mark + ange guinn

This is where we were this morning - the main street is that row of buildings to the left and the promenade is the path that runs down the beach.

Ange and I were prayer walking down on the main street and promenade of Newcastle this morning. It’s something we’ve been doing on and off since we got here, and lately we’ve organized our schedule so that we’re in the town prayer walking two mornings a week. We pray for Newcastle as a town, for revival and increased spiritual hunger, for God’s blessing on the churches and businesses, and occasionally ask people we meet if we can pray for them specifically.

There’s a story in the gospels where Jesus is walking by and this blind man cries out for help. Jesus stops and engages him, asking: “what do you want from me?” Recently as we’ve been walking around I’ve been thinking about that question. I’ve been thinking what do I really want to see happen here? What do I want God to do this morning? If I pray for people to be healed on the streets of Newcastle, do I want that to happen this morning through me? The answer varies if I’m honest and that’s ok. The point is not to feel bad, but to clarify and envision what it would actually look like for God to do what we’re asking.

I want to ask more and more specifically and expectantly. Am I actually asking for revival to break out this morning? For people around me to fall to the ground weeping and crying out to God? That might change the rest of my day… What would it look like if every church in town lit up with freedom, love, and passion and there was no more dead religion in town? We might not be needed. Am I ok with that? I think sometimes prayer becomes disconnected from what we’re actually asking for, because we don’t actually expect to get an answer. Often I think the answer comes (maybe slightly disguised) and we walk right on by because of expectations.

So what did we pray for? Well, all of the above. As we got more specific we asked that God would bring hunger and questions to people right now. That the light of his love would shine on people right now and they would feel his love. We prayed that a few specific issues in the town would shift. I believe those things are going to happen, and that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.
Mark

Just got back from our prayer retreat at the Christian Renewal Centre in Rostrevor. We had such a good time.

We went down on Saturday morning and joined them for an all day prayer for Ireland event, which finished around 4pm. We then went for a walk, had dinner and spent the evening reading, praying, and just enjoying being with Jesus. Sunday was more of the same – reading, praying, talking, dreaming, eating, more praying. It was a really restful and restorative time.
Continue reading ‘Ding, Ding, Ding…’

I’ve never really enjoyed getting my car fixed.  Even in America, there’s that awful feeling that the mechanic could so easily take advantage of my lack of knowledge – “That’s right, sir, your second carburetor needs a new truss rod and parts alone will cost $300…”  So this week I got to have the super-fun experience of trying that in another culture.

Fortunately, things are not too different here, but it does add to the insecurity quite a bit when you have no grid at all for what things should cost, things are called by different names, and laws are different.  It seems like there’s more of a propensity for people to use a mechanic they know, who often just works out of his house, rather than a big business like Midas or something.  There are tire (spelled tyre, of course) shops and body shops, etc., but they’re mostly specialized shops.  As with most things here, it’s who you know that counts.

That’s what friends are for, though.  I think I found a pretty good mechanic on the recommendation of one of the Night Light guys.  Fortunately, once you find someone you trust you can just stick with him.  So there’s one more problem sorted.

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.

Wow…is it Friday already?  Happy St. Patrick’s day.  Interestingly enough, it’s a lot less of a big deal here than it is in the States.  In Indianapolis, they dye the canal green, drink green beer, wear all kinds of ridiculous green outfits.  Here there was a fairly short parade in Downpatrick (there was nothing at all in Newcastle), some live music and a lot of drinking.  They don’t even pinch each other.  They just chuckle at the crazy knack we Americans have for making everything big and commercialized.

If you’ve been watching the news, you may have heard that the last few weeks have been pretty tense here.  Two weeks ago there were three murders by dissident militia groups – two British soldiers and a policeman.  It’s really the first of that kind of violence in over ten years, so a lot of people are really scared that it will release another wave of retaliation and violence.  What you may not have seen on the American news is that there has been a tremendous show of cross-community togetherness.  Immediately after the shootings you saw major Loyalist/Protestant and Republican/Catholic leaders standing together on the news, denouncing the people who did it and calling for cooperation with the police.  10 years ago some of those guys would have been publicly giving their approval.  So it’s an historic time in Northern Ireland.  It’s also still an unstable time because as much as everyone wants peace, even a small retaliation could undo years of peace process.  Pray for Ireland.

Peace,

Mark

Sorry we’ve been pretty MIA on the blog recently.  It’s certainly not because nothing has been happening.  This has probably been one of the most intense few weeks in a long time.  Make that most intense few months, I guess.

As many of you know, last week we found out that my boss, Tom Russell, died very unexpectedly.  It was such a huge shock because Tom was a friend and had a great family, and because it puts my job in no small degree of uncertainty.  So since then, we’ve been trying to cope with running the technical side of a two-man business by myself and also contemplating the possible loss of half our income.  It’s been very stressful and, honestly, we’ve struggled a lot but we also fully believe that God will take care of us.  This is what it means to say that we trust God: sometimes we have to be unsure of the next step or the next paycheck and be willing to keep moving forward.  There’s no way around that.

At the very same time, I feel more and more excited about God and the reasons He called us here.  The last two Friday nights I’ve gone out with a group here called Night Light, which serves free coffee and tea to people coming out of one of the major dance clubs in Newcastle.  It totally wrecks your weekend (we got to bed at 3:30am), but I love it.  Those kids (mostly 15-25 with emphasis on the 17-19 year olds – and yes, the drinking age is supposed to be 18…) are a lot of fun and I’ve really enjoyed just hanging out, talking with, and laughing at them.  More than that, I feel a stirring in my heart for them.  Everyone looks at those kids and sees a public nuisance, but God sees a congregation.  Please begin to pray with us that God would raise up a church among the kids at Donard Park – maybe even meeting in the club itself.

The Donard Park Congregation

We’ve also been having deepening relationships and some great times of worship and prayer with our different pockets of new friends.  There is so much value in seeking Him, His thoughts, His presence, His Kingdom.  It’s like when you do that (along with engaging in His mission), everything else just gets added to you or something…  No really, we’ve been blown away.  On Thursday, we even got to see God heal three people!  We and a few of our friends were sitting around singing and we decided to pray about physical conditions.  One guy had a pulled muscle in his arm that had been hurting for weeks and preventing him from lifting things and when we prayed the pain just went away.  His wife had pain in both elbows and it also went way.  Another guy had pain in both wrists – maybe Carpal Tunnel – and as we prayed it improved to the point he could support his body weight on his hands but didn’t go away entirely.  That’s not at all a common occurrence for us, but it is something we’ve been asking for more of.  We were actually surprised, but also just really thankful.  God is really good to us and we feel more fulfilled and happy than maybe ever in our lives.

So that’s where we’re at.  Life is good and bad, without much in the middle.  As Dickens said “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”  And we’re pretty ok with that.  Peace.

Mark

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

We received an e-mail today letting us know that our visa has been granted. There are no more major obstacles to our move, so we plan to leave in early September. Our visa starts September 1 and lasts for a year, after which we’ll have to reapply.

I can’t tell you how happy (and sad) we are. It’s been a long road, and it looks like we’re finally about to turn the corner. Thank you for your prayers.

Mark and Ange

If you’re wanting to join us in prayer, here are some things that are in front of us:

• We need more empowerment from the Spirit. He’s already gifted us in many ways, but as I look at the task in front of us, this is the number one thing on my heart. Soft hearts, open ears, and boldness.
• Pray for Northern Ireland. At this point it’s easy to get caught up in the flurry of tasks and barriers to moving – money and visas, etc. – but that’s only the first little hurdle. God can handle visas and He will. Pray big. Pray Paul’s prayers from Eph. 1 and 3.
• We need a visa to enter the country. As I posted last week, the process is complete and from this point on we’re just waiting to hear back. We need favor with the British government.
• Both of the other American couples that are going with us need to sell their houses. If you are looking for a great little house in Yorktown or a sweet condo in Fort Wayne, get in touch.
• Lars and Nick are both looking for jobs in Northern Ireland. As you may expect that’s not the easiest proposition these days. Lars can work because he has Danish citizenship, but Nick would need a work visa, which is not an easy thing to get.

A big thank you to those who are joining with us in that way. Every blessing.
Mark

We submitted our visa applications today. Next Tuesday we have to go and get our biometric data taken and then we just wait. If we are granted a visa, we’ll leave around the 1st of September. If not, we have a couple other options to try. Please pray with us, though. It would certainly be easiest if this one just goes through.

We’re really tired of waiting. I’m no longer that excited about possibilities and dreams – I just want to be able to invest. I want to be where we are instead of looking to the next thing. I want to take stock of where there is death and captivity and say: “we are here until things change.” Funny how “we are here…until our visa goes through” doesn’t have the same power to it…

God is good to us though. He’s even better than we think He is.

Mark