January 17

One gift that made you laugh, one gift that made you pray, one gift that made you quiet.

1.  Josh has a tremendous, advanced vocabulary.  But he constantly mispronounces words, and I threaten to make a book of them.  His latest is negotiate -- "Joshized" to sound like nee-oh-she-gate.  We shouldn't laugh at him, but we can't help it.  Fortunately, it doesn't faze him -- he still argues the logic of his pronunciations.  Hilarious.

2.  Fellowship with my BSF group.  There are some amazing women in our group.  Two are from Indonesia, and have been here for just over a decade.  One of them was talking about how challenging it is for her to do her homework since she is still not completely fluent in English, so she needs to use her dictionary to translate frequently.  Yet she always manages to finish.  I am humbled by her dedication, and made the comment that I have no excuses to not finish mine, ever.  I pray that I can be as faithful to my study as she is to hers.

3.  Listening to Jessie and her friend discuss which camp session they want to go to in June.  There are several options and they both had their initial favorite, which were not the same.  But they are both sweet, accommodating girls, so I had to smile when listening to them.  Neither wants to push the other into something she doesn't want to do.  It's such a gift for Jessie to have a friend who doesn't require her to capitulate all the time.  Her friend Janae is the same way, and a perfect friend for her, but she's a grade ahead and not in Girl Scouts, and not going to camp.