Marsha's Blog

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...