Marsha's Blog

Thank you all for your concerns for me and my ant bite!  I’m guessing you Americans quietly put this on your list as to why you’ll never visit us, never mind that we got absolutely No Sympathy from my Aussie friends, telling me how much more horrific   their   ant stories were than   mine . Even my grandson declares that he was bitten not once but three times, and furthermore had to be brave because he was with his mates!   Truth be known, this week has had a lot more than ant bites to be concerned about. God has been doing His ‘Sovereign’ thing in the illness of several near and dear friends. Now I realize that we are, after all, circling our 70’s, and because of that, these things are going to become more common because of our predictable mortality.  Nevertheless I have to confess that it’s been hard to see God’s Hand in what our unchurched friends call “senseless tragedies”. We already know several who are doing daily battles with cancer, but this w...

Good morning all, It’s dawned on me that this is Labor Day Weekend in the northern hemisphere.  We hope you’re having a lovely last shout out to summer.   We’ve had a great day in church. It started with commissioning a lovely couple almost our age, to give up everything and travel half way around the world to be Christ’s ‘Salt and Light’ to some unfortunate refugee kids in a place where the horror continues and it isn’t even now safe to be there.  Such courage is rare and I’m more than impressed.  I’m sure you’ll pray with us for them.   Add to that, today is Fathers Day here in Australia. We had a hurried "fast food with playground" lunch with our kids and grandkids. It was so good to be reminded that we have fathers in our circle. Good ones at that.   It’s remarkable that Fathers day is on the first Sunday of Spring, in this case, September 1st.  Why isn’t it observed on the same day as in the Northern Hemisphere, you ask? After all, Mother...

Thank you friends for bearing with us during the lead up and execution of what we, in all of our self-absorption, felt was the event of the half-century: our 50th wedding anniversary!   Now we’re completely over it, and are adjusting to what we call the “AP life” (After Party).   We’re discovering “AP" that we like to sleep more, uninterrupted by thoughts in the night like, “Did I buy enough pickles? Have we arranged for the music? Oh my goodness! Has the venue really been booked?”  I can almost hear you sighing, “Thank goodness” as I promise now that, at least for the next few weeks, I’m going to beat on another dead horse called “Marsha’s Blog” and try to share some observations we’ve made along the journey.  When that runs out, I may find (No! Don’t say it!) that I have nothing else to write about. For the last several years, I’ve shared with you everything from life on the mission field, upcoming retirement and grand anniversary celebrations. I’ve al...

Last night as we lay in bed, clean and safe, I asked Tony why he grabbed me and kissed me in the headlights of the rescue vehicle. He answered confidently,  “Because I didn’t think we’d make it”. Some of you may recognize this from a blog I posted 5 years ago right after our 45th anniversary.  We’d just climbed, with almost disastrous results, our favorite mountain in Japan; Myoko San, as we had done on numerous anniversaries before. It’s rather long, but if you have time, I’ll post it again today and you can grab a cup of coffee and have an exciting read. The reason I was thinking about it recently, was that our 50th was somewhat like that climb.  We didn’t almost die and we didn’t have to call a rescue vehicle, but it a lot of ways, it was the same kind of “grueling”.   We had SO MUCH FUN!  True, we'd planned this ‘event’ for about 6 months, and the execution was not unlike launching a space shuttle or separating conjoined twins, of which ...

While most of you are reading this, we’ll be enjoying our very last anniversary party… This is the one that our kids have especially planned with no input at all from us. It’s a ….. wait for it …… a hot dog roast over a warm and wonderful winter bonfire!   Yes, you may be having the same reaction I had when they suggested it. This is on the heels of one of the most intricate and complicated, “Cecil B. DeMills productions party for at least 130 guests that we have just executed smoothly (Big thanks to everyone),    and now you’re asking us to have a hot dog on a stick? But as we thought about it, we were reminded by them that this was the most fun activity the kids experienced growing up. Even in the middle of rain and sleet, smoke in the eyes and the pain of napalm-like flaming marshmallows in the face, these are the times they look back on with exquisite fondness, basking in the certainty that through it all, they were loved, that they were part of something bigger ...

So if you happen to have marked on your calendar, you’ll see  that we’re just about 4 days to our 50th!  Wow.  As you can imagine, the excitement level is picking up around here.  Last night Tony dreamed there was an elephant in the house and it was looking for him!  (He said apparently he was cowering in the shower) ……well, you can draw your own analogies, but at this very moment I’m torn between writing this to you and cleaning the linen closet!  The party isn’t till Saturday the 3 rd , but people are going to start arriving soon.   I guess you’re wondering about that “evening-spoiling” kiss I mentioned last week.  Yes, we both realized that our “mateship summer” had blossomed into something more, which prompted a little more kissing before I headed off to college in Omaha Nebraska, again about 500 miles from Tony.   We were pretty committed to each other when we parted, but I left saying, “There’s just one thing holding us apart,” and...

This morning I’d like to bring you up to speed on our ‘run up’ to anniversary time, which is August 1st.    Things are starting to crawl toward the ever growing celebration mark, both with cleaning and laying in supplies, but it’s fun and we feel like the goal is in sight.  Tony has recently been pointing out that almost no one in either family, with the possible exception of an aunt on Tony’s side, has made it to 50 years married. Tony’s folks, who were some of the most ‘in love’ folks we ever knew, only got to 49 1/2 years before Mom up and died!    Of course we have to factor in the age we live in, better medicine, no wars, etc.  But also there’s a lot more stress, evil inputs into our hearts and minds (thank you Netflix!) and an increasing ‘me generation’ where entitlement rules, that’s growing all around us. All that to say we’re very very happy to still be on the same page after these many years. So, last week we talked about ‘The Wink”, where we...