Wk 4: Family Fun For Four

This past week was the first week spending extended time with Kristen and Taylor since we got here.  As they feared, Susanna and I promptly  initiated them to our Reading & Reading routine at the library.

Kristen quickly caught on with her extended DT time & PSAT studies.  Taylor, on the other hand, quickly caught some ants in his pants and can’t sit too long.  (I guess expecting an 11-year old to plow through 5 hours of reading at a time is a bit too much!)  So I anted up the incentive with baseball:  I bought him an anthology of baseball stories (to read during his break from reading) and I’m playing catch with him at the end of each day. (The sun sets around 9:30pm up here, so we can catch some exercise even after dinner!)

Another fun family activity has been playing Scrabble — speed style!  Kristen recently got hooked on it with her friends in Alameda and racked up many hours of deliberate practice already.  She claims that it will help with her vocabulary, so we’re going along with it and letting her win.  As of this writing, here’s the scoreboard:

Kristen: 976points
Joong: 804points
Susanna: 728points
Taylor: 708points

But it is too early in the game to spell victory for anyone.

Also, we had our own Tuesday Night Prayer Meeting time.  It was the first time that Taylor joined us grownups, so I taught him the A.C.T.S. prompt to help him pray (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication).  I suspected he might have a hard time concentrating, so I had him first write out his prayer.  As it turned out, I was very touched reading his supplication portion, which included:

“Please lift up the Austin team and Taiwan team and help them guide them through all the struggles of planting a church.  Also please help the people at Davis do well at the church without daddy and mommy…”
[*FYI, I got/bought his permission to share this]

Good thing God doesn’t mind grammar mistakes or spelling, but rather, looks at the heart.  And I was so glad that Taylor is growing in his heart for others and realizing that prayers are vital for ministry.  It was a good time of prayer for everyone back at Waypoint Community Church and Gracepoint ministries in Austin & Taiwan.

I can’t believe we are half-way through our sabbatical already! It went by quickly and there’s been a ton of lessons that I’ve learned through all the readings and seminar lectures.  Along with half a dozen books, I finished the entire Old Testament with many new lessons from old passages.  I’ll be posting some of the lessons in the days to come, but for now, here are some more pictures.

Here's my setup at the library table, ready to listen/read.

Here's Susanna's table, ready to read and write.

Here's Kristen's setup with colored pens nicely sharpened for vocab cards!

Here's Taylor pretending to be a college student. (He's learning fast...asleep)

Picnic lunch at the library with sandwiches Susanna prepared for us.