Happy Easter

March is super busy this year because the birthdays, Easter all fell into this month. Earlier of the month, we got to celebrate Chloe and Sophia's birthdays at Austin. It was a fun birthday party. Everyone had a great time.

 

The following week I went to Houston to get my passport changed for the upcoming China trip. I had my passport photo taken at home. After Andy saw David taking my photo against the white wall, he wanted to take his photo against the wall too. I left home for Houston at 3:40am on Wednesday. Right after I left, I felt an urge to double-check my document that I put together the previous night. I stopped at the neighbor's driveway. I was shocked to find out all the document was gone except an empty pre-paid envelope! I hurried back home and saw all the document including the passport scattered on the floor all the way from the office to the door. They had slipped out of the folder in the darkness when I left the house! The procedure itself in the consulate was very fast since I got everything they asked for. I was in and out in fifteen minutes. When I got back home at 1:20pm, the kids had just begun their naps.

We were so glad that Grandpa and Linda got to visit us during Spring Break. After the Spring Break, we invited our FriendSpeak readers and workers to our house for a cookout party. We were so glad that Dawn and Jarrod were able to join us too. The kids played the parachute and did an egg hunt. The students loved the bean bags and the food. The weather was just perfect. Hopefully we will have more fellowship like this in the future.

 

 

Emily's school had a science fair. We had several ideas. But Emily decided to tackle it with an experiment of Baking soda and Vinegar. She was thrilled to learn that the gas that produced by the reaction can blow up a big balloon; and it was even lighter than the air! Here is her final project board:

 

At a backyard lacking of the playground equipment, parachute and bean bags have been regular exercise aids for Emily and Andy. Here is a picture of them taking turns to jump to reach the bean bags.

 

Setting up the tent was also the kids' favorite fun activity

 

For my birthday, we ate at Cheesecake Factory (Thank you Robert and Gail!!) and Cheddars (Thank you Gayla!!). I also made a delicious chocolate cake with a crazy ingredient (I won't disclose that ingredient now until you taste it). It was so yummy and healthy that it will definitely be my go-to chocolate cake in the future. I baked it for the FriendSpeak March birthdays. Everyone loved it!

 

On my birthday, Emily and Andy both got up before I did. While David was making the pancakes, they helped to decorate the house with birthday banners. As soon as I got up, they all ran to my room and sang Happy Birthday. After the song, Emily said, "Mama, let me show you something!" She couldn't wait to show me all the decorations. She is such a perfectionist. She lined up her toy food on the coffee table later on and had a birthday picnic with Andy and her pink rabbit.

 

For Easter weekend, we went to the Arboretum as we did for the past four years. The purpose was to expose the kids to God's creativity in plant and discover the beauty of life. The kids soaked in everything: the sight, the smell, the sound, ... They enjoyed it so much that when Andy realized we were heading toward our car back home, he started crying! 

In this picture, Andy tried to unbutton his shirt after he got his clothes wet. He worked on it for over fifteen minutes. He was so determined to do it by himself!

 

We made these hot cross buns on Good Friday (Emily called it Happy Friday). They were so good. Those twelve big buns didn't last for one day at our house. By the end of the day, Andy was so disappointed that they were all gone. We'll have to make it again next year.

 

We had an Easter sunrise service at our church. The kids were waken up early by the thunders and found their baskets before we left for church. 

 

After church, we read the books from the basket, did an egg-hunt with the twelve resurrection eggs, colored the boiled eggs, and made the resurrection rolls.

(  Emily is drinking from the cup in one of the resurrection eggs. )

 We wrapped the resurrection rolls and egg chocolates in the cello bags and attached the meaning of the resurrection rolls to it. We handed them out to all our FriendSpeak workers and readers that afternoon.

 Emily and Andy cashed out their coins (over sixty dollars) and bought the grocery for the food pantry at our church several days ago. They delivered them to church before FriendSpeak on Easter.

 

We hope you had a very Happy Easter （filled with hope, joy, power, and victory that only Jesus Christ can provide) !!!

 

 

Below are a few more pictures from this month.

 

Happy Valentine's Day

We had an early start on Valentine's celebration with a party at our friend Lori's house. She was so gracious to provide all the craft materials for the kids to make cards for the daddies. Andy had a great time drawing and decorating his card.

The weekend before Valentine's Day, we decided to make cards for the shut-ins from High Pointe. Emily and Andy got distracted once they saw their old painting materials. I was left to finish off all those cards.

On Valentine's Day, Emily brought home the valentine's cards she made at school.

Andy and I made these apple pie hearts for dessert at lunch. We forgot how good they were. Next year, we are going to double the recipe!

 For the dinner treat, we made these chocolate cupcakes. The chocolate peanut butter icing was so good that we decided to keep using it for all the chocolate dessert we are going to make in the future.

 

 Just in time, the tulips in the front yard bloomed beautifully.

Many people took a hot air balloon ride on Valentine's Day. We saw at least eight from our back yard.

 

 Since the birds found our bird feeder, the bird food went down quickly each day. Different flocks of birds take turns to eat the seeds. The black birds usually were the first. They gathered on the top of the big trees outside the back yard. Then all of a sudden they all flew down to eat while the doves watched them on the fence. After the black birds left, the doves jumped in until their tummies got full. Then it was the cardinals, sparrows, and other birds' turn. Occasionally we saw some humming birds stopping by.

The week after the Valentine's Day, the City of McKinney stocked 4000 trout fish in a neighborhood lake for the public to participate in a fishing derby. Emily and Andy were so excited to go on their first fishing experience. Unfortunately it was way too cold for us to stay outside. We left withing an hour. What Andy remembered the most was the free hotdog (we went for the hot chocolate but it was all gone. The only things left was hotdogs.)- it was the very first hot dog he's had!

Our friends Bill and Jean Ann came to visit. Will and little David had a great time with the horses.

Andy still likes to use his left hand. I secretly hope he uses his right hand in the future.

 The kids enjoy playing together in the back yard. I was glad to see them finding ways to work together and have fun.

 

 Our friend Clint came to our house to shoot an interview for his work. After seeing all his equipment, Emily took out her little camera to practice shooting pictures.

 

 Our friend Cathy and Gene Vance brought us their home-made bread when they visited us. It was the best bread I've had. I couldn't believe they made it at home. So I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be the best bread I've made. It's called Seeded Whole Wheat Bread (Similar to Whole Food’s “Seeduction” bread). So yummy!

We got the sad news that Emily's teacher Mrs. Oliver is moving away. Emily wanted to take a picture with her on her last day because "Mrs. Oliver is my best friend at school"! We will miss her.

 

We had a great start on FriendSpeak at High Pointe. We had four readers on the first Sunday; six on the second Sunday; eight on the third; ... We'll have about fifteen this weekend just by "word of mouth". David is going to give the second training this Sunday. Hopefully we will have enough workers for every reader.

 



 

 

             For God so loVed the world,

     That He gAve   

         His onLy   

      BegottEn
          SoN
                                       That whosoever
          Believe In Him

                                            Should Not perish                         

                        But have Everlasting life."
John 3:16

New Beginning

Year 2013 has lent us a great start. First of all, we placed the membership at High Pointe Church of Christ and said bye-bye to Prestoncrest Church of Christ. We were sad to leave behind a wonderful church family and a number of people there who prayed for us, who held our hands, who had provided us tremendous encouragement, mentoring, advises, and support over the past 11 years (18 years for David). At the same time, we really felt this is a right move for us. High Pointe COC is only six or seven minutes away from our house. We've been really enjoying the Wednesday night Bible study and all kinds of service projects, Sunday morning services and Sunday evening small groups. The people we met are just amazing! They not only embraced us with love and encouragement, but also shared with us how God use them to reach out in different compacities to the community and the world! We constantly meet wonderful people and feel blessed and inspired. David joked that "we are in the honeymoon period." There were very few Sundays that we didn't say "What a day!"

Emily and Andy enjoyed meeting new friends too. They bonded with more friends in this month at High Pointe than they had in the past several years. Most of their friends are the sweet kiddos who are a few years older than them. They treated them as their litter brother and sister. It was heart-warming to see their faces light-up every time when they saw their friends at church. Emily and Andy would pray for their new friends every night after we said our prayers.

As you know, FriendSpeak is in our family blood. We have to take it with us where we go. So right after we decided to attend High Pointe, we started to pray about the opportunity to start FriendSpeak here. And our prayers were answered in less than a month! We placed the membership on January 6th. The preacher asked us to make a video for FriendSpeak and LST with our story on January 13th. We made more footage for the video on January 20th. The video was out for the church before the Harvest Sunday on January 27th (http://www.missionaloutreachnetwork.com/video/the-david-and-wendy-woodward-story-let-s-start-talking). By February 3, the Harvest Sunday, we had our first FriendSpeak session at High Pointe with four wonderful readers! Everyone enjoyed a delicious chocolate cake and some fruit to celebrate the new beginning and to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We pray that God will continue to bring more workers/volunteers and readers to High Pointe; and that He will use us to serve our community more effectively!

The translation project for New Life Behavior that I've been working on had a pretty good progress. I finished translating two more courses into Chinese with some help from another Chinese Christian. If you are interested in reading their curriculum or taking their free courses, here is the website: www.nlbi.net in English, Chinese, Russian, and other languages. I found it very helpful to do some personal study with it.

Below is A New Year's Prayer that our church read during a sermon. Hope you find it encouraging!

May God make your year a happy one! Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain, but by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;
Not by making your path easy, but by making you sturdy to travel any path;
Not by taking hardships from you, but by taking fear from your heart;
Not by granting you unbroken sunshine, but by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;
Not by making your life always pleasant, but by showing you when people and their causes need you most, and by making you anxious to be there to help.
God's love, peace, hope and joy to you for the year ahead.
~Anonymous


Here are a few pictures of this month:

 

(Relaxing in the sun)

(Having fun in the rain)

 

(Emily normally missed feeding the horses because she was at school. But today she did it!)

(Our Fifth anniversary tradition: taking picture with kids every 5 years. We got the best anniversary gift - our friend Gayla took the kids for the weekend so we had our first date night and watched the first movie in five years! The kids did great without us. I think we missed them more than they missed us.)

(Our little balloon man!)

 

(The kids love playing Hide and Seek. Here is how Andy does it:)

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Chinese New Year!