I was driving home to Bonnyville after a long (and pretty emotionally tiring) semester and an old Michael W Smith song came on that I had forgotten, but it was pretty timely and I thought, "So many people probably don't know this song!  It should go on the blog!"  So here ya go:

Never Been Unloved



I have been unfaithful
I have been unworthy
I have been unrighteous
And I have been unmerciful


I have been unreachable
I have been unteachable
I have been unwilling
And I have been undesirable


  And sometimes I have unwise
  I've been undone by what I'm unsure of
  But because of You
  And all that You went through
  I know that I have never been unloved


I have been unbroken
I have been unmended
I have been uneasy
And I've been unapproachable


I've been unemotional
I've been unexceptional
I've been undecided
And I have been unqualified


  Unaware
  I have been unfair
  I've been unfit for blessings from above
  But even I can see
  The sacrifice You made for me
  To show that I have never been unloved
  It's because of You
  And all that You went through
  I know that I have never been unloved

Cheesy, I know, but I don't care.  Cherish the truth!

Wow, it has been a while since I've updated and now I have a lot to catch up on!  I'll give you a run-down on the past few weeks:

Fall festival outreach at our church in Calgary - a Halloween Day party - that's Amanda painting the face of the College and Career leaders' daughter.

College and Careers is pretty fun - this day we carved pumpkins - last week we went out for Ethiopian food, and tomorrow night we're going to watch the Disney movie 'Up' - it's my kind of group!

 A couple of weekends ago I went with 2 of my classmates to Canmore to watch a group of missionary kids while their parents had a conference.  They were great fun and it brought me back to BFA and made me miss them like crazy.

The other day, we had a birthday party for the daughter of one of my classmates.  They're Brazilian and I guess in Latin cultures the first birthday is a pretty big deal.  Also, their daughter is a miracle baby in many ways, so it was great to celebrate God's goodness in that way too!

This is Dr Rainey, the campus pastor, with the birthday girl.   He is probably the sweetest person I know, and I can't imagine the school here without him!  He and his wife live in the same building as me and they look out for us!  It's awesome!

Whew, okay, that's all for now!  Make sure to keep checking my photography blog for updates!  racheljphillipsphotography.blogspot.com.

Get bumped?

At our seminary, we have chapel every Wednesday.  Yesterday the chairman of our board of trustees was speaking to us about ministering in hard places and used an illustration I can't stop thinking about, so I thought I would share!

When you're holding a glass of water and it gets bumped, what comes out?  Water, obviously.  When we are living out our Christian lives and people 'bump' us, what comes out?  Not so obvious, I suppose.  If we are full of the flesh, then the flesh comes out, but if we are full of the Spirit, then it's the Spirit that should come out.  So I guess we should be asking ourselves, "When people bother me, upset me, step on my toes, disagree with me, hurt me or the like, what comes out of me?  And if the Spirit doesn't come out, how can I start making changes in my life?"

One Day I'll Be A Photographer!

I've taken the plunge and made a blog just to showcase my photography, and I want to invite you all to check it out.  Eventually I'll change the name and make it more professional, but for now I've just wanted to get a bit of an online portfolio.  Feel free to leave comments there too! Here's the link:

www.racheljphillipsphotography.blogspot.com

Here's a picture I took in Bonnyville the other day - I LOVE gray fall days!

Chris Tomlin!

I know this is kind of old news now, but I'm a bit behind on my blog!  A couple of weeks ago I was able to go to a Chris Tomlin worship evening at a church in Calgary - it was the last stop on his tour.  I was prepared to be a bit disappointed with all of the 'show' that surrounds such a big name, but Chris handled himself with a lot of humility and we were truly able to worship, which was a great blessing.  I went with a bunch from my college and career group in Calgary (bottom picture) - man I like those people!  I'm sure you'll see more of them in the future - we have some fun things planned for the group this year.  Anyway, here are a couple of my concert pics.  If you get a chance to see Chris live, I send out my recommendations!

Does this mean I'm officially a woman??

Last weekend I went to my first Women's Retreat!  It was with the church in Calgary I'm a member of, and we had it across the field from my apartment at the CNBC (that's the Canadian National Baptist Convention, which is the new name for the Canadian Southern Baptist Convention) retreat building.  It was good to get to know more ladies from church, especially since I live pretty far from the church so I don't make it out to many events.  There were a handful of us who came from the college group and we all got to stay in a room together and act like we were high school girls at camp!  Anyway, it was a good time and I just found some pictures from it so I thought I'd share. :)

Happy Birthday, Laura!

It's Laura's birthday today! I'm never there for her birthday unfortunately, but it was nice to spend last weekend with her and the rest of the family. I was telling Mom the other day that I feel weird whenever Laura isn't there for whatever reason - I think she's such a great addition to our family - we're blessed! And, she's a fabulous mom to Liam! Have a great birthday, Laura!

Oh dear...

... does time fly, or what? Liam just turned a year old! I got to see him and a lot of the family this past weekend while we celebrated my cousin Laura's wedding in BC. It was a lot of traveling for a short time, but it was well worth it. Now I'm paying for getting behind in my homework, but it serves me right - I could have been keeping up better. Anyways, I'm excited to get finished with the pictures from Laura's wedding, but for now here's a cute one of the birthday boy playing in Grandpa and Grandma Weglo's backyard:

Outhouse Races!

My parents came to town for the weekend to visit and we had a lot of fun doing different things around the area. I thought I would start with our Saturday morning fun - the Annual Outhouse Races in Cochrane! Different community businesses and organizations enter an 'outhouse' into a race that runs for a block in the downtown. Two teams compete, and the winners move on to the next round. Some of my friends had an outhouse entered...



They did pretty well in the first race!


You should really click on some of these for a closer look - some of the decorating is pretty funny...




Haha...


The Sesame street gang was going for the title of 'Slowest Outhouse EVER'


It was worth a good laugh, that's for sure! More to come...

Another catch-up post!

I've been slacking in my blog so here's another mix-matched update of the past week or so:

A couple of us enjoyed one last summer college and career event - hanging out at Meg and Greg's place... it looked like it would be a HUGE storm... but it pretty much missed us.

The evening before I left back to seminary, my first ever roommate and good friend Sarah was in Cold Lake for a family thing so we got together for a couple hours to catch up and enjoyed a great sunset at the Cold Lake marina.


I moved in one week ago to my new place but I'm still getting settled, so pics of it will have to wait a few more days. Amanda wanted to go to Banff before the craziness of school started so we took and afternoon and went to wander around and see a Robert Bateman exhibit. I am SO blessed to live so close to the Rockies!

Banff

Lake Louise

Amanda making a friend at Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake

That's all for now - my first couple nights in my new place were tough but I'm already loving it a lot! And of course, if anyone wants to come visit - my door is open!!

Catching up!

I have NO idea where the time has gone this summer! Yesterday was my last day of work, and tomorrow I'm moving down to school, which means today I am packing, cleaning and running errands... one of which is updating the blog. When I went to decide what to post, I realize that I've got over 500 pictures since my last post... oh dear! So here is a very brief overview of the time that's passed since then:

Lindsay and Laura stayed at my place for Shannon's wedding - I love these two!

Liam is as adorable and hilarious as ever!

Jared came to visit!

We had a Haglund family reunion (my grandma on my dad's side's family)

I took senior portraits for a couple of my distant (and adorable) cousins from the states...


...and a few for fun.

Played with my camera and learned a little bit more...

...on a trip to Jasper with the family.

Last weekend I got a few pictures of Lac La Biche Lake at sunset - so beautiful!

It looks like a busy week ahead as I move into my OWN place at the seminary and work all week getting ready for and helping with new student orientation. I'll post about my new place as soon as I can! And, thanks for reading even though I took almost a month off from posting!

Wedding Pictures!

I don't have much time to write since I'm heading out to the lake for a family reunion, but I figured I should post more of Shannon's wedding before I have reunion ones to add! I didn't get to take any of the ceremony (because I was in it of course) but here are a few from other times in the day...




The flower girl was showing us just how hot it was after the ceremony:



The aftermath of the ceremony - still looks great!

Shannon with her niece and nephew:


The wedding party:

Watching the slideshow:






First dance:
Hope you enjoy! Especially you, Melissa - wish you could have been there!