Click here to Post a message and give Emma and the girls your memories of Mark. Mark’s passing was sudden and unexpected. He suffered a seizure on Monday, the 11th of September and was taken to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. There were further brain haemorrhages and Surgeons found a massive brain aneurysm.

He came through a major operation but died a week later on 21st September.

Mark’s funeral service was held at St Michael’s Church, Stoke Gifford – the church where he and his family worshipped.

The service was a celebration of the life of this extraordinary young man. Mark was buried in Filton cemetery opposite his university. A memorial Mass is also being held on Friday 6th October at 2.00pm to celebrate Mark’s life.

Mark was born in Pontypool, Monmouthshire, twenty nine years ago. He arrived on his father’s birthday. He moved to Carmarthen three years later. Mark was educated at St Mary’s Catholic School and worshipped at St Mary’s where he served as an altar boy. He attended Queen Elizabeth Cambria School. Many will remember Mark in these early years. He loved playing chess and belonged to the local Chess Club; he was passionate about railways and would spend hours at Carmarthen station; as a volunteer on the Gwili railway, or building his own model railway. He was a familiar figure at Les’s gym, collecting subs. or giving advice on training and diet; he could be found wheeling and dealing on the family market stall, or playing piano in the Jazz club. At the age of sixteen Mark wanted a challenge and won a scholarship to Lester Pearson College of the Pacific on Vancouver Island, where he would spend the next two years. Mark went on to study Physics at Imperial College , London, which is where he met Emma, who would become his wife. Mark studied teaching at Magdalen College , Oxford. He and Emma married and went to the United States to study at Bethany College of Missions in Minneapolis. It was there, six years ago that Deborah was born. Mark returned to this country and lived in Bristol, working at the University of the West of England. There, Mark’s other two girls, Anna and Ellie were born. He won accelerated promotion to Senior Lecturer in Electronic Engineering. He was expected to be a professor by the age of 35. Mark obtained his doctorate in artificial intelligence and control engineering. His particular mission in the scientific field was the development of walking robots to be used in the clearance of landmines. His doctorate has been accepted for publication and will be out shortly. Next year Mark , Emma and the girls were to go to India for two years, where Mark would take up the post of Reader at the Amity School of Engineering and Technology in New Delhi, and where they could also undertake missionary work amongst the poor. TRIBUTES Professor Stephen Hoddell, Assistant Vice-Chancellor of the University of England . . . paid a tribute to Mark on behalf of the university. Mark was totally committed to his work. His post combined teaching and research. As a teacher he was outstanding. He was inspirational as a lecturer and had the ability to lift people to understand, complex and difficult ideas in a way people could get hold of. He was very intelligent, he could inspire and motivate his students to achieve the high standards he always set for himself and which he expected from others. Not only was he good at teaching, but he was an example to all the staff on how to think about teaching, how to improve their teaching, and how to look at new ways of doing things. Research was his first love. He applied a combination of team work, individual flair and passionate commitment. He was internationaly known for his research in Neural Control of walking robots for humanitarian applications. Professor Hoddell stated that Mark’s achievements at the University were considerable, but he will be remembered for his human qualities. He was a man of principles. He was able to arrange for Mark to be seconded as a Reader – a senior research post to Delhi. It was a position that had everything to appeal to Mark, it was new challenge, it would enable him to help others develop research and allow him to carry out further research. It was a chance for him to learn about a different society and culture and a chance to make a positive contribution where such a contribution was needed. "Mark’s life was too short, far too short, thank God for Mark, for the love and warmth he showed to us all." Rev. Max Coates "He was challenging, he was controversial and he was stimulating and so much came out of his passion for following Jesus, refusing to compromise. His was concerned and identified with the two-thirds world who are 'The Excluded'. We have warm memories of Mark fed by his compassion but allowed some of the barbs of his insights to stir us from the ever present threat of complacency..... Mark a love for Christ.... Mark alive in Christ! A young friend of Mark recalled "the two things that stand out most when I remember Mark are his passion and his enthusiasm. They were infectious. The talks that he gave in church never failed to stir me up, and never failed to fire me up. After we had eaten at Mark and Emma’s house, we would talk and I would come away with a head full of ideas and plans, that in the hours before had seemed like vague impossibilities. This was because Mark did not limit God in the same way as so many of us do. He was passionate about serving God himself and he was passionate about seeing other people serve God, and the more ambitious and exciting the plan the more enthusiastic Mark would be about it. He had so many dreams, so many plans, so many visions for the future. He was always reaching out to take hold of God’s promises and so it is obviously of interest to us to ask why did God let him die and this question is on my heart and is probably on everyone else’s. I do want to say this, the great thing about Mark’s dreams, Mark’s plans and visions and promises was that he didn’t hang on to them for himself alone but loved to share them. He loved to see others catch some of his fire and passion and he was so pleased when a result was they made their own plans that would stretch them and allow them to use them more and more powerfully. I remember the many conversations I had with Mark and Emma in their lounge where they would share from their own experiences, from their knowledge and they would tell me of a plan that would allow me to move on and then Mark was always there, constanly nt affirmating me as I prepared to go and do these things. Mark would tell me how much I was going to enjoy myself, how much God was going to bless them and how much he wished that he were going too. And I know that I am really going to miss that encouragement, that infectious enthusiasm and passion. The one thing that I also want to say and it is something that I know that Emma echoes and which I truly believe that Mark would say, and it is this, most of us have at some point been encouraged by Mark, there are some who have caught some of his passion and vision and as a result have dreamt our own dreams and formed our own plans thus I would like to say let us not lose it; not only let us not lose it but let us keep hold of these things, take hold of that passion even more firmly. Mark has died. Yet his dreams, his passion and his vision do not have to die as well, we can take them on ……… passion and ask God to pass it on to us so that not only does it not die but it grows and burns more strongly and brightly than ever before. And, to those who may not have experienced Mark’s passion or are scared to ..... or to those who know they cannot experience it because they haven’t accepted Jesus, I would urge them to think hard about it, accept the challenges and accept the life that Jesus offers, life that doesn’t end, even in death."

"The Tearfund"...Mark's favorite charity Pearson College of The Pacific

Try to hear Mark singing this to all of "his girls".....Emma, Deborah, Anna and Ellie....I can hear him!

Sleep my love, and peace attend thee All through the night;

Guardian angels God will lend thee,

All through the night,

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,

Hill and vale in slumber steeping,

I my loving vigil keeping,

All through the night.

2. Angels watching ever round thee,

All through the night,

In thy slumbers close surround thee,

All through the night,

They should of all fears disarm thee,

No forebodings should alarm thee,

They will let no peril harm thee,

All through the night.

Holl amrantau'r sêr ddywedant,

Ar hyd y nos,

'Dyma'r ffordd i fro gogoniant,

Ar hyd y nos.

Golau arall yw tywyllwch,

I arddangos gwir brydferthwch

Teulu'r nefoedd mewn tawelwch,

Ar hyd y nos.

2. O mor siriol gwen a seren,

Ar hyd y nos,

I oleuo-i chwaer ddae ar en,

Ar hyd y nos.

Nos yw henaint pan ddaw cystudd,

Ond i harddu dyn a'i hwyr dydd,

Rhown ein goleu gwan i'n gilydd,

Ar hyd y nos.

Gramma and Grampa were Host Parent's for Mark when He went to Pearson College of The Pacific in Victoria, B.C.

We will forever miss the presence of Mark and all that he stood for but we will forever feel his spirit. Gramma and Grampa's House in Cyberspace