It's hard to believe 2 months ago Matthew
& I were beginning our 33-hour commute home from Ukraine! I still thank God
we made it safely home by His divine protection. We have had a fabulous few months.
It is fun getting to know Matthew and
picking up on all of his likes and dislikes.
It’s fun seeing the world through a new set of eyes. It’s fun watching him learn new things. It is
fun teaching him how to read and write in English. It is fun watching him get involved in the
community with various sports.
Matthew does not like chili. He does not like spicy things. He does like just about anything else food
wise. He does not like when people raise
their voice. There have been a few times
where his playfulness was too rough either with the other 4 kids or with one of
the pets and we’ve had to speak sternly to him.
He will go and hide or sulk for a while.
He does not like to sit still. He
loves to play, loves to be active, loves to help, loves to be a part of the
family, loves to help cook, loves to eat, and clearly loves life!
He has been able to learn some new
things. He’s learned how to bat a
baseball and catch with a glove. He’s
learned how to throw a football. He’s
learning about our culture. He’s
learning what it means to be a part of a family. He’s an eager learner in most areas of his
life. He was excited to get a phone call a few weeks ago from a dear friend of
his that was adopted the same time he was from the same orphanage. We had the privilege of having dinner with
the parents of his friend and we agreed to have the kids talk with each other
every so often to continue to use their Ukrainian language.
Homeschooling got off to a rocky start with
him because it was chore getting this active, energetic boy to stay in his
chair without me being able to speak in his language. I basically had to sit next to him all day
long or he was out of his seat fooling around and distracting the other kids
from their school work. Now he usually
stays in his chair when he’s supposed to be doing school. He finally knows all
of his English letters and their sounds.
Today we went through a stack of 100 3-letter word flashcards and he got
most of them correct. He still struggles
with confusing the “d and b” sounds, the “w and v” sounds and some of his
vowels like “u and i.” He is working
hard at it and reviewing one-on-one 5 days on a week is really helping him.
Matthew is involved in sports inside our
community. We have a club at our church
called AWANA. He enjoys the game time
especially because it’s relay racing and he enjoys running. Last weekend they had a tournament with
several surrounding churches and he was on the relay team. He won first place for the 6-lap relay
against other boys his own age. I had no
idea the boy could run so fast. He also
did tug of war with one other boy against 3 other teams. They won first place in tug of war as
well. We gave him the choice between
Spring baseball and indoor soccer at the local recreation center. He decided to do indoor soccer. The fast pace of the game suits him very
well.
When Matthew first came he was a little
reserved and didn’t like a lot of affection from anyone. Now he will go out of his way to hug me and
he’s even tolerated hugging the girls good night at times, which they of course
love. He has lost several of his contact
lenses. His vision is so bad he will
drop them putting them in or taking them out and then he can’t see where they
are. We are thankful we have his glasses
as a backup that he wears most of the time and we save his contacts for church
and sports. His director told us when we
were there that he loves to help out adults. She recommended that we have him
help out a lot and she recommended we keep him in sports. We now know that she was hinting that he is a
very active boy and he needs to be kept busy or he will get himself into
trouble. We are heeding her wise advice. He truly loves to help out. He learned to mow the yard and operate the
leave blower and weed eater. The other
day Tim had to fix the gate latch on the fence and Matthew was thrilled to be
able to use Tim’s power tools. He looked
like a natural working with his hands.
Overall things are going really well. We are so thankful God saw fit to bring
Matthew into our family. We can’t wait
to watch him continue to learn and grow to his fullest potential. We pray that he is like Jesus in the passage
in Luke 2:52 that said he, “grew in
wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and with man.” We truly want Matthew to be a man of great
wisdom and godly character!!!
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| He styled his hair this way |
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| The boy loves to dress up |
I am happy to hear that Matthew is fitting in so well. He sounds as if he enjoys everything. That is great that he enjoys helping out so much. May the Lord continue to bless your family.
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