Valentina Sytch Woody

Valentina (Sytch) Woody, Born Dec. 25, 1925 - Absent from the body and present with The Lord Jesus June 27, 2016
By the time she was 8 - she had lived through a Famine created by the Russians against her native country - the Ukraine - between 7-10 million people were intentionally starved to death to facilitate the acceptance of the collectivized farming mandated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet empire. She never
By the time she was 20 years old in 1946 - she had lived through the invasion of her town by the Germans, witnessed the rounding up and slaughter of her Jewish friends and neighbors by the German troops, been loaded up on a train at the age of 16 along with other Ukrainian young people of her town and shipped to Germany as an "Eastern Worker" to help out in Germany while they sought to conquer the world. She had watched the retreat of the Germans and the entry of American troops move into the town where the Germans had sent her, met her future husband on the first day of the American occupation in the fall of 1944. After a courtship that lasted a few months, she contacted her suitor''s mother to ask if would be alright for her to marry her son, Howard Clinton Woody. They were married on Oct 19, 1945 in Germany, traveled to America, moved to Atlanta GA to set up housekeeping, and had her first child, Diana Woody, on September 27, 1948 - she was 23 years old. Her son, Ernie Paul Woody was born on December 16, 1950 when she was 25 and she and Dad raised their family which has been regularly supplemented with grandchildren beginning with James Lorin in 1973, Clinton Paul in 1980, Rebekah Annette in 1982 and Eric Caleb 1987. And then there are the Great-grandchildren - Lorna Grace 2004, Margo Lucia 2006, Joelle Annette 2008, Alexandra Valentina 2009, Johanna Mary 2013, James Caleb 2014, and another great-grandchild due to Eric and Alli in August 2016.
On June 27, 2016 at 9:45 AM, we stopped counting the years and dates of our beloved mother and Babushka, Valentina Woody.
But because we no longer count the years - does not mean that her years with us do not count.
She is now in the presence of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as she was throughout all the years of her earthly life.
And when the shadow of death passed over her on Monday morning, June 27, 2017, Jesus Christ was there to welcome her to her new home.
" and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." John 16:22