would help us remember Who Christmas is really about.  The result was a Christmas Candy Cane.  He incorporated several symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. It goes like this: He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy. White to symbolise the virgin birth and sinless nature of Jesus.  Hard candy to symbolise the solid rock, the foundation of the Church, and firmness of the promises of God. He t...

Happy Thanksgiving!   I hope your experience this past week was at least as emotionally and spiritually satisfying as ours. Let me tell you about it:  We came to Australia from Japan nearly 30 years ago.  I remember my initial culture shock at finding that this was definitely “Not” America.  America was founded, at least partially, by people deeply religious and wanting to build a place where they could live out their faith with a freedom they didn’t currently have.  The first European settlers to Australia, on the other hand, were for the most part convicts who would probably have preferred to be anywhere BUT here.  But the years have passed, and now I think both Americans and Australians can point to a God-blessed heritage. We share a similar history in that the indigenous people provided help to those first poor settlers whose ignorance would have proved tragic had it not been for their help. The Pilgrims had no idea how severe the winters could be,...

  Good Morning! It’s Spring here Down Under, and that’s prompted Tony and me to undertake “Operation Garage Cleanout”. Honestly, I can’t say that the place looks much cleaner today, but I’m standing here with both armfuls of great stuff I found in the clutter! A lot of it looks like good blog ideas, so watch out. As missionaries over the years, we’ve had to periodically either move out of places or else organize and pack everything for safekeeping until we could come back from short-term or Stateside assignments. For that reason, it’s been a little traumatic to look in our garage and realize some things out there haven’t been moved in over 10 years!  So one of the “tear-inducing” treasures I found was a little plaque. It’s made of stone with a poem printed on it and covered in decoupage. We picked it up 33 years ago while on a “grief trip” after Trevor died. This is not uncommon for people who’ve had a long “sick journey” with a loved one and need to take some time to rest....

I remember back in 1985 I was having a hard day.  I remember now because this week, I came across a handwritten note that I have kept all these years. It said, (in Japanese, if that matters),  “Marsha Sensei, I have loved what you have been teaching me about Jesus. My husband was transferred and we’re moving away today. I will never forget you, Mariko.” That’s all it said.  I found it in my letterbox, no return address, nothing. The reason I was feeling down was because I had no way of contacting her. I almost felt that she’d orchestrated it that way for a reason and it made me sad. Japanese, as a whole, are very non-confrontational, even concerning their own destinies, and it hurt to see her go.  I couldn’t chase her down and realizing time was short, cram the Gospel into her. But while I was musing, the doorbell rang and I had a package. It was from a friend back in the States. Let me tell you about her.  We grew up together in a small Colorado town.  She...

Thank you all for your kind comments on last week’s blog.  I promised you this week a “non-maudlin” post. My sister looked up the word, “maudlin”, and took great delight in reminding me that it describes a kind of “drunken self-pity”. That’s not exactly what MY dictionary said, but I’ll do my best to cheer up anyway.  Somewhere in one of our “memory boxes” in the garage, I believe we still have a cassette tape (remember those?) labelled “Angles”. We laughed about the person who couldn’t spell “Angels”, but the laughing always turned to awe when we listened to it. And we listened to it often. Apparently, it was taped when 4 or 5 missionary men got together to pray.  This particular time, they were especially low, as missionaries sometimes get when there’s no visible harvest. Finally they decided, after much prayer, that perhaps singing would lift their spirits.  Someone pushed ‘record’ on the player, and they began to sing. Later, they discovered that what was recorde...

 It’s been one of those weeks, busy and happy, but yet another funeral.  That makes two in the last week.  Godly men, age appropriate but still leaving you thinking, “Hey! What’s going on??”   While these things were going on, another dear friend miscarried, and a school acquaintance of my teenaged grandchild was killed on his e-bike. All this just reminds me again of the hope of Heaven, and wondering how anyone could bear them without that assurance.  I wanted to share a memory of Tony’s dad’s home going.  It was many years ago now, 2012.  A lot of you remember him.  He loved the Lord, he loved his wife, Jody,  and every day he made an effort to love living, and keep serving. We were in Europe when the call came that he was having bypass surgery.  We were due to be home in a couple of weeks anyway, but we changed plans and flew home to be by his side as he ‘recovered’. The operation seemed to go well, although we were not aware tha...

It’s been an interesting week.  I had cataract #1 removed last Monday and I confess: all of you who told me it would be a “walk in the park” were right. It was just that!  So I’m really thankful for your prayers. I go in tomorrow for the other eye, so you can keep praying, please!   In other news, our kids have been remodelling their house.  Since we live nearby, we suggested that they move into our place. We were planning to do some traveling anyway, so they could have full run of the place.  I think they enjoyed themselves.  When we got home, work was still going on, so we got an Airbnb nearby.  Easier to shift two people than a family of five. After ten days of that, however, we all agreed that it was time to come home. This made for four adults, three kids, a dog and a bird, but we all squeezed up a bit and survived nicely.  By yesterday, work on their house was still not finished, and while we protested meekly, they decided to go back ho...

 Good Morning,   Last week I wrote about my Daddy’s favourite song, “Jesus loves me” and I want to thank all of you who responded.  One of my readers even researched and found out that Karl Bart (famous theologian) also responded to the question, “What is the greatest theological tenet?” by responding like Daddy, “Jesus loves me, this I know”. It’s been a hard week emotionally.  We’ve had to say goodbye to three friends, all our age or older, so we shouldn’t be overly shocked. But still …… I can’t help but feel like the teenager who thinks he’s invincible, then coming back to the grateful heart that reminds me that “invincibility” for a child of God calls for a change of venue one of these days.  So today I’m just enjoying the life I have here and resting in the assurance that it’s just going to get better. Gratefully, all three of these friends were faithful giants, so there’s no need to be sad. But it’s still, well, just sad.  But my punk has been li...

 Good Morning, This morning in church we sang an old song.  In fact, without doing a lot of research, I’m going to say it’s VERY old…….. and every one of you could sing along. A vivid memory I have is seeing Daddy standing in the middle of the living room. At that point he was getting old and a little bit ‘off’ from time to time.  But he had always been rather quiet, and so when he spoke, people listened. Today was no exception. He got our attention, and with some pause he announced. “I’ve been thinking………. and I’ve decided that all I know about God is summed up in this one verse, “Jesus Loves Me This I Know’”.  And with that, just a little while later, he passed away peacefully, with that assurance on his lips and in his heart. Let me tell you another story related to that simple but powerful song.  Tony and I were short term missionaries in Zambia, as I mentioned last week.  Our ‘main’ job was to establish a student ministry there in our town of Luanshya....

 Good Morning All, I promised you something less 'compelling' from the last couple of weeks, so here you are.  Maybe it will elicit a (holy, of course) smile. When we lived in Africa about a hundred years ago, we were in our 20’s, and so were classified by the Mission board as “youth workers”, sent off we went into the wild unknown. Being young ourselves, we had the energy to be full on with all the kids.   There was one particularly happy group we love to visit at the school where we were also teachers.  If you’ve ever been to Africa, you'll know these people can SING, most often without the benefit of instruments! We always looked forward to sitting in on many rehearsals for the “Mufilira Gentlemen’s Most Excellent Choir”.  Fancy names, but believe me, it fit these young men. They were excellent, no contest there. We used to giggle to ourselves over their minor mistakes in English, until we realized that they were speaking in their third or fourth languag...

 Morning Folks,  Maybe it’s our encroaching age, but it seems that more and more of our friends are beginning to leave us, some with a chance to say goodbye and some not, all on their way to “graduation” and their heavenly reward.  This week was no exception.  A dear friend, one whose love and kindness got us through our “seminary/first pastorate/new baby” days passed on.  It hit me hard because we had no idea it was coming so soon, her being just a few years older than me. We sometimes fall victim to a common sense but theologically weak assumption that, based on all the good she did, she of all people should have enjoyed a ripe old age surrounded by friends and family.  But in the words of a Catholic nun friend of mine as we sat around language school in Tokyo so many years ago and I was verbally worrying about the earthquakes that seemed to be a weekly event.  She said rather angelically,  “Let us not forget we’re all in His hands”.  Oh ye...

 Good Morning All,  I promised you something less 'compelling' from the last couple of weeks, so here you are.  Maybe it will elicit a (holy, of course) smile.  When we lived in Africa about a hundred years ago, we were in our 20’s, and so were classified by the Mission board as “youth workers”, sent off we went into the wild unknown. Being young ourselves, we had the energy to be full on with all the kids.    There was one particularly happy group we love to visit at the school where we were also teachers.  If you’ve ever been to Africa, you'll know these people can SING, most often without the benefit of instruments!  We always looked forward to sitting in on many rehearsals for the “Mufilira Gentleman’s Most Excellent Choir”.  Fancy names, but believe me, it fit these young men. They were excellent, no contest there.  We used to giggle to ourselves over their minor mistakes in English, until we realized that they were speaking in...

 Good Morning Friends, Thank you all so much for your comments last week.  My sister even got the song I'd mentioned and enjoyed the memories.  She said our mother used to sing this song, but I didn't remember that. Anyway, on the theme of the hard times we all seem to be facing in America as well as the world, I'd like to add another comment this week.  Then I promise (I hope) I'll move on to happier thoughts. Let me take you back 10 or 15 years ago to a place in New Zealand.  I forgot where it was, but the evening was unforgettable.   Being typical tourists, we booked to attend a "Hangi", which is a traditional meal of the original people of New Zealand, the Maoris. It was a lovely evening of song and dance, tongue wagging and grimaces, all reminiscent of their ancient culture.  Then they served a feast that had been buried in a pit and cooked to perfection (the Hangi itself). As the evening was closing up, one of the Maori leaders got up and ta...

 Well, This has been a week.    We're fine ....... but the news from the States is certainly enough to upset anyone.  On the same day as the September 11th Twin Tower attack way back in 2001, a hero of the faith, Charlie Kirk was martyred.    I don't remember much about my mother's funeral because I was only 14.  I do know she suffered immensely for many years, a victim of cancer and the inept therapies of the 60's.  I'm pretty sure there were very few deep theological insights gained as I prayed and prayed for her recovery. Looking back, I think those prayers were most likely selfish, having to do with my own happiness. But I do remember the words to a song they played at her service.  I hadn't heard it before and probably almost never since that day.    Here are the lyrics.  Maybe some of you will remember the tune.                        ...

 I had an interesting experience this morning.  I won’t say I’m getting senile but……. So I usually lay awake for a while before I actually get up, just to give my ageing bones a chance to get used to the idea. This morning, I couldn’t see the clock but knew it was ‘about that time’ and found myself wondering why Tony was so out of it, still so happily sound asleep. I began to feel panicky.  “He’s preaching today, so he’s usually up and at em before the chickens next door start trash braggin about their accomplishments. What’s gotten into him?  In fact I need to get cracking too, there’s so much to do. It’s even Father’s Day today (Australia); we ladies usually spruce up the snacks a bit, the kids are coming over after church ….. for LUNCH!   “GET UP!” I yelled in my mind.  And then………. something twigged.  “Wait a minute! This is SATURDAY!”  There’s a great Children’s poet by the name of Shel Silverstein, and in his book, “Where the Sidewalk E...

 Hello Again,   I usually don’t like to quote from Facebook, much less recommend it, but today I’m going to do both.   I posted the following on my own FB site and was surprised at the comments that came back. It seems the message here really hits the nail on the head. What do you think? "A Harvard Study of 724 couples Who Made It Past 30 Years Revealed Something Surprising: “It wasn’t love, s*x, or kids that kept them together. It was the ability to tolerate the same things in each other – over and over again. The couples who divorced thought, “This habit drives me crazy, but I can fix it.’ The ones who stayed? ‘This is who they are. They’re not changing.’ Long marriages rarely resolve every conflict. That’s a myth.  Couples who lasted 30+ years didn’t dig into every hurt feeling. They learned to let go. Not suppress – release. ‘You forgot again,’ ‘You said the wrong thing again’ – short-term couples turn that into a fight. Long-term couples let it slide. ...

 Conversation opened. 1 read message. I had an interesting experience this week, as are true of most of my weeks. In Bible study last night, we were shown a video about the insidious influence of Artificial intelligence.  (Or “AI” if you’re cluey). It was both interesting and frightening to learn how computers might just be taking over our thinking. Based on that, I decided to read my Bible from the actual BIBLE this morning instead of my phone……….I occasionally checked my phone as I read, and it seemed to be hanging in there with the Word correctly, so maybe my Bible program hasn’t been taken over…..yet. But something unexpected happened.  Reading my physical Bible gave me access to years and years of ‘notes’ I’d written in the margins.   And what should I happen across this morning was a little note, with a name, and the verse, 2 Corinthians 5:7.  Most of you will know it without even looking it up.  It says,  “We walk by faith, not by sight”. I...

 This morning I’d like to think with you about the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well.  It’s in John, chapter 4:4-42.   We all know the story; Jesus is at the well resting while His disciples go into town to find food. It’s high noon and hot. When the woman approaches the well to draw water, He speaks to her and asks for a drink. Obviously, she’s avoiding others by coming at such an inconvenient time. She’s surprised that he’d even speak to her since she’s a Samaritan, but nevertheless they talk back and forth and he tells her about the 5 husbands she’s had and then goes on to mention that the one she has now that she’s not even married to.   Obviously, after all that, she pegs him as a prophet, and they continue talking……..  until she says in verse 25, “I know that Messiah, the Christ, is coming.  And when He comes, He will explain everything to us”.   And then Jesus says, (I like to think it was in a quiet convers...

 So some people collect stamps; I like to collect words. No one’s ever accused me of being ‘smart’ but sometimes I like to be a “smart aleck” and throw out a word in casual conversation that not many of my cohorts will immediately understand. It’s fun to watch their reactions, like, “Oh! You mean THAT fogdog!” or else, “I think I knew that …” Today’s word is “Chimera”. If you already know what that means, there went my fun for today. You can skip ahead to the application. “Chimera” is a noun that describes something wished for but is either illusory or impossible to achieve. Lately I’ve been painfully aware of two chimeras in my life. One comes to mind when I’m looking back; the other when I’m looking ahead.   Not that I’m counting, but I believe I’ve spent about 80% of my adult life on a diet, on that never-ending search for the perfect body. Now time is teaming up with my best intentions, bringing me one more step toward accepting this as the chimera it is. I’m bracing ...

 It was the early days of our time in Japan … those days when my emotions ran from mountaintops of wonder to those low places when, if I could have FOUND the airport, I would have been on a plane headed for what I still considered “Home”. Most of my frustrations circled around the Japanese language, and my lack of it. Why, WHY wouldn’t these people just stop blabbering gibberish and start speaking English?!? And then, when I began to dare that I was indeed starting to pick up what a 17th century Franciscan monk called “The Devil’s Language”, reality would blindside me like it did on that Sunday morning. The ladies were talking at great length about … well about SOMETHING. There was a lot of smiling and pointing to the Bible, so I surmised we were giving our testimonies. “Got it!” I thought to myself. I had prepared one in language school and it was in my purse, just waiting for this moment. Sure enough, one of the ladies turned to me and asked sweetly, “Ikaga desu ka?” “What do you...

 G’day Fellow Travellers, I think many of you might be on Facebook and so noticed the picture I took out the back of our house the other day… seven of the most majestic English-originated Red Deer you ever saw.   It’s a bit of a mystery how they got there, since they are not native to Australia and DEFINITELY not welcome among the country’s flora and fauna. It’s believed they were introduced some time back by a wealthy entrepreneur with plans to start up a new industry. Nobody is saying for sure, but the only thing that can be said is that the deer love it here! I know that the many of you living in Texas and those parts look at deer and think either “menace” or “venison” and perhaps both in the same sentence.  Fortunately for these folks here, although they’re listed as ‘feral’, as they are, everyone treats them like family pets.  Yes, they eat our flowers, but according to the layout of the floodplain we live on, they really can’t get into the traffic, so we a...

 Hello Friends, This week we were in a relatively unknown grocery store just to pick up some last-minute something. It wasn’t one of the “chain” supermarkets we usually go to, so we were interested to see all the different products they had for sale.  Coming around a corner, I came face-to-face with a box of Twinkies! Are they still around in your neck of the woods? For myself, I don’t think I’ve seen one outside of America … ever. Unfortunately, as an imported specialty, they were about $1.50 a twink, so it wasn’t hard to pass them up. But it made me remember a story from long ago. Tony was sitting in a Japanese pastor’s meeting. On either side of him were seated the much “halo"-ed older missionary who’d been in Japan more than 30 years. When I think about it, I believe he was probably more “Japanese” than some of the actual Japanese there. Sitting next to him was a fairly new missionary, just learning the ropes and trying to keep his head above water. As the snacks were pass...

 If I were reading “Pilgrim’s Progress”, I’d think I had slipped into a “Slough of Despond” … at least if my blogs lately are any indicator. So today I’m slapping on the happy face! (Ouch! That hurt!) Here comes a happy note from a happy Marsha. Okay, so there’s a sad part as well, but bear with me. One of my heroes died this week. This calls for a huge flashback ….. fasten your seatbelts! The year was 1977.  We arrived in Monrovia, Liberia to be Dormitory Parents to our missionary kids there so they could attend high school in the capital city. The posting was a spur-of-the-moment decision, made by our mission because our visas to go to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where Tony’s parents were missionaries, had been denied.  That in itself is a loooong story, but you’ll have to buy the book for that one. Anyway, we arrived to the fresh gleaming faces of 5 beautiful kids.  We found out much much later that they’d hidden the fact that they’d been at the dorm without supervis...