Updates

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All our travels

It has been a long time since I've gotten around to updating this blog, for which, I apologize. It has been an intense couple of weeks, and it's hard to believe we will have been married for 9 weeks as of tomorrow! 

I'll just give you a brief overview of our travels over the last few weeks. 

October 16th we left for Wellington (bottom of the North Island) via Masterton. We stayed there until the 27th, when we headed up to Auckland via Tauranga. We stayed there until Oct 31st, when we then headed to the Oak Ridge YWAM base (almost the top of the North Island). We traveled around Northland for day trips and more presentations. Thursday morning, (5 November) we left Oak Ridge and drove to Auckland, picked up our leaders at the airport, and headed home to Tauranga for a night to see my family and have an early Thanksgiving dinner! It was so nice to be home for a few hours and be in our own bed for at least one night. This morning we had a presentation at a local Christian College (high school) of 1500 students, and then hit the road to Napier for an evening presentation.

All in all it has been an amazing couple of weeks, but an exhausting couple of weeks as well. We covet your prayers during this time. We are so blessed with the experience we have had recently, but it is draining to be on the road all the time!

Thank you all for your prayers and support! We love you!

~Mrs Wood 

My sickly boy

Saturday night before we left Australia, Dahvede began complaining of a sore throat, an earache, and having a case of "the chills". He fell asleep before dinner and turned down food when I brought it to him. We began monitoring his temperature throughout the evening but it was only slightly elevated. The next morning when we got up to head to the airport it had leaped to 102.8 (i think). We continued to check it every hour or so and had everyone who was willing, praying for him. We were unsure if we would be able to fly if he had an ear infection (which he is prone to) in case it left him with permanent damage. We got the ok to fly and made it to our flight, but Dahvede was miserable throughout the flight and there was very little we could do to keep him comfortable.

To make a very long story short, Dahvede's temp spiked to 104 while we on our way home, and my sister (who is a nurse) encouraged us to head to the hospital. I (havalah) was quite concerned and anxious but in the end it turned out that he had a case of strep throat and after a few days and some antibiotics things settled down and he began to feel better. Praise the Lord!

~ Mrs. Wood

Australia - Part 2

While we in Australia, after spending a blessed few days in Sydney with our friends, we boarded the train to go make some new ones.

We caught a train from just outside Sydney, down to Oak Flats, about 25 minutes south of Wollongong. We were met by Ken and April B, who took us back to the YWAM base to settle in. We were there for 6 days, taking part in planning meetings, training sessions and just general team building times. We had the blessing of meeting and getting to know three other newlywed couples, one of which we share a wedding date with.

We both really enjoyed being in YWAM community again and spending time hearing peoples hearts and building relationship with them.

Sunday morning, very early, we left for the airport and although there were a few scares, we made our flight on time.

It was a blessing to be able to go and be sewn into for the week that we were there. God really blessed us by enabling us to go.

Thanks for reading!

Australia - Part 1

10 days ago, Dahvede and I flew to Australia to take part in the Youth Connection Teams (YCT) training week. We were blessed to be able to go a few days early and spend time with Dahvede's outreach leaders and small group leader from his DTS, Robbie and Tanya. They are an awesome couple who are expecting their first baby (due yesterday). It was such a blessing to catch up with them and be influenced by them so early in our marriage. We really respect and look up to them as a young Christian couple.

We had the honor of attending a World Vision Gala in downtown Sydney with Robbie and Tanya our first day in Australia. It was raising awareness for the Global Food Crisis (to read more, visit: http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/learn/globalissues-world-hunger ). It was a great evening, raising awareness and finances for the crisis and driving home some key points. We were also able to pop down to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") to see the Sydney Opera House at night. It was absolutely beautiful, but COLD!

Sunday we were able to make it into downtown Sydney again to wander around Darling Harbour (in good Aussie fashion, it's said "dah-ling hah-bur"). We wandered around the harbour, into Chinatown, where we found a shop with my name (not so common), and I got attacked by a seagull who thought my McDonald's looked really tasty.

We also enjoyed some 7/11 slurpees (they don't have them here in NZ)....

....and were entertained by a freelance street performer.

We then wandered back over to Circular Quay again to enjoy the Opera House in daylight. It was far bigger than either of us realized and we were completely amazed at how impressive it was close up.

All in all, it was an incredible few days in Sydney. We had a great time and were so blessed to have a few days out for ourselves.

Introducing the Mrs.

Hi Everybody!

Dahvede and I thought I should write and introduce myself first, since I will be contributing to the blog now.

I'm Havalah (obviously), and Dahvede and I got married a month (and 24 hours) ago. For those who are interested, I'll just tell a bit of my story and background.

I'm originally from the USA, born in the northeast. My family moved around on the East Coast until 2000 when as a family, we moved to New Zealand as missionaries. My parents pastored a church in a small town of about 3000 people, until getting involved with Marine Reach (part of YWAM) in late 2005. Early 2006 our family moved onto the Pacific Link where my parents have served ever since. 6 months later, I met Dahvede when he came to the ship to take part in a Disciplship Training School. The rest as they say, is history.

I'm looking forward to being able to contribute to this blog and help in keeping everyone updated on our events and travels. Thanks for taking a few minutes to get to know me!

Havalah

Wedding Photos

Here are a few of the photos from our wedding. We're still waiting to get the professional photos back. View a whole lot more on my Picasa album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/vedewood/OurWedding

Insanity

I'm a man who thrives under a busy schedule. By that I mean I can usually keep up with the pace and keep things going, though I have to have the end in site for the specific project or event. It's a bit harder now that I'm married and I have to be less selfish with my time and much more flexible. It does help having an awesome wife to help me calm down when I'm stressing.

All that to say, work for the Ship Tour is in full force. Havalah and I returned from our honeymoon ready to roll, and roll we did. Amidst answering two weeks of emails I've been trying to catch up with what is going on with our Youth Connection Teams, catch up on our finances, move house to our temporary "base of operations" until we move stateside in December, and finally get ready to leave the country for 8 days on Saturday. All of this happens amidst the meetings, runnings around and all the other day to day stuff.

That to say I haven't had much of a chance to post about our wedding, honeymoon or any other recent news. Hopefully will get a chance to do so, but no guarantees. Grace is a good thing yeah? Asking for it now. Love to you all.

The Sanctity of Human Life

No, this is not a post about abortion or capital punishment. At least not directly. Rather it is a post about climate change. Allow me to explain.

I really enjoy reading the news. To relax and unwind I'll open about 15 tabs on my computer and just go over the news: global, politics, weather, most all of it. It's weird, I know. But lately I have seen a number of articles talking about climate change that note population control as a major concern.

What I have seen multiple articles state, is that rather than focusing on new technologies for energy and transportation, or dealing with animal waste from agriculture (which releases more greenhouse gases than most humans anyway) we should focus on curbing population growth to limit the number of consumers in the world to create greenhouse gases.

To be honest, I don't really care where you stand on the climate change/global warming pendulum. As a Christian, to me a human life is a human life. I'm against abortion, but more importantly believe that every pregnancy, that every child needs to be welcomed into this world as a gift from God, wanted or not. My wife and I have agreed that while we may take steps to prevent conceiving early in our marriage, we are very clear that if God sees fit to give us children sooner than we plan they will be received as a gift and blessing no matter how it shifts our plans and finances.

I understand that not everyone wants to have a big family, or can afford it. But if you are willing to have sex, then you need to accept the result that sex is the leading cause of pregnancy, all studies will show. Often unintentionally.

Big families are a gift. Children are a blessing. I know the world doesn't always see it this way, but we need to change our perspective. It breaks my heart to read something like this*:

But, they argue, smaller families also lead to greater prosperity, and this can be helped by programmes that are voluntary and inexpensive.

Some 80 million pregnancies -- nearly 40 percent of the total each year -- are unplanned. More than half of those unwanted pregnancies will result in abortion, with five million women suffering severe complications or death.

"Much more emphasis need to be given to meeting the need for family planning -- all women should be protected from unintended childbirth," they said in a collective editorial.

*Read full article at http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.506b7104e85d35fc4f8355e566ab5fad.261&show_article=1

It is a huge jump to say that all unplanned pregnancies are unwanted, which this article does. But even more so it is terribly sad to know that one of the solutions the world is turning to for unplanned pregnancy, and climate change as well it seems, is abortion, or murdering unborn children. I understand that sometimes there are special cases, and I don't envy anyone faced with the option to terminate, but 90% or more of the time we are talking about no risk to the mother, normal pregnancies. We're not "preventing more pollutants to the climate," we're murdering the generation to come. If they were able to make it out of the womb before death, it would be called genocide. What's the difference?

NZ Ship Tour Video

The New Zealand Ship Tour to spread the call to missions to 30,000 young Kiwis begins next month. Havalah and I will be working on this until we leave NZ at years' end.

Check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwOLjVU6oSo