Walking the Walk, Talking the Talk

I would like to think the Bible story reading, praying with Noey and speaking to Noey about God has shown some fruit and manifested itself in his speech.

Noey's first grammatically correct self-constructed sentence - with the insertion of the article "the" - was: "God made the fish". Seeing as he had just woken up, it must have been some fish he was dreaming about!

He followed that up immediately after hearing our enthusiastic praise with the not quite so directly factually accurate "God made the fan." And shortly after that, he said, "Thank you Lord Jesus." I don't know what triggered it off but it was a very God-centred morning.

That was about a month ago.

Last Sunday, he sprouted his first Chinese sentence. As we bent our heads to say grace, he suddenly said:

"感谢耶稣赐我健康。阿门!"

(Got him to repeat it for the camera!)

Everyone was suitably astounded. He didn't come up with that himself of course. I recognised it as the second sentence of prayer my Auntie prays with him before meals on the days she's with him.

The bible instructs that "ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth." ~ Deuteronomy 11:19-21

I'm not saying that we fulfill the biblical directions well at all -- there is much more we can do, both by teaching with words and teaching by example. There is certainly more to living the Christian walk than just saying the right words! It is, however, our goal and I'm glad to see that Noey has absorbed some of it. For the record, he can also fill in the blanks on the ten commandments and say most of the key words in the Lord's Prayer, in the correct order. I'm happier that he knows these things than if he were able to identify his alphabets (which he can't, by the way, except for A, O and X.)

Noey also doesn't understand yet what he knows how to say, but I hope that in time, he will.

******

"Noey reading NaiNai bible," he said.

And then he cracked the bible open and said, "Only son. Jesus."

Mama here is very proud of him.