strangford lough and murlough house

After a few days of cleaning up smelly dorms and dirty floors, we decided to take a little trip up to Strangford Lough. Our first order of business was to master the Northern Irish bus system, which turned out to be pretty simple. Aside from being time consuming (one hour trip by car, three hours by bus because of two change-overs) and a hair on the expensive side (about £10 a piece each way--that's roughly $18, by the way) it was a really enjoyable experience. We met some slightly intoxicated old chaps at the station in Newcastle. One was named Barney and his opening line was "You have such nice teeth...and she does too!" He told us how he remembers when they used to clean their teeth with soot and salt. Ugh.

We took the ferry across the lough and stayed at a hostel in Portaferry called Barholm. It was right across from the dock and it was really nice. We were a bit disappointed, though, because the only other people there was an older couple that came in late and went straight to bed. In fact, there were very few people anywhere in the town. We did hike up to an old windmill overlooking town, though, and the view was amazing. The next day we tried breaking out the guitar while waiting for our bus. People seemed to enjoy it, although no one came up and introduced themselves.

In the afternoon we went to Dundrum to see Erynne. For those of you who don't know, she goes to our church and flew over with us, but is working just up the road at Murlough House. We ate lunch with them and she showed us the grounds, then we drove over to the Oasis, which is an old pub that they've bought and converted into a coffee house. They've done a really great job on the building. It's massive and the upper floor has probably five or six nice bedrooms, furnished B&B-style. We worked for a couple hours on getting the coffee equipment running since they are wanting to open this weekend.

So it was a good trip. Keep praying that God would bring the right people across our path and that we would recognize the opportunities He brings our way. We have a group in this weekend and all next week Youth for Christ is doing training here, so it could be tiring for us. Hopefully purposeful, though.

You can go to our online photo album to see lots of pictures from the trip.
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N.Irish word of the day: torch = flashlight

first camp :: trip to lisburn :: online photo album

We are tired. This weekend we hosted a group of 68, a Baptist youth group. It was pretty wild, but we actually had a pretty good time. Well over eight hours of that time was spent doing dishes, though, and wasn't as fun. Comes with the territory, I guess. The other folks that work at the camp are really characters too, so we've loved getting to know them.

I spent Friday morning walking around downtown Lisburn. It was pretty uneventful. I had hoped to meet someone interesting, but I didn't even meet any boring people. I did find the church where Keith Niall works (he's the youth pastor that Cheryl and Dawn met on their last trip), but he wasn't around. It's a beautiful city, though. In the downtown area there's a coffee shop about every 200 yards, mostly paired with a restaraunt, bakery, or ice cream shop. One thing that you can be praying about is that God would bring us into contact with some people who aren't part of the church culture. It can be hard to get out of the bubble, especially for shy folks like Ange and me. One thing we're hoping to try is playing music on the street. We'll see how that goes.

One last thing: we're taking a lot more pictures than we could feasibly post on the blog, so we've created an online photo album. You can see all the pictures that didn't make the cut and even order prints if you're super crazy (in other words, if you're our parents). Here's the URL: http://guinns.myphotoalbum.com/.

We've been here for three weeks today. That's pretty wild, eh? Thanks again for praying with us. May God bless you today.

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N.Irish word of the day: craic = a good time. Yes, it's pronounced like "crack." They use it in some funny ways. Some examples:

• "That was some good craic." = "I had a really nice time tonight."
• "Hey, Tommy, how's the craic?" = "Hi, Tommy, how are you?"
• "Give me some of your craic." = "What's going on in your life."

All of which would mean something very different in the States. The real question is, what do you call it when a bunch of plumbers get together at the pub?

update and pictures from Germany

Hello! We're officially on our own now at the camp. Scott and Johanna left us on Tuesday and we have our first group coming in this friday. It should be a good time. We've been getting settled into the house and getting things cleaned up around the camp this week. Tomorrow we're going to go into Lisburn and walk around. We'll let you know how that goes. Here are some pictures from Germany:

Chris's house church. Chris is second from the right, and his wife Jenny is second from the left.	Bumming around Kandern. Everything closes from about 12:30-2:00pm for lunch. Which happened to be the exact time we went shopping...
Chris let us take his scooter out for the afternoon. It was great fun once we got the hang of it.	This is the view from the top of the mountain they live on. Yes, those are vineyards. They were all over the place in that part of Germany.
mmm... ice cream...	This is Scott and Johanna and the family before they left last week. They normally run the camp and we're taking over for them while we're here.

Bad news of the day: We've all heard the rumors and now I can confirm from personal experience that the mullet is making a comeback. I've seen three this week--mostly on stylish-looking young people. Unfortunately, I failed you and didn't ever get a picture. Be forewarned though, it's only a matter of time before the Euro-mullet hits the States...

good news

Short story: After many hours of trains, planes, and automobiles, we have arrived back at Mullartown House with a pair of wonderful new stamps on our passports. They say "Permission granted to stay six months" and we are very thankful to those of you who prayed with us through this and to our God who turns the hearts of kings and passport control agents.

Long story: Though Ange was very calm, I kept wanting to do things to make it work--things like creasing our passports to a different page so they wouldn't see the stamp from Shannon and checking all our papers fifteen times or even praying "enough." But as I was praying on the plane, I was reminded of Brother Andrew (I highly recommend his book God's Smuggler), who smuggled Bibles into communist Russia. He would often leave Bibles in plain sight on the seat of his car just so that his success couldn't be due to his own cleverness. I thought, "if Andrew can trust God in that way when the stakes are so much higher, surely I can trust Him now." God has promised that He loves us and will go ahead of us. Do I believe Him or not?

So with new peace in my heart (though still a bit of nervousness if I'm honest) we walked off the plane, down the corridor, and up to the passport desk. The agent was very pleasant. She asked us some of the same questions, although she never tried to make us prove that we had money. She looked through our passports quite a long time (so much for my little creasing scheme) and flipped through every page. On Ange's passport she probably looked at the stamp from Shannon three or four times, but never said anything about it. She asked to see our return tickets and after a few more questions, stamped us with the beautiful stamp and waved us through. As we walked towards the baggage claim, we were overcome with thankfulness.

This is the character of our God. He is the Redeemer. He took a stupid, inconvenient situation and turned it into a great time with old friends and a chance to see the beauty of the Germany and Switzerland. There is no greater pleasure than walking Him. It makes me think of the words of Joseph (who, admittedly, had a much harder time than we): "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good."

We had a good time in Germany. I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance. Peace.

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Strange fact of the day: In Germany, any street that comes in from the right side has the right-of-way, sometimes even if it's a smaller street. So you really have to watch because they might just pull out in front of you. It's really confusing.

Deutschland, ja!

After a cheap flight to Switzerland and a three hour train ride, we've arrived safely in Feuerbach, Germany. It's been so good to see old friends again. Chris was my youth pastor when I was in high school, which makes it a small miracle that he still wants anything to do with me. We'll post some pictures soon.
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Trivia Contest of the Day:
Ange and I decided to have a little trivia contest. Here's the question we were discussing as we sat on a park bench in town today: Do insects have blood? The first person to give us a correct answer will get a postcard from Germany! So break out your 8th grade science books and get crackin'. Post your answers as comments to this thread.

lots going on - pray for us

Hello again. I wish I had time to write about all the people we met on Saturday night. We got invited over for dinner enough times to fill the rest of the trip if we wanted to. Good times.

Sunday we went to the Annalong Presbyterian Church. It was interesting. They have a little praise band and sing some of the same songs you might hear in America as well as singing out of a two-hundred-year-old Psalter. Lot's of women still wear hats to church (in fact, many churches here still require them) and it was not too many years ago that this church did away with "family pews"--where each family bought it's own pew. It seems like a good church, though. Sunday night we went to the last of seven combined services in the neighboring town of Kilkeel. Five churches in the area went together to have a week of evening worship times going through the book of Ephesians one chapter at a time. It was also pretty neat.

On another note, we will be going to Germany on Wednesday and coming back on Sunday. The reason is that when we flew into Shannon last Monday, they only stamped our passport for 10 days. It was kind of a fluke--probably the agent thought we were going to try to stay and work--and everyone here was surprised by it. The crazy thing is that it was their mistake and now there's nothing to be done about it. Our options are to pay over $1000 to apply for an extension, leave the country and come back, or stay anyway. The last option would probably be fine, but we don't want to endanger our chances of coming back in the future. So we will be staying with our good friends the Greathouses at Black Forest Academy. We will re-enter the country on Sunday night at about 10:30pm (4:30 in Indiana).

Please pray for us! We have full confidence in the loving care of our Father, but it's obvious the our Enemy does not want us here. Pray that we would be able to have peace and rest in Jesus. Pray that we would have wisdom in dealing with the immigration officials. Pray on Sunday night that God would make a way for us. This is a small thing for Him and we are His children. He is the King. That's the truth.

Thanks for praying for us. May God bless us as we press into Him together. We love you all.
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N. Irish Word of the day: pants = underpants (trowsers = pants)

no riots for us

In case you hadn't heard, there was some pretty intense rioting in Belfast today. Just in case you had heard, we wanted to let everyone know that we're okay. I'll post more tomorrow hopefully (it's after midnight here).
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work begins

After a few nice days of resting, we started work on Thursday learning how to take care of the camp. It was a good time. I learned how to buff a linoleum floor and Ange got to clean lots of spider-infested nooks and crannies. We were both a little sore at the end of the day. The camp is gearing up for a big meeting where lots of people from their mission board will come down and hear a report on the summer. That will happen tonight and we're pretty excited about it. We'll get to meet some neat people, I'm sure.

We've been learning a lot from Scott and Johanne (the directors of the camp). They'll be leaving for America in a week, but in the meantime we've been having some great conversations. They're church is doing a "coffee bar" ministry to youth and they took us through that yesterday. It seems to be pretty neat, though not what we would think of as a coffee bar. :)

So we're doing well. Aside from the occasional pang of homesickness or "what the heck are we doing?" we're really enjoying ourselves. Thanks to those of you who have posted comments. It's always neat to hear from our friends. We miss you.

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Wouldn't-happen-in-America Moment of the Day:

Thursday afternoon, Johanna drove us up to Newcastle and on the way we ran across this. Note that this picture was taken from the front seat of our car.

pictures of mullartown house

We're getting settled in here. They've combined several of the dorm rooms to give us a little "apartment." They're taking really good care of us and we're amazed at how beautiful the grounds are. Take a look for yourself:

this is mullartown house

behind me is the irish sea

the dorm where we're staying

the grounds

N. Irish word of the day: autobank = ATM (yes, Paula, they also call them "holes in the wall" here)

mullartown house at last

We arrived this afternoon at Mullartown House after a long day of train rides. Scott picked us up at the train station in Newry and drove us to the camp. It's really a great place. We're so excited! Hopefully we'll post more in the next few days -- maybe some pictures. Peace out.

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safe arrivals

Well, we arrived safely this morning in Shannon. Our new friend Brian picked us up at the airport and after napping at his house for a few hours we're feeling reasonably lucid. The flights were uneventful and actually pretty fun. And so begins our adventure...
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