I also cooked up a feast! We had a BBQ with our previous neighbors, who went from being neighbors to friends and now we call them family.
We have in the photo S in the back.
On the Left side D in the back A in the front
On the Right we have of course my dastardly duo!
But lets go back a bit
4 years ago we moved into a mobile home, it was 1150 sq feet with 3 bedroom and two bathroom. It also had really bad neighbors. I mean REALLY bad.
The house next door to ours was smaller - I am not kidding - and it held 9 - 13 people depending on the day.
Most of them under the age of 10. And all of them HORRIBLE!
I am not talking about rude children who play with mud and throw rocks, I am talking about boys that pee in the driveway and hump fence posts!
I started praying!! They amazingly (Thank you Jesus!) moved out a year later, and God brought us the most amazing couple!
While the husband could speak English and had lived in Florida for several years, his new wife and adopted daughter didn't speak ANY English.
It didn't matter one bit to our daughters who immediately started playing together - you don't have to understand to play well together.
It was harder on us adults. D would run up to me and start speaking rapid Spanish - I understand and can respond slowly - most of the time. But only when you speak slow enough for me to process the word - I have to filter spanish to latin and then into English or spanish to french and then into English or spanish to English if I already know and understand the word.
The wife and I started walking everyday together - she helped me get healthier while I helped her English.
What made it really hard for me was I was raised here in Utah where most Spanish speaking people are from Mexico so I am used to the words and phrases they use.
She is from Colombia so I was re learning Spanish words mostly from translating them from Latin.
My friends would say "Andale" she would say "Rapido" - yes those are easy ones which is why they are the example!
She had a hard time because I talk fast - I had to learn how to slow down and use less words without sounding stupid or patronizing (which for the few of you that know me can understand that is VERY hard for me to do). Was it worth it?
Oh yeah! We became family - they are like brothers and sisters to us and we hope that we have filled some of the void in being apart from their families.
3 years and one move later we are still friends. So much in fact that tonight we went and looked at several homes near us for sale in the hopes that one (soon) they might live next to us!
When God brings about such amazing and wonderful friends its nice to be able to keep in touch, but nicer if you can see them every day!
1 comment:
it would be so nice if they could live close to you again.
It looks like you had a great BBQ!
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