This year has been a race and it's hard to believe that we're back and it's already Christmas. It's been nearly one year since we left all of the comforts of home back in Hawaii. It seams getting out of our comfort zone is exactly what God had called us to. Now this Christmas it's time to stop and rejoice in the gifts all around us...simple things like family, friends, health, hot showers, toilet paper, electricity, food in our stomachs, clean drinking water that comes straight from the tap, dry shelter, and washers/dryers. The greatest gift of all has been the opportunity to share God's love around the world and learn so much from so many different cultures. Thank you to everyone who's helped share this gift God has given. Merry Christmas!
It has been one month since we landed back in America. Although, for us, the race life still continues. We got to see a lot of friends and family this past month, moving about every four days:
We landed in NYC where our college friend Myra picked us up with her husband Jacob and brought us to their home in CT for a few days.
Then we flew to OH to spend Thanksgiving with Brian's grandparent's and his parent's.
We then drove with Brian's parent's back to his home town in WI where we got to catch up with Beth's Aunt and Uncle from IL, Brian's friend Ryan from high school, our good friend Pam from Stout and Brian's sister's family. After sorting through our remaining belongings we loaded them into the car to drive to MN to see Beth's parent's and extended family in the area.
We then traveled to IL for a Scheunemann family retreat and got to meet Beth's goddaughter for the first time in person since she was born nearly two years ago!
After a great celebration of Jessie's birthday in St. Louis, MO, we left the -15 F winter and continued south through black ice in GA to Brian's aunt and uncle's home and finally reached FL just in time for sunset in warm 77 degree weather!
The sprint is over and marathon is just beginning...
We have been able to see our country and everyone here with a such a different perspective. America is a blessed country. With the capability to bring glory to God in so many ways. A country with so many opportunities, resources, access, and knowledge. But no matter where you are in the world, there is always repair needed in relationships with others and with God.
We finally have two weeks in one place, spending Christmas with the Woods parents in Florida. AMEN for sunshine, beaches and being back at the ocean. Trying to re-connect with people, get rejuvenated, and plan our next move. Then we pick up, again, and move on.
We will go out, in faith, with a passion and a vision. So far it seems to be heading to Chiang Mai, Thailand working with Remember Nhu. There is a generation of children that need protection from being sold into human trafficking, discipleship, and opportunities. We will be praying and fasting to follow God's heart.
We will run with endurance a race set before us. For now it's nice to be back to a slow jog...bike...and swim.
Our last week of ministry was spent with a Missionary familyfrom Transnistria who had just planted a Baptist Church in the village of Furladen,which is where we stayed.We weren't allowed to actually cross the border because we weren't Moldovan citizens. We were there to help grow this new church, celebrating their first communion together the first Sunday we were there.
We got to know many of the people in this village of about 5,000,through teaching the youth English daily and picking apples one day with many other people from the community.As we piled heaping buckets of apples into the tractor trailers we began reflecting on how this felt like we were symbolically seeing the fruits of our labor from the past 11 months. It was long hard work from sun up to sun down. We'd been tilling the yard behind the church all week, so it was exciting to gather so many apples, take some fresh one's home and make apple crisp.
It's been a long challenging journey, but made complete with the fruit we've seen blossom down the road as the months have gone bye. It's rare to be able to see more than just seeds planted as we are only there for a few short weeks at a time. But, once and awhile the fruit blossoms while we're there to see the harvest.
The children in the community became very precious to us in just a short week. Many would come to our English program after finishing school and receive lunch from the church. For some it seemed to be the only meal they would get for the day. But they always had apples from their parents that worked in the orchards. One single mom worked sun up to sun down and her four children took care of each other after school, the oldest taking care of the younger siblings.
As we just finished up our last week in the missions field, we're preparing for what's next…more details on that after Thanksgiving J We're now in Brasov, Romania for our final debrief with the whole squad! Thinking about Thanksgiving in just a week with our family back in America it feels surreal to actually be finishing The World Race!
This past week we've been in Lapusna, Moldova a small village outside of Chisinau. We've been working with a ministry that held a day camp over the fall break. Each morning we would have worship, help with grammer and pronunciation in English class, help with an English bible study for teenage girls, have relay races, and games, oragami for the little ones, and the boys do taekwon-do, which is how our contact came to know the Lord.
We've also been helping the elderly in the community in the afternoons: the guys have been chopping wood, and the ladies have been tilling the garden by hand. Good long hard days work made the first week fly bye!
We're in transit in Chisinau for a couple hours, so just a quick update! We're heading into Transnistru for our last week. It's a self declared communist country within Moldova, owned and run by Russia, with their own borders and military. Technically speaking Transnistru doesn't exist...sort feels like we're heading into never never land.
This month God has give me the opportunity to have freedom of expression through art! Above is my first mural, a scene from 'Heidi' a children's story that they are using in their children's program that we've been helping with. And below is the 'Tree of Life' with the 'Fruits of the Spirit' on the branches. Translated into Romanian of course :)
Just another way that I love to worship the Lord, through art. It's making me excited about incorporating new freedom's of expression into ministry that we do in the next season of life. For now we're in Spring, growing more than ever and enjoying freely expressing ourselves in new ways of worship every day! I encourage you all to find your freedom of expression suited just for you, after all we're all uniquely made individuals, the possibilities are endless!
We have been experiencing culture shock already. After being
in Africa and then coming to Europe and Eastern Europe (Ireland, Ukraine, Romania), We have been in
awe over little and big things.
We can't get pictures out of our mind of kids running around,
no shoes or maybe shoes with their toes sticking out. Kids with holes in their
clothes, not sure why they even wear them sometimes. Kids sharing and rejoicing
over little amounts of food they have. Their extremely happy, smiling faces.
Their tiny shops of outdated packaged food and their tiny shops of homegrown vegetables,
on the streets. People walking for hours, maybe just to come say hi to you.
Kids in hospital beds lying motionless, with their parents (well not all the
kids were lucky enough to have their parents stay) next to them just waiting
and hoping. Kids running, screaming, rubbing your skin, and pulling your hair; We can only imagine what it is like for them, we are like crazy aliens to them.
We really do love Africa.
Now we are in Eastern Europe. People look busy walking to their next
destination ten minutes away. It seems it is a given you could ride the bus,
but why when everyone has a car. The grocery stores are so huge that they could feed
numerous villages and sleep thousands of people. The streets are clean. The
kids clothed, dry, warm and clean. They look at us weird. We are told they
can tell we are not from here by the way we carry ourselves- we are relaxed,
smile at each other and strangers, and laugh. We also wear slippers (sandals) sometimes,
with and without socks; apparently that is weird. The houses are huge. We
are laughed at when we are amazed that there is heat (not from a fire but from
a machine on the wall), showers (they even have steady flowing water, with
pressure, and hot water), we each have our own bedroom with doors (not to
mention the extra beds we each have in our rooms), and kitchens with
stoves/ovens and just about every utensil you could need.
We were at the outdoor
market the other day and a guy was cooking corn over a coal fire, but this time
he was “blowing” on the fire using a hair dryer.
We can't say this is wrong or that we don't like some of it.
It is just so different. We actually cry thinking about it sometimes. There are
starving kids with barely a roof or a bed or food or… and then the rest of the
world has all this. WOW. It blows us away.
We are not advocating for us to go over there and just start
giving all these things to them. That has already started by some and, as of
now, we don't see a really good long-term effect. It can lead to them being
lazy, greedy, and just expecting others to come and give them everything or fix what they
need. They are ok with waiting; they have been doing this a long time already.
We love Africa's resourcefulness- they throw almost nothing
away. They can use everything for something- a kids toy, to repair something
else, to hold food, to cook food etc., but it's not like America where they
have basements or carports full of stuff just in case they need it, they use it
as they need and disperse what's left.
We can only imagine America, even bigger homes, bigger cars, and
bigger stores, more malls…hope we can handle it. We were already shocked before this year when we
came from Kauai to the mainland. We just hope we are able to hold it together.
This is a blog for the millions of people that need
prayer all around the world. There have been many
people on our hearts and each new country brings new people to pray for. Just a
few that we can share are:
• Trevor, our squad mate recovering from all four strands of Malaria, now needing long term health protection
• Our families health, protection, and trust in
God as we serve far away
• The boy I met on the streets in Kenya,
struggling to trust that God is good and getting his physical needs met
• Our home church, Gateway ministries: for God to continue to move on Kauai!
• Financial support for our whole squad to come in by the end of October. ($27,000 for our Squad, $2,000 for our portion)
Prayer is asking God to do something that we cannot do,
being done by nobody's personal strength. Having faith and trusting God can do
it.
"…The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and
effective" (James 5:16).
We want to thank everyone that has been praying for us this year.
Through your prayers, we have remained healthy and strong. You've
helped open doors for ministry. You've helped grow the Kingdom of God around the world. You've helped us overcome tremendous hurdles of conflict that we didn't even realize. You've helped our marriage grown stronger every day!
So many times throughout the year we cannot fall asleep or
are woken up around 2-3a.m. This is by no chance. God wakes us up to intercede
on the behalf of others.
We invite all to
comment back with prayer requests so we can help fight for you and rejoice when God answers your prayers!
Sometimes prayers are answered immediately and other times
you can grow weary in a long battle. But God has won the battle and will come
back again to bring His Kingdom to reign. We have hope and trust in God's will,
whether we understand or not.
Luke 18: 1 pray
consistently and never quit.
We ask that if you believe and trust in God, who sent Jesus
Christ for us, and have faith that miracles can and do happen, to pray for the
things listed above and those that others comment. Prayer can be an exhausting battle,
but God answers in His timing, not ours.
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God:
that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that
he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him"
(1 John 5:14-15).
This month in Romania, we are working with a church that focuses on reaching the youth, with kids programs each week. This year has brought many new ministries, but this month tops them all, a first for us all.
We dress as clowns and go out into the city two times a day. The purpose is to advertise for our kid programs, and inadvertently make numerous people smile, laugh, scared, and nervous.
The woods circus heritage is really coming to use. Dressed as clowns, we both juggle and/or spin the poi balls. I know my Grandma Woods is proud.
This week we are perfecting our balloon animals, face painting, and juggling acts.
We can be seen from a mile away and kids come running to us from all angles. It is really funny and exhausting. It is hard not to just bust out laughing randomly, we look ridiculous. We are fools for God, willing to do any and all things.
As a side note: Right after finding out what our ministry was, our teammate Holly, whispered "I went to clown school." Our stock market business women has a certificate in clown school. Somethings really come out of the woodwork when you start clown ministry. Who would have thought!
We landed in NYC where our college friend Myra picked us up with her husband Jacob and brought us to their home in CT for a few days. 
to meet Beth's goddaughter for the first time in person since she was born nearly two years ago!
Our last week of ministry was spent with a Missionary family
down the road as the months have gone bye. It's rare to be able to see more than just seeds planted as we are only there for a few short weeks at a time. But, once and awhile the fruit blossoms while we're there to see the harvest.
As we just finished up our last week in the missions field, we're preparing for what's next…more details on that after Thanksgiving 
We've also been helping the elderly in the community in the afternoons: the guys have been chopping wood, and the ladies have been tilling the garden by hand. Good long hard days work made the first week fly bye!
We can't get pictures out of our mind of kids running around,
no shoes or maybe shoes with their toes sticking out. Kids with holes in their
clothes, not sure why they even wear them sometimes. Kids sharing and rejoicing
over little amounts of food they have. Their extremely happy, smiling faces.
Their tiny shops of outdated packaged food and their tiny shops of homegrown vegetables,
on the streets. People walking for hours, maybe just to come say hi to you.
Kids in hospital beds lying motionless, with their parents (well not all the
kids were lucky enough to have their parents stay) next to them just waiting
and hoping. Kids running, screaming, rubbing your skin, and pulling your hair; We can only imagine what it is like for them, we are like crazy aliens to them.
cooking corn over a coal fire, but this time
he was “blowing” on the fire using a hair dryer. 
We want to thank everyone that has been praying for us this year.
Through your prayers, we have remained healthy and strong. You've
helped open doors for ministry. You've helped grow the Kingdom of God around the world. You've helped us overcome tremendous hurdles of conflict that we didn't even realize. You've helped our marriage grown stronger every day!
