A different voice and a rainbow!

We have gone back to walking a couple of days this week as Jane is off from school - we are now at the coast by Maldon (right). We are still walking the Essex marshes and going through some pretty bleak and isolated territory at times. All the way on this walk, we've had so many special times with God, encounters, revelations about Essex and so have so strongly felt God's smile on us.

Yesterday was another example. We decided to ease ourselves in slowly by spending the day in Maldon and praying round there rather than struggling along the sometimes difficult coastal wall which in places is broken and difficult to traverse.

Maldon is the site of a famous battle that took place in 991AD. It's where Viking invaders defeated the Saxon army and so took over this part of England under the Danegeld rule by which the Saxons had to pay incredible amounts of money to the Danes who ruled that part of England for many years.

The army in fact was led at that time by a Norwegian named Olaf Tryggvason, who later became King of Norway. Brythnoth, eorldorman of Essex under King Ethelred, who was the Saxon leader, was defeated but is still celebrated as a great hero in the battle which wiped out many East Saxon noblemen and kings of that time. This whole area of coast saw so many invasions, so much bloodshed, so much injustice and we have felt that heavily on the land.

In Maldon there is a quay and a causeway where there is a huge statue of Brythnorth looking out to sea with his sword raised. As we walked up to the statue, the heavy anointing of God came on us and we started to cry out to God about the bloodshed and the pride which had caused Brythnoth to allow the Vikings passage into the land, along a defendable causeway, for battle (he thought he could wipe them out). At that moment the son of one of our party rang on his mobile to say that there had been a power cut - yes, we think there was! As we left the statue, he rang again to say the power was back on. As we walked to Northey Island where the Vikings had grouped, we saw a sign warning us that under the causeway was a power cable.

The Vikings had gathered on Northey Island prior to the battle so we prayed on the causeway between the island and the mainland where the battle actually took place. As we stood on the uncovered causeway (left), we could feel the Viking presence - they had stood, banging their shields and shouting defiance and it felt to us like it had happened yesterday - we could almost see it.

We prayed and prayed about what the Vikings had brought into the land and I (Linda) asked forgiveness (I have Norwegian ancestry). We especially prayed about Viking idolatry and the way the Vikings made the Saxons pay for protection (we felt it could well be a root of the 'wheeler-dealer' attitude to money so prevalent in Essex). Then, a very strong anointing came when we started to pray about what they had brought in to the UK in their attitude to and excessive use of alcohol and how that had infested our land and we cried out for the young generation.

Later we found the site of the battle, inside the sea wall on the mainland side, marked by a tiny plaque. When we were finished we stood and watched as the Lord built a magnificent rainbow- a full arch with one side rooted in the mainland to the left and the other end in the land of the island with the causeway where the army would have traversed to the mainland central to the arch of the bow. The three pictures below show the rainbow clearly...in the midst of a bright blue sky!

What a site and what an encouragement!! He never ceases to amaze us!!