questions asked at Crux middle school small group

Why did God make bad people?  If God knew we were going to sin, why did He make us?  If God knew what we would choose & where we would go, why didn't He just put us there?

Our Chinglish daughter

Growing up, I never thought I would teach my kids Chinese, primarily because I didn't speak it myself but also because I myself was born and raised in North America where it is not commonly used.  Even in late high school and college when I started learning to speak Asian languages (Taiwanese/Hokkien/Fujianhua and Mandarin Chinese) and found it a lot of fun (even when people laughed at my accent or other gaffes), I don't think it crossed my mind that I would speak to my kids in Chinese.  When Jadon was born, I concentrated on English and Spanish (in the Inland Empire, there are a lot of Spanish children's books at the libraries) especially as I myself was learning Spanish.  Even in spite of my family being around, I avoided speaking Chinese to him, in part to avoid teaching him "broken Chinese."  Now that we're teaching Evangelina Chinese (in spite of our broken abilities), it's funny to see the effect learning Chinese has on her ENGLISH, which can be seen here with her wrong use of articles, a part of speech that is absent in the Chinese language.  (Incidentally, there have been some visible effects of Jadon's Spanish learning on his English as well, most commonly in his misspelling of words in a decidedly Spanish way.)  

Prepositional praises

Last December, Jadon & I were going over English grammar lessons for school, specifically prepositional phrases, which often describe an object's position or direction.  Parts of speech have not been Jadon's forte by any means, but sometime into our learning (& reviewing & reviewing), he suddenly exclaimed, "Hey what about 'prepositional praises'... like 'above the clouds,' 'into heaven,' 'onto God's throne,' 'in God's right hand'..."  Our wonderful budding Christian nerd...

Jadonese Grammar

Lately we've been trying to understand that sometimes one language may have several ways of interpreting an otherwise simple sentence from other language.  

Spanish's simple present tense can be translated three ways in English: simple present, present progressive, and emphatic present.  For instance, "Él grita" can be correctly translated as "He yells," "He is yelling," or "He does yell."  

This concept is not easy or intuitive for the young language learner, which was quite evident when I asked for the three ways "Yo muero" could be translated into English.

Hoping to hear "I die," "I am dying," and "I do die," I instead go these answers from Jadon:
1. "I am dying"
2. "I have been killed."
3. "I am gone from this world."

first day serving...now he knows how hard it is

Earlier today 7/30 Sunday since the Crux Youth Group was all at their retreat at Hume Lake, Jadon served the younger children in their Sunday School class while Mommy & I went to worship service.  When we came back to pick up the kids, we found Jadon helping out with the 4-year-olds.  He was smiling, & the teacher thanked him for helping out.  As we walked away, Mommy asked him, "Did they listen to you?"

"One of them did."

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Somewhere beyond the rainbow....

Weeks ago while we were in Washington DC's many beautiful & stimulating museums, after explaining to Jadon that there is light outside the spectrum which our own eyes can detect, he asked, "Can there be such thing as infrared & ultraviolet paint?"

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Spanglish poetry line

Obama knows we have to 'vamanos.'

worth every scar of it

A few days ago when we were driving home Jadon & I saw the familiar scene of a cyclist waiting with us at our red light.  I reminded Jadon that it's best to ride in groups as it's generally difficult for drivers to see cyclists around them.  As I was telling him this, I was reminded of a time in my own life when I was riding alone & got into an accident because a driver "didn't see me" & turned right into my path.  I told him about the incident, that it occurred years ago when Mommy & I were dating, & I was riding my bike from San Bernardino to go see her in Los Angeles.  He asked me how long it took to ride there, & I answered 3-4 hours.  He then immediately asked how long our date was, & I answered about an hour and a half.  His response?  "That wasn't worth it."

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Our F-ing funny son ('frolicking,' of course)

Chuckling to himself in his groggy state, months ago Jadon told me the other morning after waking up, "Hey Dad, I dreamed you said the 'F-word.'  You said the 'F-word,' & then said, 'Oops.'  You were talking about Job from the Bible or something, like 'F-ing Job did such and such' & then said, 'Oops.'"

Godless godliness

Several weeks ago Jadon had done something that upset us greatly while we were on our way out to eat.  We considered not going out but decided in the end that the family time was important, but Jadon could tell we were upset, & declared that he wasn't eating.  He insisted for some time until I had to take him aside & explain that while there was room for self discipline, trying to punish oneself was not godly in light of our living God who died for all of our sins.  He then continued to say that he no longer believed in God, and he still wasn't going to eat.  When I pressed him for a reason, he said, "It's like atheist fasting."

(Thankfully he relented not too long afterward, and we were glad for his change of stomac... er, I mean, heart!)

Hello, AT&T? Would you give me the number to In-n-Out please?

Our kids' naivete regarding commercial matters is funny sometimes.  Recently, Jadon was telling me about Star Wars' large lumbering land crafts that walk on fours (AT-ATs) & called them "AT&Ts," while Evangelina recently was commenting on how her middle name Joy was like the character in the movie "In-n-Out" (rather than "Inside Out").  We HAVE been going to In-n-Out a lot lately. 

PDA

Our 5th grade son is still willing to wave a big "I love you" ASL sign on his hand when I say goodbye to him at school... thank You Heavenly Father!