At long last, our shipment has arrived. We shipped 18 boxes (roughly 100 cubic feet) from our house in Indy here. It’s taken well over two months, but it arrived. I must admit there were numerous times I suspected someone had simply absconded with our valuables. What are we most excited about? Warm clothes for a starters. We had only packed autumn clothes, but we’ve been getting some winter weather so we were sweating it a little (and our sweat was freezing into icy droplets). For another, our good computer was in one of those boxes - which is a huge relief for work. Our little laptop could just hardly keep up. There were also some musical instruments, a sewing machine, and LOTS of books.
Here are some happy, happy pictures:
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Ange does a celebratory cheer.
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My preciousssss...
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Boxes and boxes and boxes.
We saw some surprising things yesterday. You guessed it - badgers and snow! Snow was falling in the morning as we rode to Belfast with some friends from Downpatrick, Thomas and Ciara. We keep hearing that it doesn’t even snow every year, let alone in October. It was sticking to the ground on the way to Belfast, but none left to be seen on the way home. Such is Irish weather, I guess.
And while pulling up to our house, we finally saw a badger! One of the older men that lives in the big manor house near us sets out lots of birdfeeders and trays of food for badgers. But last night was the first time we’d seen one. Have you ever seen one of these? They’re so strange looking and are about the size of a medium-sized dog!
It’s really, really cold today. I’ve been working at the house, doing second coats of paint and other majorly fun stuff. Mark has been working at Campbell and Kristy’s, as he will be doing until Nov. 10, when our internet is FINALLY turned on. For some reason, though, their heat isn’t working at all today. So I came over to bring one of our space heaters and found Mark wearing 2 undershirts, a sweater, a hooded sweatshirt (hood pulled up) and his coat. Poor guy was freezing!
That’s all I’ve got today. I’m going to get started on the guest room now.
The days have flown by since I posted last and it’s hard to imagine it’s been quite so long. In some ways it feels like there’s nothing extraordinary enough to post about, but at the same time, there are so many things in my head that it’s hard to know where to start. So I’ll give you a few random bits and bobs.
One new thing is that we have a washer at the house, but no dryer. Since it’s so damp (and cold!) here, it takes a good long while for clothes to dry hanging up, too. The washing machine only holds about 1/2 of a normal load at home and it takes about 1 1/2 hours for a cycle to run. Talk about the normal becoming bizarre. Laundry that usually takes a few hours to get all the way done now takes about 2 days. Does anyone understand how this little thing makes “normal” life weird?
We spent all day Saturday at a 24-7 Conference in Lisburn. Ross and Kathryn, new friends of ours who pastor the Methodist church in town, told us about it and we spent the day together listening to some really challenging teachings and talking through it over meals. Talk about a good time. If you know me, you know I could easily spend the next 2 hours giving you a play-by-play of the whole day, including basic outlines of the talks. I’ll try to just give you the big points. Of course, a major thrust of 24-7 is prayer - more time spent with the Lord makes us more like him, more dependant on him, more alive in him, more useful to him. The team that was sharing do work on an island in Spain that has the most clubs, bars and pubs per square mile in all of Europe. They were talking about the lost being the focus of ministry. I was so challenged by my discomfort with people who aren’t like me. By my dislike of going into darkness to be light. By my fear that I’m not cool enough to hang with people that don’t need me to lead worship. By my fear of being too uninteresting to hold a conversation with a stranger. By the fact that I turn my face from need and talk about how simply I live and how much I sacrifice to make myself feel better. I realized that I want to get over my fear of anyone and anything other than Jesus. I want there to be room in my life for him to do anything he wants. I want him to be my King. I want his kingdom to come here.
We prayed Sunday morning while walking around town that God would cross our paths with people that don’t know him and give us the courage and compassion to engage them. One thing we’re continually surprised by is how quickly and obviously God answers our prayers that are already on his heart. That evening, our neighbor, Sarah, came over to introduce herself. She came in for a cup of tea and stayed for nearly an hour. We are nothing alike in personality or beliefs, but we like each other. It’s just the beginning. And I can’t wait.
And on that note, I’ll sign off. I do hope to be back soon.
Well, we all knew it would happen. Sooner or later, the excitement of moving and meeting people and dreaming wears off and you’re left living in a place that’s still slightly uncomfortable, missing your friends, and gearing up for the reality that dreams take work, risk, and hardship. We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. We’ve been expecting it. We’re not cursing God and packing our bags. But we’ve been sad this last week.
It’s one of the great beauties of the Christian life that we can say “I am in the right place. God is good and on the throne. I really want to be with Pat and Lezlie or Jay and Jess (or whoever). I’m really sad that I’m missing the early years of their kids. It hurts like crazy.” And there’s no incongruity in that statement. It’s just the tension of life and trusting God in that tension is one of the most glorifying things we can do.
Sorry we haven’t had a lot to say recently. We really are doing pretty well and getting adjusted. We love you all and miss you (well…most of you).
Mark and Ange
I just published an article on a new website I’m a part of. It’s called Hot & Sweaty Pastor (I didn’t think up the name, but you have to admit that it’s memorable). It’s a new blog set up by my friend Matt Conner. If you’d like to check it out, click here. You may want to read some of the other articles while you’re there. It’s a pretty wide array of people and viewpoints (ok, not really that wide…).
Mark
Quite a few people have asked about our new address, etc. so I wanted to just give all the revised contact information. Our address is:
4 The Courtyard, Strathern Manor
Newcastle, County Down, Northern Ireland
BT33 0TE
United Kingdom
You can get in touch with us on Skype too, which is fun because we can see each other. Our Skype name is markguinn27. You can also call us. Our American phone number is (317) 608-2910. How can this be? Skype is a real neat thing. If you call that number it will actually ring our computer and we can talk for free. What is this world coming to? By the way, we are 5 hours ahead of you, so if you call after 6-7pm we will be sleeping.
At any rate, e-mail always works. These days we’ll be a little slow getting back, though. We won’t have broadband at our house for a few more weeks so we have to do everything from Campbell’s house, which makes our communication time a bit more of a crunch.
Things continue to go well. The latest news in the town (straight from Campbell’s mom) is “A group of gypsies just came to town so be sure your doors are locked.” No I’m not kidding and she’s not either. There are literally semi-nomadic people that move around from town to town in campers, and they do have a bad reputation. They actually prefer to be called “travelers,” though. Just one of the random funny things about living in Ireland.
It’s been a while since we last posted, so I thought I’d throw out a few interesting nuggets:
Most Interesting Person: Yesterday I met an older gentleman named Neil who is world renowned for training rescue and caedavor dogs. He lives right outside Newcastle in the mountains.
God Is Too Good To Us Yet Again: We continue to have these moments where stuff we didn’t even think to pray about drops in our laps. Like when I went to get a mobile phone and they were all out of the model we wanted, but it just so happened that when the kid went back to the stock room they “must have got a new shipment or something” and there was the one we wanted. Or when we were given a piano, delivered to our door for free by a man we’d never met (friend of a friend). What’s up with that? We didn’t even pray for a piano because it seemed to far out there.
Best Food Surprise: Last time we were here we were really dissappointed at the pizza, so we were all geared up for years of sub-par sauce and cardboard crust. But it turns out the little pizza parlor in Newcastle has pretty good Italian-style pizza for only a few pounds. Yes!
Forgotten Pet Peave: People in Europe generally don’t use sheets! They tend to have a fitted sheet under you and just a duvet (thick blanket) over you. For some reason, this bothers me to no end. I can’t quite sleep right - like I just feel naked and can’t get comfortable. Guess that’s my OCD side coming out… (To be fair, we did have a sheet at Campbell and Kristi’s, but not at the new place, which was a simple remedy after the first night)
Tonight we’ll hopefully get to go to the pub and hear some good traditional music. Looking forward to that, for sure.
Mark
So we finally secured our townhouse. It actually happened last Tuesday, but it’s taken me until today to finally post about it! It’s called a 3 bedroom townhouse, though it’s a bit more like a 2 bedroom townhouse with a big closet with a bed in it. The 3rd bedroom is SO small! (Kara, this makes me think of you every time I walk into it!) We found out today that we’re being given a piano for free that’s being delivered tomorrow. I’m so excited to have a piano in our house. I didn’t think it would be possible, but God has provided us with yet another gift. He continues to blow us away.
So here are some pictures of our new place. There is a lot of yellow paired with some yellow leather furniture. It may take some creativity to make the space match our personality, but I think we can come up with something. The bones of the place are wonderful! Here goes…
our lovely house number
from the outside
living room/patio/garden
the dining table
the wee fridge/freezer
We’re going to be moving into our new home tomorrow. Let the nesting begin!
This week has turned out to be a rather busy one. Wednesday Mark and I decided to head to Ikea in Belfast as we wanted to get some things for our new place (which we’ve still not moved into but do have keys for) and I needed to get some fabric for my class. We took the bus from our bus station to Belfast’s Europa Bus Station, then hopped off and walked a few blocks to where you catch the city buses. It was a lovely day and we had a good bit of fun being in the city, even if the bus did take about 2.5 times longer than being in a car. And it wasn’t cheap. We packed a bit of lunch and ate while we were waiting for the city bus.
catching the bus
We had a fun first trip to Ikea. Mark didn’t realize there were 2 floors to experience, so that made for a bit of a shock. But all in all, it was a good time. Thanks, Ikea.
Yesterday we went back to Belfast, this time with Campbell and Kristy. They kept telling us about St. George’s Market and what a fun place it is. So they took us. It was a great experience, I have to admit. There were lots of vendors selling fun food and all kinds of crafts. I bought some linen woven by Herman and his wife. Can’t wait to come up with something great to make out of it!
kristy, campbell & mark in front of st. george
cheese, olives and other goodies
herman the linen-maker
That’s all for this post. I’ll do my best to keep them coming!
God has been so good to us so far. I don’t want to make it sound like it’s been all roses - we’ve had struggles and everything hasn’t been easy, but MAN He’s taken care of us. He’s been extravagantly kind. For example:
- Traveling with a guitar is a real pain. If you check it, there’s a good chance it will be damaged or handled badly. If you try to carry it on, you get dirty looks from attendants and security folks, and you have no guarantee they’ll let it on the plane (if not, they’ll just gate-check it). We decided to try to carry our guitar on, and it went amazingly smooth. They even told us that there probably wouldn’t be room on the flight from Chicago to Dublin and they were right - but the flight attendant was not only polite, but she allowed me to put my guitar in the captain’s garment closet! It sounds like a small thing, but it’s not small in the midst of the stress of travel.
- We asked God to lead us to the right place to live. The first day we went out looking for apartments we found 4 places that would have worked. The one we chose is so great - $360/month under budget and three bedrooms instead of two, plus a BEAUTIFUL location. We can easily sleep 3 guests - 5 if we rearrange a bit and someone sleeps on the couch.
- We asked God for the right car. After a lot of looking on the internet, Campbell took us around and the first car we looked at was the one. We looked at some others but nothing was even close. The salesman was really helpful, the car is great for us, and once again it was significant under what we budgeted.
- We then went to get an insurance quote and were shocked that it was going to more than the car (because we’re Americans). A couple days later, we stumbled on to a little publicized fact: you can go to AAA and get an International Drivers Permit for $15. This isn’t anything special - just a translation of the state license - but it makes a big deal with insurance companies…like a 70% off type of difference.
- He’s led us to several things we can do to meet people outside of the church in really natural ways.
A lot of these things don’t sound like a big deal. I don’t think that God miraculously revamped the UK insurance system on our behalf. The miracle is that people as foolish and weak as we are can figure this stuff out! The miracle is just this strange sense of God’s favor and favor with those with who He brings us into contact.
There is so much power in seeing God’s work in things that could be explained away, and being thankful. So we just want to publicly say it: Thank you, Lord! You are SO good to us!
Mark and Ange
