Good to Us

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