Marsha's Blog

 Many years ago in Japan, Tony used to minister to a group of young men in what was called a "bed school".  He had about 10 guys who he met with every week.  They were young adults who loved talking to foreigners about so many things, including Christ.   This “bed school”, as it was called, was built for the sole purpose of housing and caring for people who had been diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy.  A little research will remind you that Muscular Dystrophy is mostly in the male population as well as being genetic and incurable even to this day.   Of course, they were wheelchair bound adults by the time Tony met them, but most of them had come into the facility when they were four or five years old.  Thankfully, now attitudes are changing in Japan, but in the last generation of so, any physical “abnormality” was not acceptable to society as a whole. To have just about any physical or mental defect meant that you were separated from public li...

 Good morning, Thanks for all your prayers and concerns from the last couple of weeks. I'm happy to announce that both Tony and I are MUCH recovered, both physically and emotionally. So today I want to talk about BLT sandwiches.  Yes, you heard right.  My son told us that his 15-yr-old came bounding in from school all excited. "Dad, I just discovered this amazing sandwich. It’s toast with slices of bacon, lettuce and tomato, and man, I think I could eat it 4 or 5 times a day!!" "Yes", my son said, "that's called a 'BLT' and it’s been around for generations."  Trying not to look too deflated that he hadn't 'discovered' it, he rolled his eyes and left the room. Now let me tell you what we've been doing in one of our Bible studies.  We have a new teacher (not Tony) and the other evening he had us all do a 'quiz' about the New Testament character known as “Barnabas". We've all heard about him, but how well did w...

 I think I have a problem. This morning as I checked the news, I got an alert to urgently pray for the missionary staff of a hospital located in the Goma and Northern Kivu region.  If you google that on a map, it's located in the "democratic" Republic of the Congo, (DRC) on the far eastern side near Uganda and Rwanda.  They're having a war, and the hospital has been cut off from everything, in a very dangerous situation.   It's sorta complicated, but let me try to explain my feelings here.  Tony and I spent about 15 hours trapped in an airport in Kinshasa with a 2-yr-old back in 1977.  The officials had 'confiscated' our passports.  They'd also (just for fun) locked the toilets, so we were 'stuck' in several ways.  We had a lot of time to pray.  Tony had been in the Congo a few years before and due to corrupt border guards was forced to buy the entire group a beer to get his car (and who knows what else) back.  Suffice it to say, we...

I read something interesting this week, although I must admit it wasn't in the Bible. In fact, it was an excerpt from a Charles Dickens book, "Mugby Junction". If you’ve come across any of Dickens’ stories, you know they all pretty much mirror his famous classic, “A Christmas Carol.” But I liked what he said in this book about families. It goes like this: "Family not only needs to consist of merely those with whom we share blood, but also of those to whom we'd give blood". Think with me for a second, okay? Who do we feel that we could actually “give blood" for? And I’m not talking about going down to the local blood bank. Is there anyone for whom you would give your life? Some of you might say to me, "Well, technically you don't have any family you share blood with except your sister, since your children are adopted.” But you know, I look at my two beautiful children who in the words of a friend, were not “expected”; they were “selected”.  It’s...