Saturday, August 15, 2009

All Irish Girls... (Plus two americans!)

We did so many great things in Northern Ireland. We worked with Mourne Presbyterian Church and Kikeel Presbyterian Church. We spent a week with Kitty's Road, a local Roman Catholic Community. We ate delicious food! We did so many amazing things that I can't even count.

One of the things that I will never forget is all the 'lovely' girls that we met. I will never forget how kind and welcoming they were on the first day. Within two days we were having pillow fights and laughing like crazy. Now I have friendships that I wouldn't be able to forget even if I wanted to.

Emma: An amazing girl who is gorgeous on the inside and the outside. She really cares about each and every person of Kitty's Road and on the American team. It was an absolute joy to meet and get to know her after hearing so much about her.
Emma, I love you so much!

Hannah: An extremely hyper girl that never fails to be happy. She is so encouraging to everyone with her constant positive attitude. I'm so glad that I was able to be her friend and love her so much!
Hannah, I will never forget you!

Nicola: A particularly fun girl who always made me laugh. She encouraged me so much in the way that she opened up to me and the way that she cared for every single person. I loved getting to walk along the beach and talk about our lives.
Nicola, I miss you so much!

Heather: An awesome girl who could do pretty much everything. Throughout the weeks she played all the games, worked with the wee ones, worked with the older ones, figured out harmonies with us. On top of all that, she is a wonderful sister in Christ, and someone I look up to a lot.
Heather, I miss you a ridiculous amount!

Jules: A very dramatic girl whose funny personality touched all of the americans. The way that she was so welcoming and open right from the start. The way that she poured her heart into the wee ones.
Jules, I cant tell you how much I love you!

Sami: An absolutely amazing girl who has pretty much become my sister over the past few months. We laugh, we cry, we fight, and we learn guitar.
Sami, I can't believe I haven't seen you in like two weeks!
(What's up with that?)

So, the point of this blog is to tell you girls how much I love and miss you, and how much I value your friendship. I will definitely, and I'm sure Sami will too, be counting the months till we can come back to you all in Northern Ireland.
But Until then, know that you are in my thoughts, in my prayers, and in my inbox on facebook. I love you girls so much, and am blessed to have you as sisters in Christ.

YES...

So, pretty much. My Mom Rocks.
Since I didn't get to pet a sheep in Ireland,
she brought the sheep to me!

:)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

To Julie-Anne...

As we got off the mini bus, the first of many times, in the parking lot of Mourne Presbyterian Church, Julie-Anne Gordon, Emma Jeffrey, Hannah Skillen, Nicola McKee and many other Northern Irish teens. After I had shook hands with Emma and Hannah, my new friends, I turned to Jules and gave her a big hug. I felt as if I already knew her through the facebook videos and messages and hearing all about her. She was just as beautiful as I had heard. I loved the way that she just says what she wants, and the way that she was so excited to meet new people.

All I can say, is that this trip was incredibly amazing, and Julie-Anne, you played a huge part in that. You made the beginning of the trip a very un-awkward time. Thankyou so much! Thankyou for your constant loving and happy attitude. I will miss you so much over the next couple months and I will be praying for you a lot.

Love you SO much!

~Regan

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Gospel Citizen

Grant talked today about what it means to be a Gospel citizen.
What does that mean?
Well I took it to mean that you, as a christian, act like one. You are a fragrance of Christ, you are obedient to the Father, you are humble in the talents that He gave you, you truly believe that Christ is your saviour,
I'm sure I could go on.

This got me asking, 'Am I a Gospel citizen? Do I show the work of the Lord in me? Do I walk down the hallway at school, and people automatically know that I live my life for the Lord?'

No... 

I want so badly to be able to say that I do, but that wouldn't be the truth. 
I wish that I thought about giving the glory to God in everything that I do and say, but that wouldn't be the truth.
I want so badly to be able to say that I'm content with who I am as a christian, but that wouldn't be the truth.

In reality, I'm a horrible sinner that doesn't deserve any forgiveness at all.
But because of the amazing thing that Jesus did, I am forgiven. 

I'm forgiven from everything that I've ever done. For how stupid I've been when I give in to the prideful thinking that Satan pushes on me. 

Because God the father sacrificed his own, precious son, I can enter into the gates of Heaven.
That's absolutely mind boggling. 

Two weeks ago Grant talked about the perspectives of the cross. And I started thinking about how I feel when I sin. If I even do anything tiny, I feel so guilty and horrible. Then I thought about how Jesus would have felt on the cross. As he hung there, suffocating, he was bearing the entire worlds sins. The entire world, universe! Billions of times worse than anything I or anyone else has ever had to deal with. This realization kinda gave me a new, greater respect and love for our saviour.

I don't really know the point of this post, but I thought that I should share what's been going through my head lately.

-regan

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Wow...

The things that people will do for show-business...







 

Sunday, January 18, 2009

:(

Beau's leaving again...


Am I ready for this?

Friday, December 26, 2008

Good, Bad, Old, and New Memories

My Family and I went to see the movie, "Marley & Me," today, and it was really good! The whole movie is about life. Throughout it, there is an insane, hungry dog named Marley. He chewed up everything, and all this different stuff. Without giving away the whole movie, it really reminded me of the dogs that I remember having. We had a black lab mix that I don't remember at all, but I know that for the first couple months when I was born, she didn't like me very much! She would growl as she
 walked by, :) We have it on tape! But I don't remember her at all. 
And then we had Gracie. Her full name was Grace Unleashed Walsh because she was never on a leash. She was the best dog. She would let you lay on her as much as you want. I vaguely remember laying on the Kitchen the kitchen floor just petting her. We only had her for about a year. Sadly the one thing that I can remember, clearly, about Gracie was the night she died. It was the day before Beau's Birthday. Someone from church came to drop somethin
g off at our house and was standing in the doorway talking to my parents. Gracie slipped past him and ran to the neighbors yard 
to sniff their
 garbage. By that time Beau and I were at the door helping my parents call her. But she didn't listen. She ran across the street just as a truck was passing. We all saw the tire go right over her neck. I can still picture it a little. I watched Dad, Mr. Boyd, and the man who hit her load her into the truck to take her to the vet, but she was already dead... The place ended up being closed so they had to leave her in front of the building. She was a really great dog. We were pretty depressed that night. In fact, we were so out of our minds that we went to the breeder
 the next morning and picked a little Yellow lab pup. This was probably not the best decision :) He was cute at first, but he was a monster! When we first brought him home, we sat on the kitchen floor while he nibbled mom's fingers. It was cute because 
he couldn't hurt her, but we hadn't seen anything yet. Soon he was grabbing socks and dish towels and ripping them to shreds! He would grab something and have so much fun as we angrily chased him around the dining table. We officially named h
im Jake Takes the Cake Walsh. Luckily, I don't really remember Jake's Puppy days. The memories that I have of him were the good ones. I remember swinging on the tire swing out back with a stick in my hand, and he would try to get it. I remember laying on the floor with him, even though I knew how annoyed he got when I did that. And I remember how I loved to sit and laugh while Dad wrestled with him! But most of all, I remember my last night with him. I didn't know that he was going to put down until that day. 
I sat out on the porch and took pictures him. 
Later that night Mom and I went to say goodbye.
 I'll never forget the look of "Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep.":) The next morning he was gone. I felt like I was loosing everything, well only three things really. The Tree with my tir
e swing had suddenly got elms dise
ase and was cut down. They
 didn't even ask us! That tire swing was the place where I would go after another day of tension at nova. I went there after anything that happened that made me mad, sad, etc. The other thing was that my best friend was moving. To the other side of the US. That made everything worse. Then all of sudden my dog got put down! That month was one of the worst months I've had. We went without a dog for 2-3 months. It was torture for me. I'd never not had a dog. 
I got used to it after a while, but it was still so different. Throughout those 2-3 months, we looked online for our new dog, and every once in a while throwing out names. We finally narr
owed it
 down to a Brittany or a Lab. We had to go with a lab. We went to see the breeder that had the soon to be ours puppy. We got to hold all of them! I loved it. We all found one that we liked a lot that day, and we think
 that it was her. We had to wait a couple more weeks until we could really pick one and bring her home. We knew that we wanted a girl, because we did not want to risk having another Jake. So those few weeks were full of research on girl dog names. When we were on our way to get her, we still hadn't picked a name. We started talking about them again, when the name Autumn came up. Then Dad said, "How about Audie for short?" Beau then exclaimed about how he had said that the night before. We all liked it, but I was little iffy. At the time it wasn't my favorite. When we got there, the lady had already put the litter in a little pen outside. I jumped in the pen and started petting them all. Some ran away, but there were a coupl
e that seemed pretty interested in us. One in particular kept coming up. And we decided to go with her. Beau and I brought her over to a small picnic table near by and pet her. Sitting at that table we knew that she was nothing but an Audie. We put her in the kennel we had brought in the trunk, and went home. She slept the whole way, curled up in a corner of the kennel. Beau and 
I couldn't stop turning around to look at her. On our way home, Beau sent out a mass text telling everyone her name. We had to explain to a lot of people that it wasn't Audi like the car. When we got home we let her run around in the new sod that replaced our tree. In no time she was prancing around like a deer!
 It was so cute. When we were inside the the four of us sat down in the kitchen and played with
 her. She ran around to each of us in turn, and then did it again, and again. She has grown a lot since then, but she is still amazing. She is the only dog that we've had that can entertain herself with her toys. And she has more privileges at 17 months than Jake did at 5 years old.  All this to say that "Marley & Me" is a great movie, and I think that you should go see it. 
Because of all my past experiences with dogs, I laughed, cried, and enjoyed this movie so much.