Woodbull Family: January 2009

Monday, January 26, 2009

Putting a Face to the Name...

Ok, for those of you who have been praying for Ian and are wondering what in the world he looks like, Uncle Charles had the grand idea to post some pictures of Ian so that you guys can put a face to his name. So here's a little bit about Ian :)

Ian is our amazing 12 year old brother. He's 3rd to the youngest.

Ian adds lots to the Woodbull family...

He's a hard worker. And loves working!

He is full of smiles!!! And his smile is contagious.

He's a loving brother.

Oh he is SO talented! He can shave his own head :)

Hehe... ummm he's sometimes out of it :P hehe... and can make us laugh!

He has a great laugh :)

His sisters love him :) And he bares with us :)

He loves to sing in the shower... ok... so not really, but he's good at acting like he does :P

He loves helping out in anyway he can and is always willing to lend a hand.

He's a great brother and all of his siblings love him to death and miss him a lot.

Thank you for your prayers for Ian!!!!!!

Ian update from Gracie

Good morning everybody!

This is Gracie Woodbull here updating on our brother, Ian.

Today Ian gets a blood transfusion (which is much needed). Please pray it will help!

Ian's understanding and his speech(when he does talk) seems ok but it takes so much effort for him to do small things such as move his fingers and sit up and such. Yesterday afternoon the Bull side of the Woodbull got to talk to Ian on the phone. Uncle Ken and Aunt Lisa said that Ian talked more with them then he had all week! Ian is quite emotionless at this point, and doesn't feel much. So when they found out how excited he was about hearing his siblings, they realized that that if they were with Ian right now it could be a very big help in stimulating him to get up and around quickly. Ian might need to go into Physical therapy, but, Praise the Lord almighty, Ian is already improved so much today! He has walked and the doctors are are optimistic again! God is so good! So now we're at the Turnbulls packing everything up. All the Turnbulls will be in S.A for about a month then they'll come back for the rest of the time till their furlough. Please pray for safe traveling mercies and that God would heal Ian quickly so that they may come back and say bye to everyone here. And that we would be able spend time together as ALL the TEN Woodbulls. Plus, that we Woods would get a chance to see Ian soon, and to give him a big hug! It's been a very up and down ride and a very bizarre/sad Woodbull anniversary but we're trusting that God has a beautiful plan beneath all this! We're going to miss our other half of the family SO much! Thank you for your prayers: they are so not in vain! With love to all of you, From a very grateful sis, Gracie

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Updates for Ian...

Thank you all for your prayers. For updates on Ian you can check my blog. Sorry I can't update this one, but it's easier to just update one at a time :) Thank you again for your prayers for our brother :D

My blog address: http://the-traveling-banana.blogspot.com

THANK YOU!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Happy SECOND YEAR Woodbull Anniversary... well...

Tuesday afternoon we Woodbulls got together to brainstorm about what to do for our Woodbull anniversary. Two years of being family, we needed to do something fun to celebrate. We made up our plans and decided on dinner out and a picnic lunch the next day. Everything was set and we were all looking forward to celebrating! Until.... Ian got sick. Thursday Ian was feeling really tired and sick. Mom and Dad tested him for malaria that night. As soon as the blood hit the test it showed that he had cerebral malaria. (the brain kind) Dad and Mom started him on the malaria medicine but it didn't seem to be working. The morning of our Woodbull Anniversary dawned and Ian was getting worse. He started hallucinating so Mom and Dad brought him to the clinic down the hill from us at around 5:30am. Uncle Charles met them there and helped look over Ian and see how he was doing.

As the day progressed Ian became worse. The Wood side of the family came by the clinic after church and went in to see Ian. Ian was out of it due to sedatives that he had been given to dull the pain. The Woods left and us Bulls stayed home. We were all praying hard and sending out updates on Ian like crazy asking everyone to pray. Uncle Charles went back to the clinic later and stayed there with Mom and Dad. Ian wasn't doing very well. He had puked blood several times. The Doctors then thought something might be wrong with his kidneys because they were pumping him full of liquids but he had never peed. They stuck a catheter in him and that helped a lot. Unfortunately, they couldn't give Ian meds for the pain (they needed to make sure his brain was still functioning) so Ian was in a lot of pain. Back at home we Bulls and the Woods too were praying hard for Ian. Around 9ish... or 10ish... Dad called again and said that Ian had taken a turn for the worse and they were going to evacuate him out of mozambique and bring him to South Africa. Dad came up to the house to pack stuff and we prayed together. Dad went back down to be with Ian and us kids prayed and cried... it was hard! The Woods (what awesome sibling we have) kept sending encouraging texts saying they were praying and sharing different verses with us. Isn't it SO great to know that we can trust in an all-powerful, all-knowing God!?! Around 10ish... we Bulls went down to the clinic just to be close to Ian, Mom and Dad. While we were there the Woods came too. Thank you Lord for family!!! It was so comforting just to be around family! :) The LePoidevins (a missionary family here working with MAF *Mission Aviation Fellowship*) live right across the street from the clinic and they generously opened up their home to us Woodbulls. They let us crash at their place so that we would be close to the clinic. The showered us in comfort. The Woods as well. :) We are so blessed. It was so nice to be with other believers and pray together for Ian. We also sang and different people shared encouraging verses. It helped all of us a lot. After a long night with no sleep for some and very little for others the med plane flew in. They came at 4:33am and went to the clinic and got Ian stabilized. It took them a long time! We went to the clinic to wait in the waiting room and while there we could hear Ian screaming in pain. It was really really hard to hear. :'( After we found out it would take them a while to stabilize Ian we left the clinic and waited outside instead.

(Dot, Lil' Andrew and Kent are missing in this pic)

Around 7ish they got Ian stabilized and the ambulance drove him to the airport. We Bulls got to go onto the tarmac and watch them unload Ian. (we also got to touch the wing of an airplane :) )

They unloaded Ian and I was not expecting him to look like that. He was covered in wires and tubes :( It was really hard for all of us to see him like that. Especially Lil' Andrew. Please pray for Lil' Andrew as it is really really hard on him to see Ian (his big strong older brother) so sick. Thank you!

They loaded him up into the airplane. (and the pilots were all saying how light he was and it was so much easier to lift that the 300lb. person last time :P)

And away they went.

Ian has been at a pediatric clinic in South Africa with Dad all today. Tonight we got word that Ian had jaundice. We thought it may be because of liver failure. We packed up our bags and got ready to fly out tomorrow. About an hour later Dad called and said the results of Ian's liver tests came back and they were good. Oh thank you God!!! So what's with the jaundice? Well, the jaundice is because... (I may get some of this wrong but I hope you get the gist) the malaria kills all your blood cells and the liver produces blood cells, but because the liver is producing so many blood cells trying to refill his body, there is a "traffic jam". Which caused the jaundice. The Dr. said that everything is looking how he expected and that there have been people with a LOT worse cases of malaria than what Ian has and they have all walked out of the clinic with no problems! Oh thank you GOD!!!!! Right now Ian is hooked up to tons of machines and whatnot. He is on a respirator, has a catheter, and loads of tubes sticking in and out of him giving him all kinds of fluids and meds. Please keep praying for him!!! Right now the plans are that Mom will fly out tomorrow to be with Dad and Ian and us Bulls will stay with our family :) The Woods. Please pray for our brother. That God would heal him and make him well again! We are trusting in the all-powerful, all-knowing God and we know that He is in control of everything!! What a wonderful thing that we can trust in Him!!! Thank you again for your prayers!!! It has definitely been a rough last couple of days and a very unusual Woodbull anniversary. :) Thank you!!!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Week Together: Saturday

Saturday :D The weekend! Yahoo!

Ian and The Second fixed bikes :)

We were tired! So we laid around and played games :)

Bethy and Gracie have started this amazing ministry on Saturdays. They have girls from the bairos nearby come to their house and they do crafts with them and a bible lesson. It is a really neat mission and they are reaching out to girls their own age! They do that every Saturday afternoon, so if you remember please be praying that the Lord will use their time and effort to bring more people to Himself. Thanks!

After Bethy and Gracie were done Sarah Ellen, Gracie and I decided to lay out on a sheet on the grass. While we did that it started raining. :D nice! Gracie and I laid out on the sheet through the whole rain storm :) It was fuuun!

Double rainbow!

Sarah Ellen and Gracie rode bikes after the rain.

After dinner we decided to play rook. We split up Kent and I against Dot and Bethy. And for the other side of the table The Second and Ian against Sarah Ellen and Gracie.

Kent and I were not getting good hands! But it was still fun!!

Dot and Bethy were winning by far! They were elated.

Um, we were losing... haha.. :D

Yah, Bethy loves winning!

And Kent is trying to figure out how we can win :D hehe

Haha... the other side of the table had a loud game!!! It was hilarious to watch them play! Gracie and The Second's faces say a lot about the game! haha.

The final score of our game. Dot and Bethy wanted to frame this and give it to everyone for Christmas. *Yeah*

Lil' Andrew and Benaiah played with action figures while we were playing Rook.

The Rook table.

The winners!

Oh my goodness! We WON!

Awww brother and sister!

Qui-Gon-Jinn. The Second and Ian's "Lucky Charm" hehe... ok not really :P

All of Dot and Bethy's fans trying to get into the pic.... or mess up the pic :P

The pic of the winners. We wanted another one since this one's blurry but the winners said we would have to pay for another one of them. Haha! ... While the were SO happy about winning they went upstairs to tell Uncle Charles. When Dot and Bethy were coming back down the stairs the started to hum the wedding march. Haha, we all stopped and were like, "WHAT?!" Haha.... they meant to hum, "All Hail the Chief." Whoops, they restarted their song and came down :) hehe...

The Second's happy :D

Aww Chiquita.

Ian and Chiquita.

The winners from the other game. Good job guys!

Dot and Bethy are now being sponsored by a toothpaste company since they won Rook. Haha!

It was a WONDERFUL day to end the week together with! :D Sunday Mom and Dad Turnbull came back home and ended our week together. :) It was a fun week getting to bond more as siblings though :)

Week Together: Friday

Friday! Yeah! So close to the weekend! Also the youth group Christmas party! :D

Dot and Bethy made sugar cookies to decorate once the youth arrived.

Food colouring.

The cookie cutters.

Dot and Bethy. My beautiful older sisters!

The Maddux brought over these adorable colours for the icing. Theirs are all the neonish colours! SO cute!

Annie's cookies turned out SO cute!

Esther decorating :)

Me.

Sarah Ellen.

Ian.

Everyone decorating.

Bethy's turned out SO cute!

All the cookies.

All morning Gracie planned out a scavenger hunt. It was amazing! Every clue we would get we would be like, "Wow! Gracie did an AMAZING job putting this together!" There were three teams who did different stuff, but I'll just say what the team Dot, Bethy and I were on did.

Everyone started out by the Wood's hospital where Gracie told us that we were shepherds who had just seen the angels and heard about the birth of the Messaiah, but unfortunately for us, we are slightly deaf and it's a windy night so we didn't hear everything that the angels said, like where the Messaiah was! Oh no! So we started off with our clue looking for the Messaiah. Dot, Bethy and I headed off to get our blanket, but our next clue said that, whoops, we had left it on the clothesline. We found it and the next clue, which sent us to the gates of the big house (Their house) We arrived at the gates and found our clue. We had to say, "We awaitest at thine gates." before someone would come to the gate. After a while Kent arrived at the gate, before anyone would speak to use we had to say, "How dost thou fare?" Once we asked Kent that he let us in. We asked if he knew where the Messaiah was. He didn't and gave us our next clue. We had to walk down the hallway to where the Scribe was. We knocked on the door and asked the question before Benaiah the Scribe let us in. When we came in we asked Benaiah, who was sitting at a desk studying the Bible, if he knew where the Messaiah was to be born. He held up the Bible to us and said, "You must search the Scriptures!" We took the Bible and found our next clue. It told us that Benaiah was acting a bit suspicious and we should keep an eye on him. Hehe, Benaiah was then supposed to leave and drop a clue for us, since we would be watching him. But we kinda took it to seriously, when Benaiah tried to leave I wouldn't let him leave the room. Haha, sorry buddy! Bethy finally said, "Well, maybe he's supposed to leave." Duh! She's so smart! Benaiah left and dropped our clue which said to ask the Page where the midwife was because she would know what babies have been born recently. We went to the Page which was Kent and asked him about where the Midwife was. He pointed us to the carpenter's shop where Aunt Julie was sitting there. Dot, Bethy and I walked in, said our greeting and Aunt Julie asked, "Ohhh, are you all here because you need a midwife?" Haha! We started cracking up! After asking her about any new births she told us that no one had been by for weeks asking her to be their midwife, but she said we should check with her husband the Census man. Off we went, with our next clue in hand, to find the Census man. As we were leaving the carpenter's shop we noticed a clue hanging up outside. We decided it must be for later so we would get it then. Off we went. We came to the church and inside was Uncle Charles the Census man. :P We asked him if he knew where a little baby boy was. He wouldn't answer us and mouthed the word baby. Ohh we realized, he's mute! Well we kept asking him about a baby but no reply. Then we thought that maybe he's deaf too. So we started to sign language. Haha, we all cracked up! Then we thought, "You know what? I bet something on that clue hanging outside of the carpenter's shop would help us get what we are wanting. Maybe something that we need to ask him!" So, we apologized and told him sorry but we'd be right back! Haha, we all ran out of the church only to hear Uncle Charles clapping his hands. We marched back in and Uncle Charles gave us our clue. (Whoops we realized we were supposed to be asking for a pregnant lady :P ) Our next clue was to go to the inn and see if the pregnant lady that the Census man had seen earlier was there. We went to the inn keeper, Benaiah, who told us that they had been by, but he had no room for them in the inn, so he sent them to a stable. Off we went back by the hospital site where the Smoker's containers were and in there we found the Messaiah. Well, a picture of Mary, Joseph and Jesus :) After we found the Messaiah we had to go tell everyone that we'd found the Messaiah. It was fun! :D And Gracie did an AMAZING job coming up with all of that in one morning! Way to go Gracie! It was fun to do and kept us reminded of what we are celebrating during Christmas at the same time!

While we were outside doing this, it was raining! So when we came back in Aunt Julie made us hot chocolate! Mmmm thank you!

Sarah Ellen, Esther, and Annie! Cute!

The guys.

Awww... Esther's present bag to Annie was the cutest.

Gracie passed out all the gifts. Thanks Gracie! :D

Hehe, Gracie made Ian a light saber for Christmas. Haha! What a great idea!

Riley and Kent got hats.

Annie got headbands and gum :D

Esther got a bunch of lil' stuff, like nail polish, pencils, cute bag and other stuff. :)

Sarah Ellen got a bunch of lil' stuff from the Sunday Feira that she has been wanting. It was cute! And Kent put verses on each gift that had something to do with the gift. It was a neat idea!