mark + ange guinn

This look captures about how I felt watching the video of my acting...

It’s been a quiet week for us.  Campbell and Kristi left for a month-long trip to visit her family in Thailand on Monday, which always leaves a bit of a vacuum socially.  The upside is that you know you have good friends when you miss them.  We’ve needed a quiet week though, since the ones before were pretty manic.

Tuesday night the local theatre group I was part of had a barbecue and a showing of the DVD of our performance.  It was really fun to see everyone again.  It’s always really weird to see yourself on video though.  At this point, I’m pretty used to hearing myself speak and sing so that’s not awkward anymore, but seeing is a whole ‘nother deal…

Anyway, since there’s not a lot of news, here are some fun photos.

An authentic Irish BBQ - rain and all (this is from a gettogether at Campbell's a few months ago)

The Irish version of a coffee house church...

Hope is like
a toddler in the surf,
a candle in the draft,
a frail child at recess.

Hope is held up on the thinnest string:
So easily he falls prey to the waves, the wind, the bully’s words.

We must guard him, this tender egg.
If he hatches he brings a new world,
If he cracks then many things are lost.
We will buck against the cost;
We will blame the wind and waves but

It won’t be their fault.

It’s been sunny and beautiful here in Newcastle for the past few days.  And I’ve been eating up being outside (and not being on the computer) in the low-70s-warm-sun-cool-breeze weather.  Sorry I’ve been m.i.a. again.  We’ve decided a weekly posting time is in order for us Guinns as we have a pretty horrible track record with consistent communication.  Consider us officially back on the horse.

Mark quickly posted last Friday about the concert that was happening that day and the crowd that was to be in town.  We had such a great day, despite us both waking up feeling a bit under the weather.  We headed to the Methodist church around 1 to start setting up and making food for the volunteers.  This was the first event where most of the churches in town worked together in any way.  A few churches had teams handing out bottles of water to people walking around (lots of them really drunk by about 4pm).  Others brought food and support to churches that were “stations”.  One church had people praying for 30 minutes of every hour for most of the day.  It was neat for us to be part of, though I don’t think we have a clue how ground-breaking that really was for Newcastle.  Most of the daylight hours we were either feeding the team, praying in the church, or handing out water and asking people if we could pray for them.  Not too many people wanted prayer on the spot, but lots filled out little prayer cards that we’d take into the church and pray over for the evening.  A few people did want prayer, though, and that was scary and amazing, too.  One guy in his early 20s (I’d guess) just asked us to pray that he’d make it through the day.  It seemed a pretty vague thing to ask, but an amazing woman and I prayed over him for a minute.  Afterwords I had an overwhelming sense of God’s enjoyment of him that sent me to laughing and telling him “God loves you so much, man”.  He replied, “I know.  I CAN FEEL IT!”  Talk about exhilaration!  Mark prayed for a guy with pain in his ribs (he thought they probably broken) and the pain went away on the spot.  We so enjoyed getting to love on people and speak blessing over them.  It was pretty amazing to see other volunteers at work, too, who were far out of their comfort zones, but being really courageous and faithful and enjoying themselves, too.   We hope there are more events like that in Newcastle and are thinking about just being out on a normal, crowded summer day.

We’ve started studying John with Campbell and Kristi.  We meet every other week and spend a good few hours together really digging in.  We’ve been blown away by the nuggets (as Campbell calls them) God points out to us each time.  We’re all excited when we get together because we know God’s on the move and changing us more and more to move with Him.  Seriously, there’s nothing better.  I was thinking last night about a Misty Edwards song I’ve been listening to lately that says:

O won’t You let me love You more, this is all that I desire
Won’t You let me love You more this is all that I require
Won’t You let me love You more this is my deepest heart’s desire
Won’t You let me love You more still more and more

My heart feels full to overflowing with that chorus right now.  My heart is for him, but I want him to expand my capacity, blow my boundaries so I have even more to love him with.  I want – all 4 of us want – to change Newcastle and Northern Ireland, and we know this is where it starts.  This is where all the change comes from.  And I love it!

My class is officially over, after a bit of a drawn-out goodbye.  We ended up packing for a week longer than originally anticipated.  So there were about 3 extra goodbyes, which is always a bit on the awkward side.  Aileen, our teacher, decided to retire after 30-some years of teaching textile courses of one kind or another.  She’s afraid she’ll be really bored in retirement, so she’s already volunteered to help Paula (my good friend from class) and I cover some chairs this summer.  One of the best things about cleaning out the gymnasium we called a classroom was that all the furniture that wasn’t picked up by its owner was free game!  I got about 4 kitchen-ish chairs to redo for free!  I’m excited to get some fun fabric on the cushions and maybe paint the chairs themselves something unusual.  Too bad we don’t have any room to keep one!  Paula and I are making things for a craft fair coming up in July, so a chair or two might be included in that lot.  And we’re hoping to sell our stuff at St. George’s Market at some point this summer, too.  It’s one of my favorite things to visit on a Saturday morning, so I’m excited about that.  I’m trying to get my branding all wrapped up so we can put labels on the things we make as well as having nice price tags and business cards.  The brand name has changed from Blackened Branch, but I’ll save the new name for later.  I’ll post about that once the logo is done.  (Just making sure you keep coming back…)

That’s probably enough long-windedness for one Friday morning.  Happy weekend to you all!

Today is a big day in Newcastle.  There is a huge concert, starting at 4pm.  Headlining act is a blast from the past – The Prodigy.  There will be between 5 and 10 thousand people descending on our little town, so it will be wild.  All the churches are getting together to hand out water bottles and try to “make this the best day of their lives.”  Pray for us if you think of us.

I’ve spent some time today remembering.  First, the remembering that’s supposed to be done (by Americans, anyway) on this particular day.  And then remembering how this day has been spent in my own short history.  I remember sunshine and lots of food (burgers, dogs, potato salad, veggie pizza, sugar cookies with almond icing).  I remember doing grave rubbings in a cemetery some of my Grandma’s relatives were buried in.  I remember flags.  I remember Grandpa faithfully reading In Flanders Fields before our meal.  Tall sunflowers growing outside the kitchen window.  Some crafty project to keep us occupied as kids.  Or maybe a big chore, like painting the garage.  Getting to mow the big yard with a tractor.  Kicking the red rubber ball on the barn roof.  Walking down to my cousin’s house to escape the adults and watch a movie.  Loving my family through rolling eyes.

Grandpa and Grandma Maxson passed away in 2007.   Somehow it hurts to remember things that won’t be again.  But it’s good to remember.  And be thankful.  And so I am.  I hope you’re blessed in remembering today, too.

Really interesting post on Carl Medearis’ blog about what a missionary is.  Such a familiar conversation (not with our children, of course).  Highlight:

I asked her what she thought we were doing while in Lebanon. Her answer was as shocking as it was insightful.  ”We were just living in Lebanon as regular people loving others in Jesus’ name. All our friends were Lebanese. “Missionaries” don’t do that. They don’t hang out with the local people as much as we did. They do projects.”

Whether Carl was a “missionary” or not, I want to be what he was.  Click here for the full post.

Mark

My first wearable top.

And here’s the quilt I’m working on.  Just waiting on quilting thread to start the last bit.  (Anybody in need of a toddler bed size quilt?  I don’t know what I’m going to do with this yet…)

Has it really been a whole week since I posted?  The computer says so, though it only feels like a few days have gone by at the most.  You can likely imagine what last week was like, as Mark’s show was in performance mode.  He was on stage every night from Monday to Saturday with the final show being followed by a cast party (to which I was kindly invited).  Mark was still working and I was back to class.  I did a good bit of work on the quilt and it’s now totally together and ready to be quilted.  I spent evenings with friends who referred to me as the show widow.  And I was enormously proud of Mark when I finally did see the show.  He was FANTASTIC!  (Yeah, I was kind of yelling that.)  The week was full and good.  Just how we like it.

One of my favorite things about the Glee Singers, though, is that they’re part of AIMS (I can only guess at what it stands for – Amatuer Irish Music Society?).  And they practically have a Grammy Awards Ceremony at the end of “musical season” for nominated performers.  If anyone knows the movie Waiting for Guffman and knows how much I love it, you’ll get the depth of enjoyment I get out of this situation.  We’ll be sure to let you know if Mark gets nominated.

Here’s hoping…

We just had one of those weekends that passes in a hurry. It was full, but not too busy.  What did we do, you ask?  Well…

• date night
• all-day dress rehearsal (Mark)
• Stitch and Craft Show in Belfast (Ange)
• cookout at a friend’s house
• visited a new (to us) church in Annalong
• had our weekly LOST viewing
• lots of housework here and there (Ange)

And that was about it.  See – not too busy.  We’ve now entered the week of the show (y’all) and things are going well.  The first performance was last night and Mark came home all bubbly an excited.  I’m taking that as a really good sign.   I’ve had tickets to go with friends on Friday for a few weeks, so I didn’t think about going another time.  I realized last night that it was really lame of me not to be there on Mark’s opening night!  So I bought him flowers on my way home from dropping him off.  Not quite the same.  I’ll not make that mistake again.

I’m back to class today.  Having to face my final project, which I’ve been putting off for a good while.  Other things are so much more interesting than this quilt!  It’s okay, but I’m definitely not in love with it (like I was with the first one I made).  And I’m not looking forward to all the hand quilting, especially since someone else has already claimed the frame.  Enough complaining.  I’m glad to get to learn how to do it because I’ll want to make them for my kids and grandkids.  My Mom and Grandma Druber both made quilts and I cherish the 2 I have from them.

I can’t really seem to gather my thoughts enough today for a more flowy post.  So I’ll leave you with this. You are here to read about the real Ange (and Mark), right?  Hope you don’t mind me taking advantage of that!

To those of you wanting to read something related to Ireland…sorry.  This is solely related to my craft (and vanity?).  I had a white t-shirt that got a rather conspicuous stain on the front and I was trying to come up with a fun way to save the shirt.  So I sewed on a bib front from an old gray shirt that had already been cut into.  The bib is on to stay, as I think it would be really hard to undo the machine stitching without seeing needle marks everywhere.  The buttons could stay or go and the flowers are pinned on – not sewn yet. It doesn’t look finished, but neither Mark or I could quite figure out what it needs.  And here’s where you come in.  Anyone have any brilliant ideas as to what I could add (or subtract) to finish it off?

(forgive my hair, please)

a closer shot

Thanks for your help!