Marsha's Blog

 Way back in 1981, we had settled into our new career in Japan and had finally finished our requisite two years of language school. With great fanfare, we were deemed “fit to do life and ministry in a Japanese world".  I have to confess that to this day, I haven’t been able to fully understand all the big words on my graduation certificate, but I don’t want to talk about that. We moved north, out of Tokyo and up to a nice little town of one million people.  Keep in mind that we were moving from Tokyo, population about 40 million, so to us it was like a quaint village by comparison. It's about halfway to the top of the main island of Honshu, and it goes by the name of Sendai.   We had been assigned to start student ministries, so with thirteen major colleges and universities, Sendai was the natural choice.  Our sons Trevor and Nathan came with us, of course, and that set the course of their lives.  Five-year-old Trevor was enrolled into preschool, and e...

Many years ago, Tony bought a hat. It was 1991, the year we spent in Colorado while our son Trevor was being treated for leukemia. After several weeks sitting by his bedside, a friend came and 'kidnapped' Tony, taking him up to the mountains to go skiing. Tony protested, insisting that he couldn’t be away that long, and besides, what father would do something like that while his son suffered?  He ended up going, and by evening, he told me that it probably saved his life. What a blessing, to step away from reality, if only for a few hours. Every time we see our friend (whose name is Mark), we thank him for the way God used him that day.  At the ski lodge that day, Tony bought a hat, similar to what he used to wear all the time when he lived in Texas. He and Mark agreed that it was good to look back at those days once in awhile.  Years passed. Many years. After eight months in hell, we said goodbye to Trevor, took his ashes back to Japan as per his wish, and tried to carry ...

 I'd like to talk about siblings for a moment.  I have one sister and Tony has none. But actually, he did have “siblings”, in a way, because Tony's folks had a love for young people and always had a few 'strays' living with them.  As a result, I've never seen any aspects of him being an only child, but I'll let him tell you about all that. I have a sister, Sherry, just 6 years older than me. Sometimes blessing, sometime pain, but always part of our loving family, as I’d like to think you would agree when thinking about your own siblings. I have lots of memories of wanting to be 'big' and get to do 'big girl things' like she did.  She got to go to movies with friends, sometimes spend whole summers with the cousins etc.  One year she even 'got' to go to boarding school, although in thinking back, I’m not sure it was a mutually agreed decision at the time.   But it turned out to be a good thing, with the result that when I got to go 4 years ...