Cathing Up!

Life is full throttle around here, but things are going well. At the moment I am shirking my cleaning duties just so that I can update all of you on life here at the Harding house.

Blessing #1

Zach was calling Nate by his Chinese name the other day, it is very lyrical so it is fun to say it with the right tones. Nate replied, "I'm not Xi Wei Feng, I'm Nate". We have worked so hard to help him understand that he is part of a family, and to realize that he was given an orphanage name, the Xi is what all the babies in that orphanage were named. He is getting that he belongs, he is part of a family. He had told me recently that in his foster family, all of the children were referred to by their full names. I know that is cultural to some extent, but within families you don't call people by the whole name, that is a more formal, acquaintance practice. In my opinion it sends a subtle message, but that is just me.

Blessing #2

We have some results from the MRI. Nate has no blebs in his stomach or intestines. This means no internal bleeding worries for us. His thigh has a very large bleb in the muscle. We will be going to see a Vascular specialist at JHH in Oct. to find out our options for removal. Chris and I think it is growing. Just the other day I had to explain that he had a "sick" leg, that is why the one is so much larger. He had no idea that it wasn't "normal" to have a size difference. You could see the light go on in his head, no wonder he was mad about the MRI day and having to see all of these doctors. Depending on the type of procedure maybe he can have his scar fixed as well. He did tell me he would like that to look better. I don't blame him at all, it is terrible.

Blessing #3

He is overcoming his shyness and we haven't had a tearfilled silence episode all week long. He is also understanding that to look at Mom and Dad during correction or directions is an okay thing to do. That has been another cultural standard we have found ourselves dealing with. Teaching Nate (and ourselves) that God doesn't want us to "save face" when we are wrong, but he wants our humbleness and repentance.

The more we teach Nate about life through a biblical worldview, the more God teaches us about His desires for our life through that biblical worldview.

Prayer Request: I would ask for you to pray for Nate as he learns his letter sounds and and the names of the letters. We are teaching this while at the same time he is learning to read in the first grade curriculum. If he gets the names and sounds under his belt, I know the reading will only get easier for him. Pray for our patience and understanding, it can become easy to forget the enormity of the task for Nate and to just become frustrated with the fact that he doesn't remember the sound you just said 20x in a row.

----Susanne