Rain Happens

2010-03-16T04:48:00.003Z

New Update

Latest news for the Swabey's check out www.theabbeycommunity.blogspot.com Gary is now pastoring a church in the Glenmore Valley in Kelowna called The Abbey. He can also be found on the Willow Park Church site. You can also find us on facebook under The Abbey Community and I have my own facebook page.

2008-03-31T05:55:00.004+01:00

UPDATE

We are settling in just fine in Kelowna, it was very easy to come home but very hard to leave Ireland behind. The girls are meeting friends, playing ice hockey, taking music lessons and looking forward to the summer and Green Bay Bible camp. They did love the winter and the snow instead of the rain. Kirbey is in two different programs 4 days a week and is really enjoying the interaction with someone other than her boring old mom and dad.

I am reconnecting with old friends and setting up house and trying to settle after living in 7 houses in the last 11 years. I told Gary that he has to put my tomb stone in the back yard because I am done moving and I mean it!

OUR NEW EMAIL ADDRESS IS ds7757@shaw.ca if you need to or want to contact us.

Cheers

2007-07-23T17:27:00.000+01:00

Hi there, not much to report right now except Gary will be working for Gord Turner cleaning up reno sites and delivering materials to other sites. He bought himself some steel toed work boots and is ready to go. If you want to email us here is our address. rainhappens@hotmail.com Cheers.

2007-07-05T06:33:00.000+01:00

Zerberts at last

Well I have been in Canada for almost a week and a half and have had a Danai fix almost every day. She is sweeter than I could have imagined. I feel sorry for Gary sitting in Ireland in the rain missing his family. It is nice to be home, even though we are homeless at this time but on the other hand it is a big sigh that our time in Ireland with Rain Happens ministry has come to an end. We had envisioned so much more but Kirbey is an important part of our life and God has called us to care for her and so here we are. Gary will be in Summerland on July 19th. Please pray for our house in Ireland to sell and our car also. This is weighing heavy on us as it will be finacially difficult to pay rent and a mortage. We will update you on our future as it unfolds, it looks like Kelowna will be our home for sure but check back for updates as we bring our time blogging as Rain Happens to a close.

2007-06-19T18:46:00.000+01:00

Spiritual Conversations Happen

Gary has had a few opportunities to use his office for more that just study and sermon prep. This fellow is searching and has lots of questions and he found "The Monk Hut/Dog House" a place that was comfortable to sit and talk to Gary about some of these questions. It is not common to meet for coffee here and not many people will ask you to their home so this is a great alternative. Pray that Gary would have a few more opportunities to talk to others in this blessed place, and thank-you to all who made it possible.

2007-06-04T20:46:00.000+01:00

Marathon Man

Gary ran a marathon today, yes a marathon. That is 26 miles 385 yards or 42.195 kilometers. His time was 3 hrs 48 min and a few secs. He did this with only a couple of months of training. Yes I am proud of him. If you double click on the pic with the statue in it you can see Gary coming in on the final stretch, he is wearing a blue shirt. It was a great sunny day, this in itself was a miracle. It was also nice that Garys mom and dad could be here from Canada to watch. Before he did this he was pretty sure he would not bother with another one but now that he has done it he thinks maybe he will try the Kelowna marathon with his brother. I told him it is kind of like having a baby, the first one is unkown and scary but once you've done it and live through the pain and get the reward you start thinking about the next time.

2007-05-30T21:27:00.000+01:00

Creation Still Worships
Ireland has a rich Christian history but the foundation is crumbling. Everywhere you go you can find ruins of churches, monastaries and abbys. But amongst the ruins you can see God in all His glory as nature has taken over the ground that humans have forgotten. Pray for this country that just as these trees have taken root, the message of Jesus will take root again and spread across Ireland in a fresh new way.

2007-05-22T20:14:00.000+01:00

25 years!!!

It's an eternity, people get less for murder. These are the words my loving husband spoke to me on our 25Th wedding anniversary today. Of course he was just joking? Unofficially we have been living together for 28 years and in that time we have lived in 14 different houses with stays at many places in between. Hopefully this next move back to Kelowna (home) will be the last. I'm a grandma now and I'm getting to old for this. Well it has been a roller coaster ride but I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. We have been blessed to have made it this far, some of our trials have been difficult ones, but holding on to our faith and following Jesus on all these adventures is what has got us this far. I am looking forward to the next 25 years, hoping to have just as many adventures, only hoping for not as many valleys, as we spend it together seeing where God would have us serve.

2007-05-13T20:43:00.000+01:00

Gary's Turn

Gary got to go on his adventure with Sharon, Jenny and Kevin, the 3 that took me on mine. Only this time there was a sleep over and that meant tents and sleeping bags had to be carried!

Gary became the mule horse and packed a good load on his back all the way up and down the mountain. This was Carrantwohill the tallest mountain in Ireland, the same one I climbed, minus the tent and sleeping bag. They spent the night in a hut that was constructed out of rock and plastered on the inside. Gary use to think it would be cool to live like and monk but as this was similar to what the monks slept in he has rethought this and no, he no longer has such desires. He gave up and slept outside as he was feeling a little claustophobic. He did have a wonderful time of reflection and a little physical challange and overall a great adventure.

2007-05-11T19:20:00.000+01:00

Good Times and Bad

Good Times

Now that we are moving back to Canada there was a small problem, when we moved here one of the things I bribed the twins with was the fact that we were so close to all the European countries that we would be able to travel and see some of Europe. So when we told them that we were going home they said "what about seeing Europe". So I thought I would take them somewhere before we left and I decided on Spain because it is so cheap to get there, and there was sun!!! Spain was great. We were there for a week. We had lots of sun, we saw old buildings, shopped, took an old train to the other side of the island to Soller and just had some good mommy daughter time, oh and Shanaya did some bull riding. We went with my friend Dawn French and her daughter Lauren. We went to Spain, in the Balearic Islands, the Island of Majorca, City of Palma, tourist area of Palma Nova. This island seems to be wealthy and was very nice and clean. I'm not sure if it would be what the rest of Spain would be like.

Bad Times

We have had to say good-bye to Mungo. We signed an agreement that we gave up breeding rights to Mungo thinking it meant that we would just not breed him but to the breeder here that meant she would be phoning us non stop to take him to shows, sign him up for behaviour classes, come by to take pictures and when he was a year take him for a physical to see if he would make a good stud. She had him for 5 hours and when she brought him back she told us she had a solution, instead of us taking him to Canada and her giving up her breeding rights, she wanted to give us a new puppy. She said she thought Mungo would make a good stud and was not ready to give up her stud rights. We had a feeling this was coming so we gave him up and did not take a new puppy. We figured with the move and not knowing where we were going to live it would be easier without a pup. Soo, we are dogless. I am the only one who had tears over this but the girls were promised a new puppy of the same breed so they are OK for now. I will be OK too but it just seems to add to everything and I think I have had a full plate and it is starting to runeth over with tears. Don't the girls look sad though.

2007-05-02T16:04:00.000+01:00

It's Confirmed
After 10 months of waiting the mail came today and I received a letter from the government saying that my application for a residency card was denied. This came as quite a shock. Before we left Canada Gary phoned and wrote to the Irish embassy in Canada and also to the the Irish government in Dublin to make sure that I was allowed to live here. We knew that Gary and the girls could live here because they have British passports. Gary even went into the immigration office when he was here the year before and all of the answers were the same. Yes your wife can live here just have her apply for her residency card right away. We even have it in writing.
What they are saying now is because Gary has not lived his last five years in a EU country I am not eligible. So this is news to us. If we had known this we never would have bought a house or maybe even moved here.
Sooo, this seems to confirm that we have done the right thing by deciding to go home. We may have been able to work around this but we are not going home because of this as you all know, Kirbey's well being and quality of live is the issue.
It is not exaggerating to say that very little has gone smoothly for us here and this is just another on a long list, we just laugh now because it is beyond annoying.

2007-04-28T19:26:00.000+01:00

Please Pray
We have had a fellow named Pat Disken pass away this week. Pat and his wife Michelle attend our church. Pat had a tumor removed from his brain 6 weeks ago and we all thought he was on the mend and had to go through chemo and he had a chance. But on Thursday he took a turn for the worse when they discovered the tumor had grown back and was larger. We were told he did not have long. Pat however did not make it through the night. The church family is small and this has affected them all.
Gary has the opportunity to speak infront of a lot of people as Pat was well know. He made it clear to his wife he did not want a Catholic funeral but an evangelical funeral and this will be different for the majority of people that will be attending.
Traditions here are very different from what we are used to. There is usually a service where Catholic prayers are said and another service that is more like a memorial. The body is present for the prayer service in an open cascket and then taken home to the family. We are not sure yet if he is also present at the memorial.
So instead of the prayers they have asked Gary to do two services, one smaller than the other. This is a bit of a challenge for Gary as he pretty much has to say the same thing twice in two different ways.
Pray Gary can present a new idea of what it means to know and follow Jesus and maybe some new contacts who are interested to know more.

2007-04-26T22:16:00.000+01:00

I can't help myself,

Just have to show her off!!

I just don't feel like a grandma yet, I have to touch and smell. I hope Danai is ready for lots of lovin.

2007-04-18T12:53:00.000+01:00

The Amazing Shanaya

When Gary's brother and his family were here we went downtown Cork city. While we were wondering around we came across a street performer. He was asking for volunteers and Shanaya put up her hand and was picked. First he had her juggling but as you can see it was him juggling through a jacket that he put his hands through and then he had her toss him knives. Gary and I were a little tense at this point and Shanaya was a little unsure if she wanted to do it but do it she did and never made a mistake. She made €5.00 in the process (about $7.60). Isn't she cute!

2007-04-14T21:53:00.000+01:00

Easter In Ireland
He has Risen, He has Risen Indeed
The weather was beautiful this Easter Sunday. There is me catching a few rays and TaLeah stopped the ice cream truck and got herself a 99, that is a soft ice cream with a flake bar stick into it. The ice cream truck makes its rounds all year long, the Irish seem to love their 99's.

Gary preached on how without the resurrection there is no point in celebrating Easter. Gary explained to the children that the seed that is planted in the ground looks dead but is given a new form when it grows into either a flower or a carrot or a tomato. Jesus conquered death and
received His glorified body and in doing so gave the same opportunity to those who believe and follow Him. What is it we need to believe? That Jesus really lived here on earth, that He was who He said He was (God in the flesh), that none of us humans are without fault and therefore separated from God, Jesus sacrificed Himself for our faults, conquered death and now is in eternity with God waiting for those who believe all this. Sounds amazing and it is. A life spent finding out who Jesus was and
is and how He would have us live, is an amazing journey. It sure has been for us. Hey am I preaching? Move over pastor Gary!!

2007-04-10T20:55:00.000+01:00

Couldn't - help - myself, pictures toooo cute.
Here are some more pics to add to the previous post. Michael wanted to see a leprechaun so we bought him this hat and told him to look in the mirror! Shanaya and Michael having fun downtown Cork. TaLeah in stocks at the old city gaeol (jail). Rachel, Shanaya,and TaLeah being angelic in the Muckross Abby.

The kids having a
marshmallow roast over candles on the kitchen floor, what, they were bored, we supervised.
Double left click to see the pics larger.

2007-04-10T10:27:00.000+01:00

Eloquent Speech and Family Fun

We had a wonderful time showing Gary's brother John and his wife Elizabeth and their kids Michael and Rachel around Kinsale, Killarney,Cork and Blarney,Ireland. We even managed to talk TaLeah into kissing the Blarney Stone! She thought she had to repell to the stone and that thought scared her. We convinced her to come to the top and got her to lay down only to see extreme fear in her eyes when she saw how far backwards and upside down she had to go, but she did it! Shanaya who has no fear of heights had no problem. Now my girls will have eloquent speech as the legend goes.We had sunny weather the whole time and ate fish and chips, had to eat a little Irish because the weather sure wasn't.

2007-04-04T16:52:00.000+01:00

We all need the hope of Easter

This is rather a sad picture and it reminds us that we all need the hope that Easter brings. Gary jogs in the morning through the park behind our house and in the time we have lived here two young men have taken their lives in this park, one 18 and the latest 23 just last week. The young man had been missing for a few days before they discovered his body. This rattled Gary quite a bit because he had jogged by this very site at least twice while the fellow was missing. As Gary and I were talking we wondered how many people we pass by without noticing they are living in desperation and feel there is no hope. We just wanted to remind ourselves and others that Jesus is our hope. May your Easter season be full of the love and hope of Jesus!!!

2007-04-03T23:15:00.000+01:00

Angelic Butterfly

Isn't Danai precious? I can't wait to zerbert that chubby little tummy. She has discovered her thumb and is quite happy with it. Along with her thumb she has discovered her feet and they have become her favorite toys.!

2007-03-23T08:51:00.000Z

Value of the Human Soul

Gary is holding a fake 1 million Euro bill. Now just imagine if it was real. What would you give for a million Euros? Would you give this nice Ross Castle pictured behind Gary for it? Would you give one of you eyes, ears, arms or legs? Our physical body is worth great value, more than a million Euros. What about your soul, how much is your soul worth? Jesus said "It is foolish to gain the whole world but loose your soul". Our souls are priceless. God puts more value on our souls that any thing else including Euros. Ireland had been hard and ministry is Ireland is very slow moving.

But, the other day a man came over to our house to tell Gary that he has "got his life straightened out with God". He wanted to tell Gary that if for nothing else God brought us here to reach him.

We have questioned if our time in Ireland has been worth all the time, energy, hastles, emotions and money and we think from a human point of view this is quite natural to do. But from God's perspective if one life is impacted it has been a valuable time because God puts great value on each and every soul coming to follow him and changing their life for ever.

Just think how much God loves you and how much each one of us has value in His eyes. It is kind of hard to get your head around the idea that we are worth so much, so go now and treat each other with such value.

( A little Gary benidiction at the end there, did you notice?)

2007-03-17T18:31:00.000Z

HAPPY ST PADDY'S DAY

This is about as Irish as we could look for the day! We spent part of it cheering on the Irish rugby team in the six nations tournament over at the Ballincollig Rugby Club. They beat Italy so joy was to be had. We would have liked to go to the parade down town but they were expecting 60 thousand people to show up and there is just no parking. It would have been difficult to get Kirbey around as well but she sure enjoyed yelling and cheering on the rugby players.

2007-03-08T11:54:00.000Z

Please no more pizza, pasta, scrambled eggs or Chinese! My dad, Tom Ryan and I had a great trip to Rome, Italy. We hit all the tourist sights you could see, from the Coliseum to the Pantheon. The idea to go to Rome started when dad was complaining that he had too much money and he would just have to leave it to his kids to spend after he died. I said instead of me spending it then, why don't we spend some of it together while he was alive. I knew he was coming to visit us in Ireland so I suggested we go to Italy, on dad, while he was here and he said great idea and, the rest is now history. Or I should say we saw history. Here I am with my first latte and here is dad on our way to the coliseum. We ate a lot of pizza because it was everywhere and it was cheap, we ate Chinese 3 times because it was near the hotel and it was good and we had pasta because it is Italian. The hotel advertises that it has a hot American breakfast included but all that meant was scrambled eggs, EVERYDAY. I don't think I want scrambled eggs for a while, 7 days in a row is plenty. As well as Rome we also went to Naples and Pompeii, Naples not so nice but Pompeii was very interesting. Here are pictures of pottery and a plaster cast of a body frozen in time when the volcanic ash hit. Now we are investigating the history in Ireland. A few castles, churches and forts etc.

2007-02-25T20:36:00.000Z

Salon Swabey

That is new name of my kitchen. In the last month I have done everybody's hair in the family including myself, that is 5 hair cuts, 2 sets of streaks, two colours and a good brushing with a pony tail, and now my dad tells me he needs a trim. I have had a hard time with the amounts the salons charge here for hair cuts so I have cut my hair myself since my last hair cut in Summerland in June. It averages €40 for a haircut here, that is $60 and that is a good price. I figure I saved our family somewhere between $400 and $500 dollars just for our hair this month. I am thankful for having the skill. I have also done some cuts for others in the neighbourhood and church at €15 and €20 that is $23-$40 each which is a deal for them and good money for me. Are you surprised at the girls hair? I finally gave in and did the colour and streak thing. I did not want to start this because it will never end I'm sure. As you can see in the picture of both of the twins their sence of fashion is well, what can I say, different!!!

2007-02-16T08:27:00.000Z

GRANDPA!!!!!
Well here he is. Grandpa Gary. I am sooo jealous that Gary got to see Danai first, but on the other hand so happy for him too, as he was just an itchen to get at her. Tianna was so thoughtful as to surprise her dad and drive to Kelowna on the day he arrived, he did not expect to see her until the next day when he drove to Summerland. I asked Tianna if her dad had a tear in his eye when he saw Danai and she didn't see that but he practially ripped her out of the car seat barely waiting for Tianna to undo the seatbelt. When I see this picture of Gary holding Danai it is almost deja vu, it reminds me so much of Gary holding Tianna. The chubby cheeks and bald head, she is a beaut!

2007-02-09T13:26:00.000Z

Exploring Ireland is something we are trying to get the twins into but after you have seen one castle ruin and old church you have seem them all, according to the girls that is. I bribed them to come on one of the adventures that Sharon and Jenny got me to go on. They talked my old bible college friend Dawn and her daughter Lauren into it as well, promising it was a nice walk. We were to go to a little church called Gougane Barra first and then on a hike in some forests somewhere close by but after our visit to the church the sky opened up and we had to make a run for the car. It actually hailed on us. So our little hike was abandoned for lattes and fries in Macroom. Our visit to the church was nice though, we went in and had a quiet moment, then had a look around the grounds. This is not my own pic of the church as it was very rainy and dark by the time I went to take the picture. There are the twelve stations of the cross and cells that the monks use to live in. There was also ruins of a little old building, not too sure what it was. Here is a web site that give some more info www.all-ireland.com Click onto attractions and g then Gougane Barra. It is hard to believe that monks lived and slept in these tiny spaces, it was cold when we were there and I can't imagine what it must have been like! It makes me wonder what kind of faith I truley have and if I would be willing to live under these difficult circumstances if that is where God was leading me. Try double left clicking on the pics to see them in all their glory.

2007-02-07T16:46:00.000Z

New Blogger Frustrations!
I changed over to the new blogger mostly because I was forced to and I seem to have taken off the ability for you all to comment. I loved MOST of your comments so if you still cannot comment now, I have tried to change things, send me an email instead. gdswabey@iol.ie Waiting to hear from you!

2007-02-05T13:42:00.000Z

If you see this man please feed him, do his laundry, give him a place to sleep and encourage him! Gary is on his way to Canada as I type this! He is going home to explain why we are all going home in more detail and to see if he can find out what Gods will is for our family in the future. His dreams of growing Gods kingdom in Ireland seemed to have hit a brick wall. We now have the house for sale, pray for at least two interested parties so there will be a bidding war. We need the Euro also to be up on the dollar so we can get back without a big hit on the old wallet.

The book Gary is holding by the for sale sign is called "When I Lay My Isaac Down". Which is all about looking for Gods will and laying down your own in difficult situations. Gary is laying down his Ireland and waiting to see how God rewards his obedience. This 16 year dream of his has been sacrificed for his family and I believe God will honour this. Unlike many men who would follow their desire to live more for their career that their family, Gary is not putting his family aside for his. God can use him to the fullest and still have his family cared for. We have all benefited from this move. The girls have got to experience a different culture, Gary and I have lived in each others back pockets for the last 6 months, spending quantity and quality time together, and we are still talking and Gary now understands what it is like in the day to day grind of full time motherhood dishes ,laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, music lessons, homework, children fighting, etc. (and he wants out!), but loves me more because of it.

2007-01-29T11:06:00.000Z

Ministry Opportunities
Gary has a couple of opportunities to talk to some of the young people here. He spoke a The University of Cork to the Christian Student Union, comprising of students from around the world. He was well recieved but a little disapointed that there were not more local Cork or Irish students in attencence.
He also spoke at Cork Baptist to a gathering of teens who were from various churches in town. He spoke to them about how they need to reach out to their friends in a new fresh way and not be caught "in old armour" as he put it. He was told by some of the leaders that the kids loved what they heard and were challenged by it.
Gary has had a few opportunities to meet with some men at the rugby club and get into some conversations about the faith lately, it seems now they know we are going home they are opening up a bit. He has also had the opportunity to meet with a few people that are loosley attached to the church and have not been coming regularly for various reasons. This is good for Gary because this is his passion and allows him to use the gifts God has given him, evagelism and pastoring-discipling.
This is an update to my January 12 blog but please read it to if you have not already. Blessings!

2007-01-27T17:49:00.000Z

Right so, as they say here in Ireland. Time to move on to some positive blogging. I forgot about this little pic that had been left on my camera. It is me enjoying Team Canada winning yet another world junior hockey tournament!! I had found that TSN was showing it on the internet but because I was not viewing from Canada I could not get it but, I did find a radio station from Toronto that I could listen to so, as I sat and worked on our traditional anual Christmas puzzle I got to stress out to a very exciting finish. I am thankful for todays technology.

2007-01-24T20:32:00.000Z

There was a comment posted on a previous blog that we feel needs addressing. I'm greatly dissapointed that there are people that would judge us so harshley without knowing all the facts! Our family has always been very important to us and our children have always been the center of our lives, sometimes to a fault. This includes Kirbey. We have always tried our best to have as normal a family life as possible for all our girls. The odds are against us just staying togeather. Stats show that 85% of marriages in similar situations end in divorce. We have always hunted down the best possible care and programs that we could find from Calgary to Three Hills to Kelowna to Summerland and had the same intentions to do so in Ireland. God has always provided more than ample care in each case with loving caring people he has put in our lives. We had done lots of asking around on two previous visits to Ireland and were told that there were programs and care here. We were told this by people in health care professions and by people with special needs family. We truley believed this was a safe move for the whole family. The programs for brain injury can vary according to the injury and Kirbey falls inbetween the cracks here. She is not able to function on a level that is needed for what is offered here and a nursing home was suggested and we of course said no. Ireland is changing and trying to meet the need of all but this is a long way off. We were told at least 10-15 years.As for Kirbey staring at 4 walls, we have kept her busy as much as we could and this is one of the reasons we are coming home because to care for Kirbey properly is taking both of us and this limits Garys ministry. I do not feel I need to justify this any further. Whoever left this comment does not know us well, does not know how much we love our children and our Lord and are trying to serve both the best we can. Maybe we can sit down with you one day and clear things up for you.

2007-01-20T20:13:00.000Z

Who Eats Better Dogs Or Humans?
Someone anonymously asked for a pic of Kirbey. Well as luck would have it, Kirbey was to be my next subject to blog about. We had just come home from doing a little shopping and buying Mungo a treat. I gave him one of the treats and left the open package on the table next to where Kirbey was sitting. During the time when we were bringing in the rest of the groceries, Kirbey had decided that the dog treats looked rather inviting. She managed to chew one down and was on the second before we noticed. I had a little panic until I read the ingredients and realized the dog snacks were heathier than most things humans snack on. So after a little panic we had a great laugh on Kirbeys behalf. Sorry there have not been a lot of pics of Kirbey but it is really hard to get a decent picture of her and I want to honour her and only put pictures that are flattering. Even at Christmas I could not get a good one after trying many times.

2007-01-16T23:59:00.000Z

Well on New Years Eve we got together with 6 other couples from the church and went out for dinner. We then came back to our house to let the babysitter go out, she was one of the daughters of the couples we were out with. I then proceeded to show them how to play dice. The Juliens and Borcherts taught us how a couple of years ago during the Christmas season and now I have passed the traditon to Ireland. They really enjoyed the game. We had quite a multicultural bunch, 2 Canadians, 3 Englishmen, 2 Nothern Irishmen, 1 Brazilian and 6 local Irishmen. I know it looks like we look like a bunch of boozers but we all shared a bottle of champagne to ring in the new year. Really!!

2007-01-12T11:52:00.000Z

As we enter into the new year I thought I would give you all an update on what is up on the ministry side of things.

Since we have come to Ireland in July, Gary has tried to get into the groove of preparing his sermans and leading the people of the Lee Valley Bible Church. He had a slow start as you know because it was hard to work out of the house and boxes and no office. Well he is now into the groove, preparing sermans, meeting with the elders of the church once a month to help give directon and a new vision, and getting going and following up on 5 small groups, 4 adult and 1 youth. There have been a few Christian people that have not had close ties to the church lately because of different negative things that Gary has had the opportunity to give a few fresh insights to.

We have tried to connect with some people in the neigbourhood by going to the local rugby club and selling Avon. Some of the people we managed to connect with were the people who had children that the girls met, children are a great connection to other people. We have tried to feel out where they are at spiritually but being a very guarded type of people here it is all very polite and not much depth to the conversation. They are more interested in socialising and good craic(crack),that means having fun. Gary did however have a couple of great spiritual conversations with one of the neighbours and another fellow in the rugby club recently.

Gary has met with the denomination heads here in Ireland and tried to share his vision with them only to fall a little flat. He also meets with the other area pastors once a month to share prayer requests and how things are going in each others churches. He had also tried to share his ideas here but is often told most of his ideas will not work here or they seem not too interested. There seems to be a very traditional approach here and a resitance to change.

He has also become involved in a prayer meeting every Thursday at a couples house that live close to the University of Cork. Their names are Jo and Frank and they have 5 children. They are from Canada and the USA. They have been called to serve in a ministry where Frank teaches at the university and tries to introduce people to Jesus. They have given up much in the way of material items, nice home, cars etc to serve here. I know that is not suppose to be important but if you could see the extremly old row house they are living in so they could be within walking distance of the university you would understand the sacrifice. They have also gone almost 2 years with no car as they have nowhere to park. We had to adjust our thinking of our house being small and not what we were use to after we saw their house. It is literally falling apart and for 7 people only 3 bedrooms and the kitchen is the size of a trailer you pull behind your car with no counters at all. But if they were anywhere else they could not open up their house to who they are trying to reach. They are trying to buy a better place but because of the locality they are having to pay over a million Canadian just to have a decent place. They are getting some response but unfortunatly it is mostly foreign students.

There was another couple here from Canada named Terry and Laura. They were planning to be here for 1 year but Laura got pregnant and they had to go home but, while they were here Terry ran around like a mad man searching out every possible connection he could find and hoping in turn to hook them up with either Gary or Frank and Jo. Not much was accomplished in the 7 months they were here except with foreigners as the locals are very guarded and don't take to outsiders. They visited just about every church here before we came and gave Gary a good idea what is going one here in the local churches.

Well it has been difficult to connect as we knew it would be but it is still difficult to accept that it is so hard. Gary was talking to the guy who runs the local Christian book store and he said there was a family from the US that has been here 3 years and has felt they could get no where and is going home. Ireland is a tough nut to crack!

Well as most of you know now we are heading home. Not because Ireland is a tough nut, because we were ready to give it a serious go, but because we have exausted all avenues for any kind of programs or respite care for Kirbey. She has mostly sat around the house and we have had to take turns caring for her 24/7. This is hard because Gary is trying to help me out and this limits him in his ministry. But more importantly Kirbey needs some things to make her life special too. We have taken her swimming on a regular basis and to town when not raining and out to the rugby club even but it is not what we feel works for her or the family. Gary will give more details when he comes home in Feb.

Even though we feel we have not made a huge difference we have been told that we are a breathe of fresh air and caused some new ways of thinking.

We will carry on as best we can hoping to make a difference while we are still here.

2007-01-07T18:18:00.000Z

Well, Christmas and New Years have come and gone. So now that things have settled down I will finally get down to some blogging. On Christmas eve we had Joe and Dawn and two families from the neighbourhood come over for our traditional Christmas Coffees. Lots of whipped cream and yummy.
We had our turkey which Gary made the stuffing and stuffed it as usual, I hate putting my hand into the bird so Gary has done it for years, and I did the veggies. I found a great recipie for brussel sprouts with bacon and apple all roasted togeather, yes its a Martha recipie. I did cheat on the roast potatoes because you can buy frozen ones here that roast really nice, not as nice as Nannys of course! The girls were happy with their presents, TaLeah is our pamper queen with her terry towel outfit and her foot spa and body creams. Shanaya loved her Eeyore shirt and was very suprised to recieve a cd that we thought we would not be able to find here as no one had ever heard of them. Kirbey also loved her presents and Mungo even got into the recieving spirit with his new chew toy. Gary and I also managed to find a few presents that we could surprise each other with as we usually know what we are getting. We did our usual Christmas puzzle and I taught the girls how to play Dutch Blitz. It was a nice Christmas but very lonely as this was our first Christmas with no family for any of us.

2006-12-22T20:21:00.000Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS or should I say HAPPY CHRISTMAS. That is what they say here in Ireland. They also eat things like spiced beef and nasty things with blood drippings and stomach lining. We made some eggnog and took it to a neighbours house for them to try because you cannot buy it here. We have found most of the things we eat at Christmas so dinner should be normal in that situation. We will miss family and friends but we will survive. We will miss our traditional Christmas Eve service as we will have our service at 12 noon followed by a pot luck but that will be a nice gathering I'm sure. They don't have Boxing Day here but they do have St. Stevens day instead. Here are some pics of the newest members of our family. Once again Merry Christmas, remembering the birth of our Lord Jesus.

2006-12-18T22:54:00.000Z

Roundabouts, ARG!!!
I thought that roundabouts would be my folley but as it turns out it was Gary that had the first incident. He was on his way to a mens night out with some of the fellows from the church. They were to see a movie and then go for dessert. It all seemed like a safe, simple evening out. Gary had decided to walk to the village (Ballincollig, about 30 min walk) to get some fresh air and enjoy the fact that it was not raining. Side issue; we have only had 2 rain free days since the beginning of November. The problem is there are no crosswalks on a roundabout and in Ireland the cars have right of way, everywhere, even in parking lots they don't slow down for you. Gary had to time it right to cross. The pic is similar to the one he was trying to cross, from the bottom right across three sections.He was sure the traffic was circulating around so the merging traffic had to wait so, he started to cross one section when all of the sudden he was hit and ended up on top of the cars hood. He was not injured but was severly POed. He yelled at the driver "what the h*** are you doing?" The young fellow obviously was a little freaked out and said nothing. He really had no where to go if he had pulled out into the roundabout so knew he was in fault. Gary decided to not confront him any further and just carried on. He enjoyed the movie, The Nativity, and decided to get a ride home, just to be safe.

2006-12-13T20:48:00.000Z

Last week Gary was asked to pray for the opening of the new Bank of Ireland here in Ballincollig. He was to be joined by Father George the Catholic Priest and Reverend Ruth the Church of Ireland(Anglican) minister. But Father George was a no show. Reverend Ruth was a riot. She was like the minister in the show Vicar of Dibley. Part of Ruth's prayer was if people show up with guns that the guns jam and not go off. Gary was not sure what it all meant because there is possibly some superstition attatched to this but it says in the Bible to pray about everything so Gary did it in that spirit. It was also a wonderful chance to connect with the big wigs of Ballincollig and some people of the community. These pics are of the new bank that Gary is standing infront of and across the street is the old bank that was in the rows with all the old buildings. It was the white one. The other pic is of more new construction. All the new construction is on one side of the street and they are tearing down a wall that is hundreds of years old to do it. Gary is leaning on a piece of that wall. They are keeping pieces of it here and there.

2006-12-11T20:18:00.000Z

My girls are standing infront of our Victorian style fireplace. It is my favorite feature in the house and one of the few things we have had no trouble with. Liz Bryce asked me to send a pic of it with me infront of it but I decided the twins were better accents than me. We got bold and painted a feature wall in a plum burgandy colour and I must say I was inspired by the Nixons livingroom colour, thanks we love it. The lights on the wall were just installed lately when the shed was wired. We waited 4 months for them to be installed but now they are melting off the wall. I was so excited when they went up. They suited the fireplace so perfectly. Now we have to get them off the wall and take them to the store where we bought them so they can rebuild them. But at least it is for free. The only issue is Gary being trusted to wire them back on. Cross your fingers that the house does not burn down.

2006-12-06T20:25:00.000Z

I think it is time to have a few more pics of my new grand baby, Danai. Tianna had a professional photographer ask her if she would model for her before and after Danai was born for free to build her portfolio. Of course Tianna said yes. So here are a couple.

2006-11-29T15:47:00.000Z

A couple of weekends ago Gary and Terry Crowley hosted a conference that they had organized on The Emerging Church. That is the nature of the church today and how some things need to be updated to be effective in todays culture. Things like cell groups or small groups, accountability to serving in the church and how the church is more than a Sunday morning service or programs, but a way of life, were some of the topics discussed. The speaker they had brought in was Bob Roxburgh. Bob is the Director of Incarnational Leadership Institute in Vancouver. His son Cam is Terry's Pastor and that is the connection. Bob is interming at a church in England so it was easy to get him here. There were four sessions and averaged around 20-25 people at each session. Usually half were from our church and the rest from various other churches and connections. As we have no building Gary and Terry found a great facility that was attatched to a Methodist church called Ardfallen that just happened to be beside the Tim Hortons that we found. Makes you go hmm? The Tims is on the other side of the trees to the right. The weekend had mixed reviews as the Irish are slow to change and a cautious lot when it come to new ideas. But saying that it was well recieved and worth the effort.

2006-11-22T07:26:00.000Z

Christmas Has Come Early
Only in our sugar plum dreams could this be true, wait a miniute. Only in Gary's sugar plum dreams I should say. He thought he was dreaming when he was told that a Tim Hortons had been spotted near Cork. We found a second one while checking out a place for a conference that Gary and Terry were organising. It was right next door at a SPAR convenience store!!! It was like a coffee kiosk that you find in a gas station but Gary said the coffee was pretty close to home. The fellows holding the sign with Gary are fellow Canadians, in the middle is Frank Peters who is here working at the university as a professor who is with a mission that put teachers into universities and on the right is Bob Roxboro who was the speaker at the conference. I will give you more info on him on the next blog. The saying on the bottom of the sign is " A Taste So Big It Could Only Come From Canada".

2006-11-21T13:42:00.000Z

Roar!!!!!!!
Yay, BC won. It was a long six years but this fan has been satisfied. I'm thankfull that Ireland has satalite dishes and that NASA (North American Sports Network) exists. Now what do you think the odds are that one of the girls coming to watch the game with me would be able to get ahold of a t-shirt like mine and a Lions hand. I would say 1 in 3 million. But she knew someone who had just came back from visiting BC and saw a game (didn't remember much of it though), bought the shirt and came home to Ireland where very few if anyone knew who they were. Well I had a room full of young people who now know very well who BC Lions are and why CFL is better than NFL, Hee Hee.

2006-11-19T22:54:00.000Z

If you weren't sure if you had to go before you entered, you sure have to go after you get in. What am I talking about? Our little toilet on the main floor. There is no heat in our bathroom on the main floor. We do not have central heating and there is no radiator in the bathroom. I put a thermometer in the room to see the temp and it was a whopping 9 degrees celcius . So the effect that cold air can have on the bladder is in full effect in there. Anyway I thought I would share this with you all as it is something new and exciting for us!

2006-11-16T21:40:00.000Z

Music Teams Look Out!!!
The Swabey Girls are looking for your job.
Shanaya and TaLeah had the opportunity to lead a team of children in the church during our service and it was special. Shanaya on the piano and Taleah on her guitar while other children played recorders and the triangle. We were proud parents. Yup I was glowin!

2006-11-13T08:30:00.000Z

RANDOM DANAI SHOTS!!! CAN'T HELP MYSELF, HAVE TO SHOW HER OFF! Oh ya and those are her parents.

2006-11-13T08:17:00.000Z

I thought I would share some pics from this summer. I was forwarded them recently and thought they deserved a place in blogging history. Eric McNalley and his wife Allison took our girls and their two girls Kerry and Kaira and another girl from the church named Lauren to go crab fishing. Some how they would catch the crabs by fishing for them with a string with bait on it. They would relase them after they played with them for while. I don't think TaLeah was too sure of the whole idea of touching them but as you can see she enjoyed the view and the day out. It was a beautiful sunny day and sunscreen even came into play!

2006-11-10T12:21:00.000Z

These are some pics to go with the previous story as blogger would not let me add more pics before.
We walked from just about as far as you can see past the lake down by the other little mountain. Here is our group, from the left me, Kevin, Sharon and Jenny. We met up with a fellow from Poland and another Irishman and they came down with us and it is good they did because the last part being in the dark it would have been dangerous for them to be alone. Double right click on the pics to get them in all their glory!

2006-11-10T11:12:00.000Z

Intentions mean everything!!!
There are two very sweet girls here named Jenny and Sharon and they have taken me on some very interesting adventures. Their intentions were to give me a great day out and show me some of the best that Ireland had to offer. The problem is I get motion sick on everything that moves and the first adventure was to take me to Kinsale, about 1 hour away on a very windy road and then to put me in a boat on the ocean for about an hour. Well I did make the car ride but the boat ride just about did me in as the rolling waves (and they said it was calm) took their toll and I only made it for about half the trip and we had to turn back. I did keep my stomach down that of which I am very proud. I wish I took my camera bacause we did see some great veiws of Charles Fort from the ocean side.
The second adventure was to climb to the top of the tallest mountain in Ireland. The problem with this adventure is I was told we were going on a hike and I had envisioned something much gentler than we had done. I figured maybe 2-3 hours of climbing up the mountain on a nice path. But the first part of the journey was on unstable rolling rocky ground and if the ground had no rocks it was boggy. The second part of the journey was up what is called The Devils Ladder. A name justly suited. It was very steep and wet and cold and unstable. The rocks rolled away very easily and they were slippery with moss. In the first pic, a great guy named Kevin, is pointing to the peak that we would eventually get to. The second pic does no justice to the incline and the difficulty of the Ladder. The next part of the journey ws to climb a hill that would take us to a cross at the top of the mountain called Carrantwohill. This part of the journey was difficult because the ground was mostly very loose shale type rock and was hard to keep your footing on and cramped up the balls of your feet. Well I just about did not do this part because I was knackered, as they say here, up to this point but after some great moaning and complaining and pulling the grandma card out I decided to conquer the mountain, and boy was I glad I did. I did something I did not want to do and in doing so it reminded me of Rick Warrens statement "God is more interested in your character not your comfort". The view from the top was spectacular. It was not so easy do get down however. The loose shale part cramped your calves and hurt your ankles and the Ladder turned out to be easier to go up than down and we ran out of daylight and I ended up sinking in the bog up to my ankes and lost my footing crossing the creek and one of my feet went in but, 81/2 hours later we made it back to the car, ALIVE. I was very stiff in my legs for the next three days but I was ALIVE.

2006-11-05T22:33:00.000Z

Get out! Shut up ! No way,Yahweh!

Yes it's true. We have an office shed/monk hut/dog house. It was delivered and put up in one day. It was like playing with Lego the way it went together, no nails except for in the roof. It would have been faster however to have it shipped over from Canada. What was suppose to be 3-6 weeks turned into 12. We have now been waiting a week for the electrician to "schedule us in" or even let us know if we are in. We have started to move furniture into the shed and move things into place and out of my bedroom. Gary did a great job of staining the shed in a traditional Irish looking colour, red with black trim. Gary can now have access to his books and now get a little more organized.

2006-10-27T07:04:00.000+01:00

WE ARE GRANDPARENTS!!!
Tianna had a baby girl on Oct 26 at 8:20 a.m. She weighed 5lbs 15 oz. Just a little peanut like her auntie Shanaya.Her name is Danai Kirbey Riemer. You pronounce her name Da nay. Tianna had to have a C-section after an unsuccessful attempt to turn the baby who was breech with feet down. I don't know about you but I we think she is the cutest thing ever and are freeking out to hold her. Needless to say I'm sure that sweet little bald head will be covered in curls by the time most of us get to see her. I,Denise, will go home as soon as I get my residency card. I need it so I can get back into Ireland. So you will see me hopefully in late Feb. or early March. Gary is sitting here pouting because he wants to go home now. We are surely a family of girls this makes 10 grand daughters and 1 greatgrand daughter for my dad. No boys yet. We are truley blessed.

2006-10-26T17:00:00.000+01:00

Well we were truley spoiled when Jack showed up. He had a suitcase full of goodies for us. Everything from Tootsie rolls to Stoned Wheat Thin crackers, and of course Tim Hortons Coffee!! TaLeah was thankful for Ketchup chips and I was thankful for my marshmallow banana candies. I now have a great supply of chocolate chips and swiss water decaf coffee. I was so excited that I put Jacks suitcase on the stove which was the only space on the counter big enough for the case and without knowing banged the knob to turn on the stove burner and proceeded to melt Jacks suitecase. This after Jack even had to pay an overweight fee to bring it. He could still use it and would not take one of ours, we had two new ones here to offer but he would not take one. The red dress was sent by Stephanie Erdt as she thought TaLeah might need a fix of dressing up as Miss Bootie, ask Steph for details. Double left click on the pic to get a better idea of what he brought. WE ARE LOVED and thank you to all who donated to the cause!!!

2006-10-21T13:41:00.000+01:00

Well here sits Gary in his office, or should I say on the cement slab the shed will sit on. The shed was ordered 9 weeks ago and we were told 3-6 weeks. So after 8 weeks it finally arrived only to be told it could not be delivered and set up for 2 more weeks!!!! Our furniture from Canada came and was in our house faster than that. Maybe we should have had one sent from Canada? Everything in the house is in a bit of a tip waiting for the shed. We have livingroom chairs in our bedroom because some of the furniture in the living room is going in the family room but most of what is going in the shed is in the family room including the dozens of boxes of Garys book, the book shelves and love seat and chair. We also have not hung any pictures in the house because that is hard to do until the furniture is where you want it. We also bought light fixtures, because most of the house had only bare bulbs and the ones that had a fixture it was just a paper shade hanging on the bulb, resembling a wasps nest. But this too had a tie to the shed because we did not want to pay the electrician twice so we were waiting to have them put up when the shed got its electrical done. I am very tired of bare bulbs and wasps nests.I am also waiting to paint my bedroom,which is a nice shade of purple, but there is too much stuff in the room to get around. Well enough of the moaning. We still live better than most people in the world. We do however have a beautiful Victorian syle fireplace that we had cleaned so we could use and it gives us a wonderful cozy atmosphere at night during our rainy evenings. I would say it my favorite feature of the house!

2006-10-15T21:01:00.000+01:00

We had a great night at Gary's induction service. The evening started with our little but mighty worship team leading us with some of Gary and my favorite songs, All for Jesus and Be Thou My Vision are just a couple. Then the Ernie Tromsness, the missionary who has been working here for 20 some odd years with his wife Nancey, shared how Lee Valley Bible Church was started and how it got to the stage of getting Gary as its pastor. Then Jack got up and shared a little of what he new of us and showed the video clip that was shown at our goodbye at Summerland Baptist. This clip gave the people here a new picture of Gary I'm sure, a little strange but definatly loved by a church family. Then Gary took his vows and was prayed for. The evening ended with Gary giving a benediction, as only Gary can do.
Gary took Jack to a few of the many places in Ireland to see some of the historical sites. I'm sure Jack has had his fill of castle and monistary ruins. Jack even got to kiss the Blarney stone so he should have very elequent speech now, either that or he is now full of blarney!!

2006-10-09T19:55:00.000+01:00

My girls were none to impressed to find out they had to wear swim caps at the pool for their swim lessons. When we went to check out the pool we saw all the swim caps and all TaLeah could say is "you've got to be kidding". The girls are taking swimming lessons every Thursday. Everybody including all the adults must wear a swim cap, Gary is such a cutie when he takes Kirbey swimming! We have been trying to take Kirbey swimming once a week.

2006-10-06T20:44:00.000+01:00

I would like to introduce the leaders of the small groups so you can pray for them as we are about to begin these groups this week. The idea of small groups is quite new here and it will be interesting to see how things go. We will be doing the Nooma dvd's and this type of multi media presentation is a new approach. We will have a secondary school small group as well as a young adults group and three adult groups. Please pray that people that have signed up will indead come! Denise will be leading the secondry school group, Gary and Denise will co-lead the young adults, and Terry Crowley, who is from Canada and is here until the end of November is in the black. He will be leading a group until he leads and then Gary will take over. Joe French is in the middle and Gary Horan is on the right. This is a good start in moving the church forward in fellowship and discipleship.

2006-09-28T21:59:00.000+01:00

Well I don't know if we are officially into fall yet but the weather has changed. It is not much cooler in the day but at night it is cooler and the rain, well we have had some very interesting storms. One was the end of Hurricane Gordon and it hit us pretty hard. You would think that a country that gets a lot of rain would be prepared for it but it seems that after every hard rain the talk on the radio the next day is where the flodding is.
Here are a few of the ways the rainfall is described in the local Cork paper. Cloudy with outbreaks of rain-A breezy and showery day-Staying cloudy with falls of rain-Largely cloudy and showery-Mostly cloudy and a few showers-Cloudy with rain at times-Mainly cloudy and showery rains and my favorite Rather cloudy with patchy showers. All of these forecasts were within a week and a half. I am happy to say they were only right twice.
The best was when Gary took Mungo for a walk and just when they had reached the farthest point in their walk the clouds burst. Both Gary and the dog had all their hair plastered to their bodies, I wish I had taken a pic! I don't have any special pics so I put one of our extras, hope you like it!

2006-09-18T20:40:00.000+01:00

Well we are officially doing ministry now. Gary has preached 3 Sundays in a row. We have started to organize small groups. 4 for the adults, one for the young adults and one for the youth. We will be hosting one of the adult groups, the young adult group and the youth group. Gary will also be leading one of the groups at someone elses house so we will have at least 3 nights a week busy. I will also be tryingto form some kind of youth group beyond just their small group, planning some activities etc. There is a c amp in Oct and I will be going yo that with the youth. Gary has also been going to a weekly prayer meeting with 2 Cork University teachers a fellow that is with the student Christian union and a fellow named Terry Crowley. Terry and his wife Laura are from the Vancouver area and go to church with Toni and Dan Selles. They planned to be in Ireland for one year to network with people and see how they could be used by God. They have done a great job scoping out a lot of the other evangelical churches and letting us know what is going on in the area and meeting people. I had said they were planning to stay for a year but Laura is now growing a baby and so has to go home to work so she can get maternity leave. So they had arrived in May and Laura will be leaving in 2 weeks but Terry will stay until Nov. We are sad they are leaving because they make it feel a little more like home.

2006-09-10T17:45:00.000+01:00

We have pics. Our new piano we borrowed,
TaLeah on her new pink guitar, our house and neighbourhood and a few hurling pics to give you an idea of the game.

2006-09-07T22:39:00.000+01:00

Well the children have settled into school fine and have discovered that Ireland schools also have homework. We have found a rocker chick to teach TaLeah guitar, she has crazy pink-red hair and TaLeah says she likes to play Nirvanah songs and this paniced her a little. We told TaLeah that if her teacher could play that style of music then she had talent and TaLeah just had to learn how to play and then apply that skill to what music she liked. She thought that was a good idea. She has only had one lesson so we will see how it goes. Her teacher has started her off with a Bob Dylan classic, Blowing in the Wind.

Shanaya will be taking her piano lessons from a teacher that comes to her school after school. Very convenient. But get this. We had a lovely lady in our church, Mary O'Connor offer to let us use her piano as her girls have moved out. So Gary and another fellow, Sean McMahon, from the church did the piano moving thing (Garys past moving skills once again came in handy), moved a beautiful old piano into our house. A complete answer to prayer. We were not looking forward to spending €1000 for a new one. First off we really don't have the money. Might have had to borrow from grandpa!!

I thought that my new sport would have to be rugby but I have discovered Hurling. Great sport, kind of like a cross between field hockey, and lacrosse but after they scoop up the ball with the hurley stick they hit it like a baseball. The sport is only played in Ireland. Very fast and agressive (a nice way to say violent). Anyway, they just had the All Ireland Finals, kind of the equivilant to the Grey Cup, and Cork was in it so we had a gathering of people and watched Cork loose, OOPS! But it was great crack (as they say here).

I have however been able to watch a lot of CFL games including all of the BC Lions games since we got NASN (north american sports network). Just don't email or phone me about the games because we often get them later than you all. We will also get, yes it's true, NHL!! Right now all I can say is BC LIONS RULE> Not sure if I can say that later so I'll say it now. Knowing BC they will blow it!!

I don't seem able to put any pictures on at this point but when I can again I will give you a few of hurling and the girls.

2006-09-04T08:19:00.000+01:00

Well, in our last week before school started we took the girls downtown Cork to get a look at their school and the church that it was named after. It is called St. Finn Barrs Cathedral. There has been Christian worship on this site for 1000 years. This church has been standing for around 300. It has been bombed by ships with their cannons from the river and one of the cannon balls hangs in the church. It has an organ that is below the floor that goes in for three stories. The girls will probably do choir there and possibly a Christmas production with their school.

As we toured around it Gary was taken with the idea that it was like a corpse, the makeup is on but the body is dead and only being preserved. I was however a spectacular building.

Liz Bryce asked for a pic of me and Mungo so here you go Liz.

2006-08-28T20:36:00.000+01:00

Hey all, once we get through updating you on our first 5 weeks here I will give you a picture of what is going on here as far as ministry goes. Our new email address is gdswabey@iol.ie .Send us some emails and let us know whats up in your lives.

2006-08-28T20:22:00.000+01:00

We took the girls to a few historical sites during our first month here in between our trying to get settled. The first was a trip to Kinsale, a pretty little town south of here. We went to three places the first being Charles Fort. It had a lot of very impresive history that Gary and I found very intresting, but the girls found a little boring. Second was Desmond Castle which was used for many things including prison for French prisoners, a customs house and a home, it is now a wine museum. We also went to St. Multose church where Shanaya had her pic taken beside one of Garys favorite symbols, a celtic cross. The sun was shining and we had a great day.

2006-08-27T20:26:00.000+01:00

CAKE CELEBRATIONS
We had a wonderful time saying goodbye to everyone in Summerland,Kelowna and Calgary. We had a famous Cheryl Davies cake made for us in Summerland with a Tim Hortons theme and Rain Happens theme and a wonderful Celtic cake for our goodbye in Kelowna made by Jen Turner. We also celebrated the twins 11th birthday with some new found friends and the best I could come up with for candles and a cake.

2006-08-25T22:07:00.000+01:00

DON"T FORGET TO DOUBLE LEFT CLICK TO MAKE THE PICS LARGER ON THIS AND PREVIOUS BLOGS!!

This is our baby dog Mungo. He is a Soft Coated Wheaton terrier. He was born in Feb.He is sweet as pie and very gentle to the girls. He is pictured here with his breeder Bernadette and his mom on the right. Bernadette took him this week and put him in 3 shows in the puppy class, we miss him, although his is a lot more work than Spike ever was. You can't just leave him some food and water and a kittylitter box.
The first time the girls saw a ruin was when we went to get Mungo. This is an old castle ruin that is in the town of Macroom where Mungo was born. It is about 20 mins away. Yes it was raining that day. But we have not had a lot of rain, they are worried that we area having global warming over here, especially when we get over 25 or don't get rain at least every second day! They are probably right but I like it!!!!!

2006-08-25T21:38:00.000+01:00

I have to show one of the reasons we had to leave Canada, the inbreading was becoming to much to bear. In order to find a new crop of Irish men, we went right to the source. This is my father, Tom Ryan, a decendant of the Irish people, but as you can see there needs to be fresh genes in the pool!!! We had a nice time, actually, in Calgary saying goodbye to our families. We had a great feast on sushi, not knowing there is no fresh sushi here, we found frozen but it is expensive, went shopping, swimming, to a movie and rode the log ride at Calaway park. It was a nice goodbye.

2006-08-24T14:08:00.000+01:00

Well I thought I would put a pic of Kirbey havin a little jet lag, you must get how weird this is for Kirbey,she just never sleeps anywhere but her bed.We have had pretty good weather so far, only a couple of days, OK 5 or 6 days where it has rained. The rest of the time it is like room temp outside, usually. I have had to put on a coat only twice, we even had over 30 when we first got here. The funny thing is people here start to complain how hot it is when it gets anything over 23ish. Some were trying to say maybe Kirbey was sleeping because of the heat and our new dog, Mungo, has been scratching(maybe flees yuck) and the people where we bought the flee shampoo said maybe it was the heat and it had only been in the low 20s for the previous three weeks! We just smile and say to ourselves "they don't know heat".

We took the girls to the beach when we first got here and they had their first dip in the ocean in their lives. They did not like the taste at all.

We also spent the first week doing some painting, our house had some very bold colours even for here. We could not move in for the first week because we were waiting for our furniture and we did not legaly own the house yet(after 4 months)but the real estate agent let us have the keys,anyway we thought we would paint a lot but we only go one room done.We spent so much time fooling around trying to buy a car, beds and wardrobes that we ran out of time before we had to move in. We also spent a lot of time in government offices with all the polish people getting PPS numbers so we would acctually exist here.That was interesting because we could not get a number without an address and could not get a bank account without an address and could not get a bank statement until we had some activity and could not get a utility bill to prove we lived here until we owned the house and lived there and so on and so on, but, it all worked out when it sould have taken much longer, A GOD THING???

2006-08-22T16:47:00.000+01:00

Well we are finally on line at our house, sort of!! We can only hook up to a computer line that is right by our front door. The previous owner has somehow seperated the phone line from the computer line and the only one is by our front door, soo, here I sit in the hall on the floor finally blogging with pics. The first pics I would like to show you are from our trip and the state of TaLeahs new guitar when we finally got it. Don't you just love the amount of luggage, hey, we were allowed 2 suit cases each and a carry on and we took full advantage of that. We got a lot of looks from people who I'm sure thought we didn't know how to pack for a holiday. The airlines lost 3 of our bags. One of the bags had all of Kirbeys medicine minus enough for 1 week and all Kirbeys clothes. We started to panic after three days had passed because we were down to only 2 days left of Kirbeys medicine as 2 days were used traveling and 3 had goen by, so, we had to find a doctor to prescribe her new medicine and this would cost a lot. We found one and just as we were about to go in and fill the prescription my cell phone(mobile as they call it here) rang and our bags had been found,money saved! We still had to buy Kirbey some clothes though. So then we got to go and see the condition of the luggage and we just about fell over when we saw TaLeahs new guitar. The cardboard was crushed and as we opened the cardboard cover we were happy to see it was still protected by the padded case.The jet lag was also intence. Kirbey has never ever, ever fallen asleep outside of her bed before and she just kept falling asleep everywhere. The twins sat up most of the second night. But we addjusted and have been sleeping fine. The twins had to sleep on the pull out bed mattress for 3 week because that is how long it took to get their mattresses after we bought them. Nothing seems to be in stock when we buy stuff and it needs to be shipped in from the mainland. We also have to wait for eveything else. EVERYTHING. 4 weeks for internet, 3 week so far for a plummer, leeky toilet,broken power shower, dripping other shower, 3 weeks so far for gates to keep the dog in, 6-8 weeks for the monk hut/dog house,5 days to clear check even if they are from this city and so on I'm sure you get the picture. Anyway we are making it work but I must say if we did not think this was a call from God, then we might be on our way home!!!!

2006-08-04T16:56:00.000+01:00

Hi all, Sorry we have not been blogging but we have not had access to the internet. We were told 2 weeks ago that we would be on today but I phoned and they said target date is Aug. 18, TWO MORE WEEKS!! We also do not know anyone that is on the internet, they all text here to communicate. It is very different here as far as hook ups and things, like delivery of beds, 3 weeks so far. I will have so much to say and show you all by the time we get on so be ready! Bye for now.

2006-07-23T16:33:00.000+01:00

Hey all, we have not had any access to a computer for a while so no time to update. We should be online in at the most 14 days. Then I can update pics and more.
The weather has been good, only one day of rain. We have had above normal temps, people say we brought it with us?? We have got most of our bags and boxes unpacked but are still liviing out of our suit cases as we have no closets. Very frustrating. We have to buy waredrobes which are not usually included in the houses when you buy them.
We got our dog, he is soooo cute. A little to full of spit and vineagar as Gary puts it. Lots of energy. Gary preached for the first time today and will preach every second Sunday untill Sept. Our grass was three feet high when we got here so the first thing we did was buy a weed wacker and a lawn mower, then we painted one room, doing this before we moved in. Then we had to figure out how to use the hot water, very different than Canada. We have felt very welcome. We do miss you all. Will update more later as I am on someone elses laptop and don't want to go too long, bye for now.

2006-07-15T07:44:00.000+01:00

MOVING TO A NEW COUNTRY IS HARD!The first part of our trip was easy. We flew to Calgary without any hitches. Garys mom and dad brought some of our luggage with them so we had less to take on the plane. Then we were on our own. I have a great pic of us and our luggage just before we handed it over to the airlines trusting it would arrive on time and in one piece. Ha! (pics have to wait until we get set up in our own home) . People were staring at us, I guess because we had the most luggage of anyone in the airport. We just had two bags a piece, very large bags, not over weight I might add, and a carry on each.

Well we said goodbye to our bags and went on with our journey. The first flight out of Calgary was delayed 2 hours so we sat in Calgary for 5 hours. Then we flew to Toronto only to run as fast as we could, Kirbey in a wheel chair pushed by a slow lady, only to find out we were to late for our connection to London(we thought we had connecting flights and they would save it for us), but the twins started to tear up and I was close when someone radioed to the ticket agent and asked if we were coming off an Air Canada flight and when he said yes they let us on!!!!! So then we had to run as fast as we could to get to the gate. I no longer want to be on The Amazing Race! We were suppose to have a relaxing 3 hours in Toronto to have dinner, not. Well it is now midnight our new time and they are feeding us dinner. Then we watched a movie. Needless to say we got all messed up. Gary was the only one who got any sleep. Then 5 hours later they fed us breakfast, we landed and were welcome to London. We got there on time, however, they gave me a hard time at the customs gate because I said I was moving to Ireland and I don't have a Euro passport so before I could give the lady a letter that we got from the Irish Immigration she took off to phone them and did not come back and our flight was starting to board. I finnaly hunted her down and gave her the letter just in time and she let me on. Yay! So 21 hours later, with no sleep, we were welcomed to Ireland by a crew of about 20 people with a welcome Swabeys banner and all. If these people still want us after the wreck they saw walk through the gate, me I mean, then they are very gracious. I will give you the luggage story later when I have pics.

We will be moving into our house on Tuesday with our funiture that is here now. We hope to also have a new car by then. Our mortage just finally went through yesterday after 3 months. They say that is fairly close to normal, they are slow here. So now that we have active banking we can get a car loan and a car,we think. We will find out today. Small car I might add, it does however seat 7, kind of. The weather has been lovely, mid 20s. We hope to get our dog Mungo on Wed. or Thur.

Well I will give you all more later, keep praying, we could tell you were!

2006-07-10T03:41:00.000+01:00

Well here we are. Our last night in Canada. We went to visit my family and we had the most incredible rain,thunder, lightnening and hail storm we have ever been in. We have had fun this week in Calgary, we went to Calaway Park and rode on rides, saw family, went to a movie, shopped and ate lots of food. I still can't believe we are moving, it is like a dream!!!!!!!! Saying bye to family has been hard, my dad was in tears today which in turn made me cry. I will see him soon though when I come to see my baby, my gradbaby that is. I hope to put pics on the blog soon as I don't feel truley blogged unless there are pics. I have some good ones too. Well please pray for us tommorrow because Gary and I have had the flu and so has Tianna and Garys dad and if the kids get it on the plane rides I don't know how we will handle it as it comes from both ends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See you all in Ireland soon and see you in Canada again one day.

2006-07-02T06:30:00.000+01:00

Well is official, we no longer live in Summerland!!!! We have a week of saying good-bye and I still can't believe it is true. It is like a dream. We are staying at Garys mom and dads house until Wed. when we will go to Calgary and visit family there. The weather has been extremely hot. We had 42 celsius on Wed. and at least 35 the rest of the week. We had the advantage of staying on the beach in a little cabin (pics to follow later) but it was still hot. Well tomorrow we will go to church at our old church in Kelowna and then three more good-bye dinners and lunches and off to Calgary for more good-byes and finally on the 10th off to Ireland. I will update with pics when we get our own computer again.

2006-06-24T02:19:00.000+01:00

Well we are now living in a cute little cabin on the Okanagan Lake. We feel like we are on holidays except Gary still has a couple of weddings to do. The weather has been fantastic, in the high twenties to low thirties, a great time to be living on the lake. I got to go camping with the twins and their class for three days and we had a great time. We are busy finding people to feed us and we have had most nights taken care of so far,HEE HEE. We feel very loved!!! Well that is all for now. Chow.

2006-06-10T18:04:00.000+01:00

Here is a pic of Lauren in her beautiful Irish dress. Thankyou Lauren!
We also wish to thank Thor Sundvick, Grant Nixon,Judy Schneider, Maryann Chartrand, Stephanie Erdt, and Eric Scramstad for sharing, we know it was hard to be center stage sharing your heart. Big thanks to the Back Porch Gospel group and all the others who organized the evening, not forgetting Cheryl Davies for the cake.

2006-06-10T17:25:00.000+01:00

On Sunday June 4, there was a gathering at Summerland Baptist to say goodbye to us. There was many people who shared how Gary had affected there lives while he was pastoring here. It started with Thor Sundvig and how when he first met Gary all he could see was his earrings, but as he got to know Gary and his heart to serve God, he saw Garys true character. He even honoured Gary by putting on earrings!! The generations were all covered as others shared how Gary had touched their hearts and led them to our Lord Jesus. Lauren Nixon sang a beautiful Irish song and did an Irish dance. The mens choir also honoured Gary by wearing earrings and a couple put on wigs to look like Gary, Hans Vandermay even shaved off his moustashe for the first time in decades we hear!! They sang a song they made up to send off Rain Happens and even popped open a few umbrellas. Make sure you click on the pics to see the earrings up close up, such a hoot! The evening wrapped up with a beautiful watercolour painting of the Summerland landscape painted by Ken Ballintyne presented by the church.Before we went downstairs the whole gathering came togeather in a big group hug, layed hands on us and prayed for us. Then we all held hands and sang one of Garys favorite songs, All for Jesus, led by our son in law Luke. Quite an emotional time as a couple hundred of us held hands and sang. We then went downstairs for some cake and an open mic time for people attending to comment. I, Denise, even got a few praises. Then Gary gave his final benidiction, which I tried to take a pic of but my batteries had died, then we went home. It was a wonderful evening with tons of loven from everyone. We will miss you all.

2006-06-10T17:15:00.000+01:00

This is a great picture of Summerland Baptist celebrating the end of going through the Story. It is a condenced version of the bible in cronilogical order. We went through it from Sept 05 to May with Gary and others speaking on each chapter on each Sunday. Many of the small groups in our church also went along with a study in their study times. It was a great way to get a general pic of Gods story throughout the history of man. Everyone who was there for the final Sunday released a balloon with prayers for family and friends and for the town of Summerland. Oh ya, the balloons were bidegradable!

2006-05-29T21:38:00.000+01:00

We are now officially moving to Ireland. That is if we ever want to live with our belongings again.
The movers were here on Thursday and Friday loading up everything we hold dear and useful, except our children! Gary was transported back in time when he use to work for St. Georges Moving and Storage and quickly fell right back into the groove. He was like a third man on the job.
We managed to take everything we wanted to take and more, now we just have to find space for it. The house we are moving into is less that half the size of this one. Oh but I'll make it fit, HEE HEE. It gets taken to Vancouver buy truck, gets loaded into a container, loaded onto a ship, travels down the west coast to the Panama Canal, crosses that, and then proceeds across the Atlantic Ocean to Cork! Hope it makes it. On the other hand it is insured, makes you go hmmm. There are some things I can't replace though. Now we are living like Irish Travelers (gypsies), out of suit cases and sleeping bags starting at our house then maybe the Juliens cottage, then Tianna and Lukes, then Nanny and Pappy Swabeys, then John and Elizabeth Swabeys then over to Ireland to Peggy and Garrys and finally our new home!!!!

2006-05-17T22:44:00.000+01:00

DATE SET .We are arriving in Ireland on July 11. We will leave Summerland on July 5 and go to Calgary for 5 days to visit siblings. Then leave on July 10. Pray for our flights. They will be long for the kids.

2006-05-17T20:07:00.000+01:00

THERE ARE NO SNAKES IN IRELAND!!!!
Praise God for St. Patrick. This fine specimen was just outside our yard. We think it was a rattle snake. Maybe a bull snake, whatever it was it was from the pit. It was hit by a car. Not a nice way to go but OH WELL. See how close it was to our house!! Yikes. We also have black widows in our back yard. Shanaya wants to know if there is anything that can kill you in Ireland. Hopefully just other humans?

2006-05-16T18:57:00.000+01:00

Garys heart is sad, his Jeep now belongs to someone else. After a 10 year love affair. We think it went to a good home. Gary will miss it. I say it because I don't think he ever named it. I guess I should be saying her though, I think most men think of their cars as girls. Oh well, the sacrifices we make for our Lord, HEE HEE! Do you like his new mode of transport? We are a one vehicle family now and it is something we have to get use to as I think that will be our state in Ireland, I'm sure we can work around it as Gary's office will be in the back yard.

2006-05-10T16:58:00.000+01:00

Last weekend our church here in Summerland had a yard sale for Rain Happens Ministries and all the proceeds went toward Gary purchasing a shed to use as his office in Ireland. We will put the shed in the back yard and wire it up with electricity. Except for a toilet Gary could live out there. I'll have to figure out how to remidy that. This is a pic similar to the one we are concidering. Well we were over blessed and the yard sale raised over $3000.00. That is almost half of the money needed for the shed. Here is a pic of two of many people who worked extremly hard for almost 24 hours straight to price and set up everything. They are Maureen Wills on the left,(it was her idea) and Anne Bloomfield.
The sunday school kids also had a bake sale for Rain Happens and all the proceeds would go to Sunday school material for Ireland, that is what the orange sign says, click on the pic to make it larger and they raised over $400.00. This was no small feat as most items were selling for around $2.00-$4.00. This was all part of a day that the church was having called Love That Works. We also had many people in the community recieve help with such things as yard clean up and house work, free hair cuts and car washes. Here is a pic of Steve and Stephanie Erdt with their daughter Jocelyn working hard washing cars (wearing their Rain Happens t-shirts I might add). They are seriously concidering moving to Ireland for up to 5 years to see how they can help grow Gods kingdom there. Their other daughter,Danielle, is the little one in blue at the bake sale table who also worked hard with her brother, Evan, selling baked goods. Shanaya, Danielle and Evan got up at 6:30 am to start selling baked goods at 7. That is a servants heart. Our girls are very happy at the prospect of them going to Ireland as these are two of their best friends.

2006-05-02T19:12:00.000+01:00

Well here we are into our first week home after Ireland and we have had some jetlagging to be sure. Keep praying for our house sale as it will not be final until May 8. Also pray all goes well for our house purchase in Ireland. Here is a pic of me and my new baby Mungo. Here is a pic of his mommy and what he will look like when he grows out his baby coat.
We were able to say to the breeder that we wanted the puppy because we now have a yard. The breeder said she would care for Mungo until we get there permanently. We were lucky because she only had one left.This was one of many things that we had happen that we called God Things. The others were that Joe had the whole week off of work because the university was preparing for exams. We did not know this when we booked the flights. In Ireland you only have one real estate agent. The one the house is listed with so, you have no one to show you around and take you from house to house, that is where Joe came in, he was a God send and definatly a God Thing. We would have literaly been lost without him. The other God thing was how we bought our house. In Ireland you place an offer on a house above the asking price and wait to see if someone out bids you. This can go on for months, until the seller feels he is satisfied or can get no more. People laughed at us when we said we were there to buy a house in ten days. We just didn't know any better! The house we put an offer on had one other offer but when the owner was told what we were moving to Ireland to do, he wanted us to have the house and would take no more offers. A God Thing. Here is are a few pics of us enjoying the Munster vs Leinster rugby game with Joe and Dawn French. Take a good look at the pic of the tv screen, I got the player sliding across the line for the winning try for Munster, our team(my new sport to watch). Check out our rugby shirts. Here is the awsome couple we stayed with called Garry and Peggy. They were very hospitable. The weather was nice,only one umbrella day and at least 6 sunny days. Well time to continue with life in Canada. Right so!

2006-04-24T15:48:00.001+01:00

PRAISE THE LORD, it looks like our house is sold. We put an offer on the house that you see below, the second one from the top and the guy accepted it straight away(that is how they say right away here). That in itself is a miracle. Usually they leave it open and let people make other offers that are better that yours so you never know for sure until the decide they have enough.
We went to a local pub and watched Munster beat Leinster in a huge rugby match, Munster being the province Cork is in, and Munster won!! It was sweet. We even found some cheep rugby shirts that were for Munster to wear, only $6.We have only had one down pour and some very lovely sunny days. The people have been very hospitible. We shared in church yesterday, both Gary and myself about our childhoods and how we became Christians. There was no time for Gary to preach after that but there will be plenty of time for that later.
Today we are looking for schools for the girls and trying to get our finances in order for the purchase of the house. Much has changed since we were here 7 years ago, modern malls,fitness centers and good coffee! We will be back in Canada in 3 days so I will update with pic then. Bye for now.

2006-04-17T16:54:00.000+01:00

Well, here we go. Off to Ireland to search for a house. The problem is our house in Summerland has not sold yet. I guess our schedule is not the Lords. Why our house is not selling is a mystery that we hope to see the answer to in the future. While we are in Ireland we also have to register the twins for school, set up our banking, find out how many billions of euros we can qualify for towards a mortage and I'm sure there are other things we will need to do that we have not thought of. We are going to have to make a list of our favorite homes 1-10is and see what is still available when we have sold ours. Well I'll have lots of pics for you all when we get back on the 27th. Pray for Tianna as she is having some morning sickness issues and is a little bummed.

2006-03-31T18:29:00.000+01:00

PLEASE PRAY, we are a little stressed out. We have 17 days until we go to Ireland to look for a house and ours has not even had an offer. We have been told by all the realestate people that go through that is is well presented and shows beautifully and is not too high priced but it hasn't sold. We would like to be able to put an offer on something over there but we sure don't want to own two houses. Here are some houses we are concidering in Ireland. Pray that we would get what God intends for us to use for Kingdom work! The other problem is we have found a puppy in Ireland. The breed we were looking for, Soft Coated Wheaton Terrior. The lady said she would hold it for us but we have to be sure we have a house to go to, if we have to rent they may not allow dogs. Here is mom with puppies,(one of them could be ours) and here is one of the puppy's relative. Could you just die, they are so cute. We will also get a kitty when we go over. I have been in cat withdraw ever since Spike passed a year ago. This is the longest I have been without a cat since I was a child!! We even have names for them. I am looking for ward to walking our new dog in Ireland on all those soft days (if you are Canadian and don't know what soft days are ask me) and getting to know our new neigbourhood. When we go to Ireland we get to go see the puppies and I am hoping we can pick one out. Please pray for our house, the puppies and smooth traveling for us. Thanks!!

2006-03-14T22:34:00.000Z

We are so excited to bring you some very great news for our family. WE are going to be grandparents. Yes it is true, we are that old? Although Denise has concidered trying to convince people that Tianna is her sister and she is going to be an auntie. They have been told before that people thought they were sisters (unbelievable but true). Our hearts are happy and sad. We will not get to be close to our new grand baby and that is hard! Tianna and Luke will make great parents and we are so happy for them!

2006-03-01T17:50:00.000Z

Well Disneyland has come and gone. We had a great trip, the only thing was there were a lot of people. We thought the last week of Feb. Would be a good week to go but Monday was Presidents Day in the States and some kids had part of the week off and others had it all off. Our saving grace was something called a fast pass that we got because we were not frequent visitors. We really only stood in line a couple of times and for not more than a half hour. Watching the fireworks and lazer show were however very crowded. Gary, who hates line ups and crowds, did very well, only a little moaning.
The highlight of the week had to be seeing Tianna have scorpions put on her head during a live version of Fear Factor at Universal studios. I was having panic attacks, enough for the both of us. Luke held her hand throughout the ordeal and she had a good grip. He had to spin a wheel to decide if she had scorpions, teranchulas(not sure of the spelling?), a big fat lime green snake, or cock roaches( big ones) put on her.
The twins said the trip was better than they imagined it would be so that is great. As you can see by TaLeahs pic it was exhausting. We walked non stop four 4 days, 2 of those days at least 12 hours. But it was well worth it! Our time a The medieval Dinner was also great. We got a little taste of what it was like to go to a jousting tournament which is cool because we are going to live where they use to do it. We felt we had seen all we could see at Disney and Universal Studios so on Sunday we went to Saddleback Church which is Rick Warrens church. He is the guy who wrote The Purpose Driven Life. We lucked out and he was speaking, he was great. God has given him such a great knack to bring scripture to life and make it relevant. We also went to Rick Schulers church The Crystal Cathedral, not for a service(not really our cup of tea) but to see the buildings and statues, pretty impressive. There is Gary in front of the Protical Son statue. Well overall we had a full experience and are glad we went. Now we must prepare for our big move. I hope our next holiday will be somewhere like Italy!!! Double click on the pics to make them larger. You really should take a look at the scorpions on Tiannas head, there was five!!

2006-02-20T23:23:00.000Z

Well, it snowed. The kids had a great time in it. They were very thankful that they had at least one more opportunity to play in snow. TaLeah made up her own olympic event, snow biking! We are still hoping for a big dump of snow so we can go sledding and have a bon fire. But along with the snow comes cold and bad road conditions. This day of snow another car ended up in the lake near our house(happens often) and I bet he was not to happy to have snow. The one picture is the view from our front porch. Doesn't snow have a way of being peacful!So fresh and pure and hides things that aren't. Well we have 1 more sleep until we go to Disneyland, Universal Studios and The Medival Dinner and yes I'm very excited, I think everyone else is also. Well better keep packing. I'll update when we get back.

2006-02-14T18:14:00.000Z

Hi again... we had a great presentation at our old church First Baptist in Kelowna. Gary preached on our ministry verse Matt 7:24-27. We had a great response and got three monitary pledges so far and of course lots of encouragement and prayer support. We have a lot of Ireland stuff around the house so we were able to set up a display with our brochures and some books and pictures. Felt a little silly but it worked. Well it does seem to be Gods will that we go to Ireland because the support has been overwhelming! So many people want to be involved in so many ways.

2006-02-01T20:44:00.000Z

We had a great meeting at our house with our Rain Happens board on Jan.31.
They are left to right Jen Peters, Dave Goertzen, Rob Duncan, Bill Hibberd, Janna Reid, and Jack Borchert.
They will be over seeing our ministry from Canada after we move, looking after pledges and making sure the ministires needs are met. In the mean time, they are helping us raise pledges, structure the ministry( get everything on paper and properly organized) and encourage us. They are also who we are accountable to on how the pledges are used( no holiday condos in Spain!!) and if special projects come up in Ireland that Canadians can participate in, such as building a camp, they will help coordinate getting people to us. We will continue to meet about once a month untill we move which is great because we need all the help we can get!

2006-01-25T17:53:00.000Z

We had our first presentation of Rain Happens Ministries at Summerland Baptist Church and it went well. We were able to clear up a few rumours about us such as why, when and how long. People had heard a various assortment of tales and we need to set things straight. We opened the evening with TaLeah playing Step By Step on her guitar which was very special to us. It is a song that has always ment a lot to us and to see TaLeah be keen on playing in public was great. It was her idea too! Shanaya helped by running the DVD player for us when we showed a short clip of life in Ireland as it is now. We were also there to give them ideas on how they can support the ministry. Many are keen go over to Ireland and help in some way. Maybe in hammering a few nails when( hopefully not if) the new camp begins to take shape also in helping run camps or weekend conferences on programs that have worked well at SBC such as The Alpha Marriage Course and various sunday school programs. We also have a family who wants to come and see how they can be involved and are willing to go to Ireland for anywhere from 2-5 years. We have had 4 pledges for monitary support already! Sorry the picture of the crowd is so dark. We figure around 100 people came out but many who could not make it took our brochure earlier in the day at church. We are looking forward to presenting the minisry to our old church First Baptist Church in Kelowna on Feb. 5. Pray for God to move many hearts to see the need in Ireland and want to grow the Kingdom!

2006-01-16T23:54:00.000Z

During our quest to replace ice hockey for the girls and possibly softball as well,(there might be softball in Ireland), we were looking at the web site for sports in Cork and saw fencing. In our local rec program in Summerland fencing was being offered by a couple that have helped coach our Canadian Olympic team so I asked the girls if it would be something they would be interested in trying and they said sure. Well that was in Sept and they love it. Fencing is big in Europe and there is a Fencing Club in Cork City. The girls are also interested in trying field hockey which is also big in Europe. They love being involved in sports which makes us happy because it keeps them fit and busy. There are so many things to consider when you move a family. We will also have to find a guitar teacher for TaLeah and a piano teacher for Shanaya as well as a place to buy quilt fabric for Denise to satisfy her addiction. Gary has already found a gym for us in a great new facility the last time he went over there.It is getting harder for us to maintain our youthful bods but we keep trying HaHa!! Now we just have to find a Tim Hortons and a good Christian Book store and everyone will be happy.

2006-01-16T02:55:00.000Z

Hi, sorry if you have been trying to leave comments and were unable to do so. Still learning the blog thing and found out we were only set up to recieve comments from other bloggers. It has been fixed,I think! So comment away, we look forward to your comments.

2006-01-12T19:50:00.000Z

Just a quick note to let you all see what a generous heart Shanaya has. She cut off her hair and donated it to make wigs for cancer patients. She really liked her long hair but is getting use to it short and knows it will grow again.

2006-01-09T03:14:00.000Z

Well Christmas has come and gone. It was a bit flat for us and hard knowing it may be our last one in Canada. Christmas Eve we had 2 church services so Gary was gone from 5:30-9:30 then had to get to bed early as there was a service the next morning because it was Sunday on Christmas day this year. That also ment that Luke had to get up early to do music so even though Tianna and Luke slept over we really never got to have a great visit. We didn't even have time for my famous Christmas morning brunch. We did however have a wonderful dinner at Garys mom and dads house in Kelowna. All of Garys immediate family were there. We had planned to go tobagganing and have a fire and hot dog roast on boxing day but the weather was too warm and melted all the snow. New Years also fell on a Saturday night so early to bed that night but we had friends over on New Years day night. I am sounding like a bit of a moaner but I had hoped our last Christmas here would be perfect. Oh well on to better topics HOCKEY!! Canada rocks!! We won the world junior hockey again this year beating the Russians in the final game. Even sweeter was beating the Americans to get there. We were not even considered a team to worry about this year. Next is the Olympics. I can only hope they win gold again as they did 4 years ago, men and women I might add. So yes you can see I am a hockey freak and will be looking to replace my passion when we move. I think maybe rugby?

2005-12-19T19:41:00.000Z

We would like to take this time to say Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all. For unto us a saviour is born.

2005-12-13T18:35:00.000Z

This is what a great influence Tianna is on her sisters.! I'm thinking it may be a good thing she is not moving to Ireland with us. Who knows what she would get them to do in the future.
Camera+boredom=well you get the picture! As you can see I got into the picture as well, I couldn't let them have all the fun. But I thought you should also see how beautiful and angelic they can be if they want. Always remember to click on the pic to get a bigger pic, you must see them in all their glory!!

2005-12-13T17:01:00.000Z

As we prepare to have what may be our last Christmas in Canada, I must say the cold will not be missed. We have been below freezing for almost two weeks now and the rain and clouds are starting to become attractive. I will miss the snow however. Here is a picture of Summerland Baptist at sunset. Doesn't God paint a beautiful picture? We are sure there are more beautiful pictures to see in Ireland as well.

2005-12-12T03:49:00.000Z

Old Irish Blessing

May those who love us, love us

And those that don't love us,

May God turn their hearts;

And if He doesn't turn their hearts

May He turn their ankles

So we'll know them

by their limping

2005-12-09T07:34:00.000Z

Here is the family! Tianna and Luke are in the middle back. They are not coming with us to Ireland (for now Hee Hee). Denise is in the red hair. Gary is on the far right. Kirbey is beside Gary. Shanaya is in white and TaLeah is in blue. Click on the picture to see us up closer.