Hi Terry,
I don't know any way of reading a list. (For troubleshooting use the console plugin and Console.WriteLine.)
To push messages to the status list use Additemtolistbeginning or AddStatusmessage. In macros the first is in the AS3 or AS3jog class, the second is in the exec class. In plugins these functions were only added in 1.2102 and in macros the AddStatusmessage was added in 1.2038.