Yes, you read that right. That title of Placement 4 was entered in spanish because this week's visitor DID NOT SPEAK ENGLISH at all. Nor did his poor mother who was sicker than sick and doing all she could to recover in the hospital. Being new to town, she had no one and DCS called on Jonah's Journey to take care of little Arrie in the middle of the night on Sunday.
He spent one night with Susan who works for JJ because it was the middle of the night already anyway. Monday, he went to stay with a JJ family. But when mom was not able to be released as expected midweek, Arrie had to be relocated again because that family was going out of town for the weekend. SO, I got the text Wednesday afternoon, and by 5:30 that day, we were meeting Arrie at our neighborhood park. That was a rough night for the poor kid - understandably! Third place to sleep in a week ... among strangers ... without momma ... and it bears repeating - the language barrier! Yikes! I held that clinging crying little monkey til I couldn't hold him anymore and just put him to bed. He cried himself to sleep and slept over TWELVE hours. I had to wake him in the morning in order to get Noah and Anna off to their first day at co-op. Thankfully, he awoke in a much less emotional state. He ate things he had not eaten for the other family and we enjoyed a nice slow day with just the two of us. After swinging by a friend's house to borrow some clothes that actually fit the tiny thing, we stopped at the parque (park) again to play. More than once.
He was alllll about playing with carros (cars).
He also enjoyed pushing the buggy ... all the way to the parque.
He must have done this slide a hundred times!
He fell asleep right on cue for siesta (naptime) while I did a couple GTP meets on the way to pick up the ninos (kids).
Then, Noah went happily back on big foster brother duty.
Noah is so on board with our fostering habit, this sample of his work speaks for itself.
Me: Why did you not put me in your drawing of our family?!?!
Noah: I did! That's you with the hair.
Me: Ohhhh. Well, where's Anna then? I only see you and Arrie.
Noah: Oh. Oops!
The second night Arrie was with us, Anna had a tball scrimmage. And that poor kid who was fine all day went really scared and clingy and tearful once we got out of the car at the field. I think the park feel and all the people made him think he was going home with a new family again? So, I held him and kept telling him "Estas seguro" (you are safe) and "Te vas a quadar conmigo" (you are staying with me) and "Esta bien" (it's ok).
He heard me, he got it, but he still cried if I so much as moved his position in my lap. After about an hour, and some tears from him when I had to get up because my legs were going numb, he finally let me just sit beside him. He even relaxed enough to try silly faces with Noah and me at one point.
And by night's end, he even ran around kicking a ball with us and cheering on the big boys practicing baseball behind us.
His momma spiked a fever that day as well which was bummer news because we knew she wouldn't be discharged until she was 48 hours fever free. So I settled in knowing it was quite likely Arrie would stay with us through the weekend instead of through Friday like we were originally told.
And then, hooray!, momma called Susan Friday afternoon saying she was out (don't ask me how that was possible) and with the help of some man who spoke enough english to make things easier, she got my address and they both came out to get Arrie right away. There was not much to say because of the language barrier still, so I just passed off his Journey Bag, happily watched him run across the yard once he realized she was there, kissed his forehead and waved Adios, and with Susan's help we insisted they take her carseat for Arrie. They didn't have one at all. Don't even get me started about that. This whole foster scene is just SO eye-opening and heartbreaking and faith building and grace growing and life changing. And hard! But so .... I don't know ...so something right for us.
Also, a giant shout out to the Google Translate app for making a BIG difference for us while he was here. Clearly. All my high school spanish came back to me quickly, but not without the ready help and translation of the fairy godmother that was my iPhone and this app.
8 comments:
ha! I am SO wanting to get the girls started learning some simple spanish! I may even get them started after Christmas. I have an app I downloaded to get us started...I've even done some lessons. But then i also want to factor in some Latin, and I don't know if two languages is just too much or not. Natalie just needs more work or assighments, and I know how much Spanish would be soooo useful, not to mention fun to learn and speak together in practice throughout the day as we all learn it.
What a fun fun fun post with little Arie! So glad he was able to loosen up and run happily back to his momma! That's a great sign! I've been waiting and waiting for some updates! haha! LOVE love love Anna's drawings! and all her tinkering around! Lee is gonna be heaven learning about all the lego robotics that I'm sure he and Josh will end up talking about when we come! Can't stinking wait to see you guys!!!!
It's funny because we started a little Spanish a couple weeks ago so this was really motivating for the kids to want to learn more. It was great for them to see it in such practical real-life use too!
That's awesome!
Girl. As soon as I read this on my phone, I just had to shake my head and smile. Never would I have imagined that the cutie in the photo you sent would have had such an interesting story. What a motivation for sure to learn Spanish! I so, so regret not learning it when I had the chance and it made sense... especially since 1/3 of our church community here speak Spanish. Isn't technology amazing? I'm so glad you were able to pull this off so successfully - though that doesn't surprise me one bit.
Wait - 1/3 speak Spanish there in Prague?!?!
Ha! Yep. We know SO many Czechs who are married to other nationalities (or at least the Czechs we know who live in Prague - it doesn't seem to be as common in other parts of the country). The other two families with young children in our fellowship are Czech / Bolivian and Czech / Venezuelan. :-) Both couples speak mostly Spanish together!
What an amazing experience fostering is for you and your children!? They will FOREVER be changed and see the world different because of it! Jonah's Journey seems like an amazing program for fostering!
It has really been interesting how many people have mentioned how much this will shape Noah and Anna. That hasn't even been on my radar until I kept hearing that perspective. We only got as far as "Are our kids old enough for us to add this to our lives?" HA! But now that we keep hearing this, I go down that line of thought ... Part of me worries it could be something they see in a negative light? And another part puts my confidence in them being proud and changed for the better because of these experiences. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out. How long we do this, if it's cut short by adopting, it we take breaks for seasons of slowing down and saving sanity... Still so early in the game!
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