"Oh! I pray for you...."

Last Sunday we were at Brian's home church in Valparaiso, Indiana. After the service we were enjoying seeing old friends and catching up on news. As we were leaving the building, a friend introduced us to a gentleman who used to live in the Philippines. We talked to him for about 5 minutes about his experience in the Philippines and where we're living and what we're doing there. As we were saying goodbye he told us his name and asked what ours were. When we told him our names, his face changed and with a smile he said, "Oh! I pray for you!"
Overwhelming feelings of thankfulness and amazement at our incredible God filled us as we continued our discussion. As we meet people that pray for us and reconnect with those who have influenced our lives, we're overwhelmed with God's grace and provision for our lives. Thank you for your prayers - they make such a difference!

Family Time

We are back in the states for a couple months and having tons of fun catching up with family and friends. We'll be in Indiana and Texas most of the time, so let us know if you're in the area, and maybe we can get together. Before we came to Indiana to be with the Woolery side of the family, we had a layover in Denver, so Justin got to meet his Aunt Jessica for the first time.
We've been in Indiana for about a week, and Justin is loving spending time with his grandparents and other relatives and friends.
playing with Grandma Alice

hanging out with Grandpa Lee


with Aunt Kim

and Uncle Justin :)
Of course, he's also keeping in close contact with his other grandparents in Texas. :)

Happy Easter!

Justin faces the world!

Justin is now big enough to turn around and face the world in his baby carrier, and he LOVES it! Of course, everyone else loves the interaction, too...
He also loves perusing the philosophy section of our favorite bookstore...

Growing Justin

Yes, Justin is growing and growing and growing... thought we'd share some of his exciting moments over the last few weeks...Although he sometimes fights going to sleep because there are so many exciting things going on, Justin is a great sleeper... always sleeping at least 3-4 hours at night between feedings! And he's continuing to get more consistent. :)Justin is quite a popular little guy wherever he goes. This was him during his first APNTS chapel, listening to Grandpa Lee preach. Since Justin is the ONLY baby on campus right now, he's constantly surrounded and being spoiled by his many 'aunts and uncles.' We're so blessed to be part of this community at this time in our lives. one of Justin's many cute and funny faces.... if you want to see more of his faces, go to www.youtube.com and search for 'brianwoolery' to see video footage of our growing boy. Well, as you can see, Justin is growing quite rapidly... now weighing more than 14 pounds (6 kilos) at 6 1/2 weeks.... we're getting our exercise!Since we use public transportation to get around Manila, this is how Justin gets around... he loves accompanying his dad on walks and sleeping while we go shopping. one of Justin's favorite places to take naps and play with toys....

Justin loves to snuggle in his lion towel after bath time.
This was his first attempt at wearing shoes... really cute, but they kept slipping off. :) As you can see, he got a little attitude with his trendy fashion style (onesie and sandals... it's huge in Paris now)!
He started smiling a few weeks ago and just can't seem to stop! I think he's starting to figure out that when he smiles at everyone, he just gets more attention, which he LOVES. :)

quality father-son time....

looking SO handsome for church on Sunday. :)

Well, in case you haven't guessed, we're having SO much fun with Justin. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we learn how to be parents and balance work and family... I'm afraid Justin is quite the distraction from school and work! :)

Brian's Ordination

On February 4, Brian was ordained as an elder in our denomination, the Church of the Nazarene. If you're not Nazarene, here's a very simple explanation of what that means... :) Even though we've been in active ministry for a few years now, our church has a process you must go through before you are officially ordained. A certain number of years of schooling and service are required before you are eligible for ordination. You must then be approved by your District Assembly. The ordination is a formal recognition from the church acknowledging your work to this point and your commitment to future ministry. Our church membership is still on the Micronesia District, but the ordination service was held here in Manila. It was a very special time because Brian's parents were here, and Justin made one of his first public appearances, being only 13 days old. :) The service was very meaningful with prayer for each of the people being ordained, along with their spouses.
It was made even more special for us when Dr. Middendorf, the presiding General Superintendent, asked Lee, Brian's Dad, to pray for us and to present Brian with his certificate of ordination.


It was also very nice to share this time with our fellow students from APNTS and our friends here in Manila. Our friend Laura from Micronesia was also ordained, so it was great to be with old friends, too. Oh, and now that Brian is ordained, you can call him REVEREND Woolery. :)

Dr. Jesse and Susan Middendorf, us, and Brian's parents


Micronesia group - David and Naomi Phillips (District Superintendent), Laura (youth/music/children's pastor in Guam), us, David and Helen Ann Bucher (pastors in Saipan)

Baby Justin is finally here!!!!

We are quite happy to announce that Justin Dwayne Woolery was FINALLY born on January 22, 2008 at 8:51 pm. He weighed 9 pounds, 10 ounces, and is 21 1/2 inches long... quite a big 'little' guy, as everyone keeps saying. :) Needless to say, we are immensely relieved and overjoyed that our guy is here, since he was almost 3 weeks late!
We had originally planned on giving birth at a birthing home with a midwife that is within walking distance of our campus. Our midwife, Deborah, has been so amazing throughout our entire pregnancy, and even though things didn't go as planned, we're so thankful for our new friend. Once little Justin was 1 1/2 weeks late, we decided to try many various ways to induce naturally... I won't go into all the details, but let's just say we had a very interesting week. When the contractions still were not getting serious, we decided to talk to a doctor about inducing. Philippine hospitals are very different from what we are used to (which is one reason we chose a midwife), but God blessed us with a great doctor who advocated for all our wishes and let Brian be with me during the delivery. So, we went to the hospital, and they induced on Tuesday at 12:30 pm. Contractions started coming regularly and the doctor was very pleased with the progress.... but after 8 hours of labor, of which the last 4 were particularly intense, and still not enough progress to make the doctor comfortable with continuing, we decided a cesarean section was necessary. So our little guy finally came!

We couldn't be more amazed at how much God watched out for us and blessed us during this process... we were very apprehensive about delivering at a hospital, but God gave us a doctor who allowed Brian to be at the delivery and allowed Justin to stay with us in-room during our entire hospital stay. We have also been thrilled to have Justin's grandparents here! Julie's parents were here a couple weeks before the delivery, and Brian's parents arrived just one day after the delivery.

Justin has been born into one of the most supportive communities we've ever seen. We're so privileged to be here right now with our missionary friends in Manila and all our fellow students at APNTS. Numerous people came to visit at the hospital, and now that we're home, it's so exciting to introduce Justin to his countless aunts and uncles from all over Asia.
So, now life begins with a newborn! And we're super excited about our new adventure. Please pray for us as Julie recovers from the delivery and as we learn how to be Godly parents for Justin.
Some people have asked about the name, since we kept it a secret for the last few months... Justin is the name of Brian's brother, and Dwayne is the name of Julie's Dad... so our Justin was named after two very special people in our lives, and we hope and pray he will grow up to be like the selfless, compassionate, Godly men he was named after.

We'll post some more pictures and stories of our new adventure of parenthood soon! Thanks sooo much for your prayers and support! :)

Still waiting...

Just so everyone knows, yes, we're still waiting for Baby Woolery! It seems the little one is following in the footsteps of his parents (who were both 2 weeks late!) and is just waiting for the perfect time to enter our crazy world. :) Meanwhile, Julie's mom got here last Saturday night, so even though we're all anxious for contractions, we're having fun showing her our life on our campus and in Manila.... So, keep those prayers coming, and we'll let you know as soon as anything happens! We love and miss you and are so thankful for your prayers!

Come, baby, come!

Brian and Julie are officially ready to have this baby! Yes, it is still a week before the due date and yes, Julie and I were both 2-3 weeks late in our own advent into this world… It’s just we thought that the 100 steps from the classrooms to our apartment as well as our walk-heavy lifestyle might just encourage this baby to show up a bit sooner. I am trying to encourage the baby by both chanting and dancing ‘come baby come, come baby come’ as well as giving motivational phrases like, ‘Today’s a good day to be born!’ But all of this has not had a significant effect, as far as I can see.

The bags are packed, the baby room is set up, the camera has fresh batteries and an empty memory card, we even have fixed the holes in the kiddie pool in case we opt for a water-birth (in this case the baby might have gills). We’re ready! We’re waiting! ‘Come baby, come!’

Having our baby come so close to Christmas has made me think a bit about Mary and Joseph. Now I can’t work very well with wood, and Julie, though nearly perfect, is not immaculate (come to think of it, I don’t think Mary was either… I digress). It’s quite difficult for Julie to get in and out of public transportation, so I can’t even fathom putting her on a furry animal for an 80-mile trek! I think she’d die, or kill me… I’m not sure in which order. Did they know a ‘due date’? Were they as anxious as I am to have their child, with a bit of nervousness in the back of their minds of what exactly a child will mean to their lives? I’ve already started to wonder about our child’s future… what did Mary and Joseph think knowing what they did about their child? I do know that though there are uncertainties about the future, excitement and nervousness mixed, I can’t wait for our baby to come, no matter what it means for our lives and no matter what changes small or radical it might make. I also want to wait as expectantly for Jesus.

So ‘Come Jesus, come’ AND ‘come baby come!’

By the way, if any of you would like to bring us gold, frankincense, or myrrh you’re more than welcome. We’ll ebay it to buy more diapers.

Catching Up...

Well, somehow between taking classes, working, being pregnant, and trying to survive life in general, we haven't posted a blog in over 2 months!!!! Yikes! And I keep saying my blogging habits will get better, but we're about to add a baby into the mix, so we'll see what happens! :) Anyway, here's a brief recap of some of the more exciting things that have happened recently....

In September, Julie and our wonderful friend Melissa got to go to Singapore for a few days away. It was a great time to shop and see a new place before the baby comes. Another highlight was spending time with my cousin Angie and her 4 awesome kids... They were missionaries here in the Philippines for many years, but moved to Singapore only 2 weeks after we arrived in Manila. :( So, even though we're not in the same country, it's still great to see them occasionally.
Julie and Melissa
Chinatown in Singapore
Julie and Angie

October was busy with finals and moving to a new apartment! Because our family is expanding, we moved to a different apartment on campus. I have great plans of displaying pictures of our new place, but it's currently covered in dirty dishes and Christmas wrapping paper, so those pictures will come soon. :) Although we miss our neighbors from our old apartment, we're enjoying being in a bigger place where we can prepare for the baby.

In November, our wonderful friend Laura, from Micronesia, came to visit. We had a great time visiting Baguio, shopping in Manila, and spending time with friends from 3rd Wave (South Africa leadership conference in January 2007).
3rd wave reunion with Philippine and Japan participants

Of course, December has been filled with many Christmas parties and services, along with questions of when the baby will finally arrive, are we having twins, etc... :) Brian is still enjoying his work with NYI, and Julie is loving teaching English and giving piano lessons. Over the last few months we have continuously been overwhelmed by God's love and grace through our friendships and opportunities here in the Philippines. We are so blessed by our fellow students here at APNTS and our friendships with the Nazarene missionaries in Manila. It has been the most amazing environment to be pregnant in! We have soooo many people supporting us through gifts for the baby, daily encouragement, and numerous promises of babysitting and help after the baby comes! :) Please continue to pray for us as we look for ways to share Christ's love and prepare for this next adventure in our family. We will let you know as soon as anything happens... which could be sooner or later. :) Maligayang Pasko! (Merry Christmas, in Tagalog)
Baby Shower with Nazarene Missionaries
Recent pic taken at the APNTS Christmas Party

Pregnancy Pics... finally!

Here's a quick update from the Philippines... Life is super busy as we're nearing the end of the semester... We have 2 more weeks of classes and then finals, so in about 2 1/2 weeks, life will be quite wonderful, but right now we're overwhelmed with papers, projects, exams, etc. But, here are a few pics of the growing belly over the last couple months... hopefully you can see that the baby is growing at a rapid pace! A new friend moved here a month ago and couldn't tell by looking at me that I was pregnant, but now it's a different story... strangers are continuously asking me how far along I am, is it a boy or girl, etc.... it's kind of nice that people realize I'm pregnant... before, they just thought I was getting fat! ;) Anyways, here are the pics...

19 weeks

22 weeks

23 weeks... this was taken during a video chat with Jessica and Adam... Brian decided to add his belly... but his isn't growing, obviously :)

26 weeks - yikes!

AND, we do know the gender, but since a few special friends and family members (you two know who you are) want to be surprised, we won't spill the beans... about her... no, him.. well, just email us if you want to find out! ;)

Birthday Blessings

One of the greatest things about living on the APNTS campus is our incredible neighbors God has blessed us with. Right now, we're living in a building that houses the 'married without children' couples... Of course, we'll be moving in a few months to the 'married with children' housing, but we're really upset about leaving our neighbors. In July, four out of the twelve of us (6 couples) had birthdays, so everyone else conspired and threw us a surprise birthday party last month. It was great, because even though we live so close to each other, sometimes it takes a special occasion to bring us all together to just relax and forget about school and work for a few hours. Here's a picture from our July birthday party:
(Top row, left to right: Myong Suk (Ruth), Mari, Julie, Allaine, Lot, Mark, Sun Gi (Peter)
Bottom row: Lillian, Andy, Brian, Maria, Junichi)

But in August, Brian was the only person with a birthday, so they decided to do something extra special. There's a Filipino tradition of waking someone up on their birthday by all their friends and family coming to their house at 4:30 in the morning and serenading them with birthday songs. Well, our neighbors are Filipino, Korean, and Japanese, so we decided 6:00 am would be early enough, and I gave promises that Brian would still be asleep at that time. So, on Monday morning at 6am, there was a knock on the door, and Brian awoke to all of our neighbors standing outside our apartment with a guitar, singing birthday songs.

Of course, that was not all... everyone then came in for a pot-luck breakfast, and we ate, laughed, and talked for another few hours.... Here's Brian's version of the morning:

The night of August 19th Julie had not been feeling well. This is typical in our rainy season. For some reason whenever the rain starts her allergies also hit hyperdrive! She said she might not sleep well and might be getting up in the night. This has also been common during her pregnancy so I just agreed. Well sometime in the early morning I woke up and she was up and a light was on. She quickly came and told me 'Go back to sleep!' to which I readily agreed to!

The next thing I remember is being woken up to the sound of guitar and singing. I looked up and all our friends from our building were standing at the door singing birthday songs! Julie came and threw a pair of shorts and tshirt on the bed and said, 'Get dressed and come to the door.' I was, however, trapped because our whole house is one room and my smiling friends had a beeline view to me in the bed. Getting out of bed to put on clothes would be quite revealing and trying to put them on under the covers would be awkward, what with them all singing away and all. The culture here is fairly conservative so I sat up to show I was awake and appreciated the music but didn't know if I should hold a sheet up over myself. All this was compounded by my quite groggy brain which expected another hour of sleep. Finally I managed to slip out of bed and into my clothes while Julie was blocking their views. Thus all relationships were kept intact and I was not 'revealing'!

After about 4 songs and 10 minutes of singing we invited them all into our house and made as much coffee as we could possibly could. Everyone was up a bit earlier than normal! What was so neat is before we ate they all went around and gave a birthday wish, bible verse, and then we prayed together. It is sometimes easy when living in a Christian community to become unintentional about opportunities of speaking our faith to one another. It was really special to me to hear my friends share their prayers and hopes for what God is and will do in my life. After that we ate all the food and sat and talked for two hours. In the middle of a busy semester with lots of obligations it was so nice to just spend time with friends from many different countries. At 8am everyone's eyes were red and we decided to all go back to sleep, since it was a holiday and there were no classes.

This was the most unique birthday morning I can remember and was really special for me.

Guam Friends!

This weekend, we were privileged to reconnect with friends from Guam! One of the best things about being in the Philippines is that it's only a 3-hour flight from Guam and many of our Guam friends have family here or like to vacation here, so occasionally we get to see them! Our friend Nathan sent us an email last Monday saying he might come to the Philippines sometime and he arrived on Tuesday night. So we were able to see him and Mhay for dinner on Friday, and then Nathan has been hanging out with us all weekend. Nathan is a Pastor at the Church of God Andersen on Guam, and Mhay is the secretary at Nathan's church. Nathan was a great friend during our 3 years there, so we've had a blast showing him around Manila and introducing him to our new friends here. Here's a pic of us on Friday night:

We were also able to see the Senne family from Guam First Church of the Nazarene. They spend their summers in the Philippine province of Bohol and were in Manila for just a day before they returned from Guam. We had lunch with them on Saturday and had so much fun catching up on the last year and reminiscing about Guam for hours. We're so thankful for wonderful friends like Darrin and Jennifer - no matter how much time has gone by, it feels like we still live on the same island. Here's a pic of us with their family - the kids have grown SOOO much in the last year! :)

Brian and Isaiah

So I never write blogs....

So I (Brian) have gotten a bit of flack recently for not ever writing on our blog. For all those disappointed souls out there I must say that I have been writing. Actually, I have done a great job, blogging every week with highlights, poignant thoughts, and reflections over the past week's experiences in Julie's and my life. However I came to realize I was not posting them on our blog site but rather posting them to the garbage can.... Ok, that's not entirely true.

Usually I don't think that I have much to say. I did take a trip to Korea this summer but that's boring and nobody wants to hear about that. I could tell you about my classes but usually I have to either be reading for them or running off to them and cannot write. I meant to tell you about what life is like living with a pregnant wife, but Julie won't let me. That's private and censored.

So I will leave you with this one nugget to ponder until I actually get around to doing this again. This is a pearl of wisdom, like the beatitudes or parables that can be reflected upon one's whole life:
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Ok, so I didn't make that up either. What? Are you going to sue me?