I'm Fluent in Chi-parenting
Well here we are with five kids in the house. Complications have come up with Joseph and Emmanuel and while the boys have been with us for two weeks now, we may not be allowed to foster them and then adopt. We are trusting God to do what is best for these two little guys and praying that his good will would be accomplished. In the meantime, we are working overtime! Especially with language.
Our use of Chinyanja (the local language we use most often along with English) in our home has pretty much quadrupled over the past two weeks. If you were to observe us, as an outsider you would be saying, "Wow! You guys are fluent Chinyanja speakers!" You would be impressed with us and with our kids - I know I am :) But actually, it's all an illusion. We are really just fluent in Chi-parenting so to speak. After awhile you would notice that we have a certain group of phrases that are in a constant rotation from morning until night:
Do you need to pee?
Go pee.
Wash your hands.
Time to eat.
Don't fight.
Don't touch that.
Don't put that in your mouth.
Get dressed.
You look nice.
Let's go.
Go play.
Sit down.
You like to dance.
Stay here.
Come.
It's good.
I see you.
Put that here.
Put that there.
Let's pray.
Eat your food.
You like that food.
You want to watch a movie?
Time for bath.
Stop!
Don't cry.
Yes, the cat sleeps a lot.
Time to sleep.
Go to sleep.
You need to sleep.
That pretty much sums it up. After so much hard work on our language skills, Joe came up to Kelly and said in Chinyanja, "You talk Nyanja like a baby!" Since Kelly far surpasses me in Chinyanja, I must really sound terrible. But the way I figure it, Joe and Manny both speak English like a couple of babies, so we are even.
Please do pray for our family as we move forward in faith and care for these boys. It's a rough transition. Having questions come up at this point makes the transition even more difficult for us and for all the kids. We don't know exactly what God's plan is in all of this but we know that he is GOOD.
Our use of Chinyanja (the local language we use most often along with English) in our home has pretty much quadrupled over the past two weeks. If you were to observe us, as an outsider you would be saying, "Wow! You guys are fluent Chinyanja speakers!" You would be impressed with us and with our kids - I know I am :) But actually, it's all an illusion. We are really just fluent in Chi-parenting so to speak. After awhile you would notice that we have a certain group of phrases that are in a constant rotation from morning until night:
Do you need to pee?
Go pee.
Wash your hands.
Time to eat.
Don't fight.
Don't touch that.
Don't put that in your mouth.
Get dressed.
You look nice.
Let's go.
Go play.
Sit down.
You like to dance.
Stay here.
Come.
It's good.
I see you.
Put that here.
Put that there.
Let's pray.
Eat your food.
You like that food.
You want to watch a movie?
Time for bath.
Stop!
Don't cry.
Yes, the cat sleeps a lot.
Time to sleep.
Go to sleep.
You need to sleep.
That pretty much sums it up. After so much hard work on our language skills, Joe came up to Kelly and said in Chinyanja, "You talk Nyanja like a baby!" Since Kelly far surpasses me in Chinyanja, I must really sound terrible. But the way I figure it, Joe and Manny both speak English like a couple of babies, so we are even.
Please do pray for our family as we move forward in faith and care for these boys. It's a rough transition. Having questions come up at this point makes the transition even more difficult for us and for all the kids. We don't know exactly what God's plan is in all of this but we know that he is GOOD.
Comments