Hong Kong Day 7 - a wonderful, inside kind of day

Today was Ka Hei’s first day without school and our first full day without Gladys.  That meant we were in charge the entire day…while it POURED cats and dogs…all…day.  The area of Hong Kong we were in got more than 6 inches during the day today.  6 inches!!! 

We started by playing some games at Ka Hei’s apartment.  I’m so thankful he is a game player!  We are a mega game playing family and it is wonderful to know that he will truly enjoy that part of who we are :).  After some UNO and Rummikub, we began the journey south toward Tsim Sha Tsui & our lunch.  We ate at a fantastic Pizza restaurant in Harbor City which is a ginormous shopping mall complex right along the waterfront.  I am definitely no foodie, but the pizza we ate had to be among the absolute best I have ever had…probably the most expensive too.

 

As the pictures illustrate, we had the sillies today.  Andrew and I felt like we were walking a bit of a balancing act between allowing the 10 yr old boy silliness because the 2 were really connecting, and keeping the silliness under just enough control that no one would get hurt.

With our stomachs thanking the Italians, we aimed our crew through the downpour to the Hong Kong Space Museum.  It is a smaller museum than we were expecting, so, unfortunately we had to do parts of it twice and when even that did not fill the time before our Omnimax show started, I did something I really don’t like doing -

I handed them my (rented) smartphone and said, here, play a game.  The bench they were sitting on was small, so I headed to a bench just directly across the room, and when I turned back to look, I saw this.

All 3 of them were swiping 1 finger each across the little screen, playing bejeweled together and having an absolute ball.  So precious!

It is all of the times like this that make me SOOOOO thankful to God for impressing upon our heart the need to bring our kids with us.  It is absolutely invaluable having them here.

Ka Hei has also started speaking to us, but especially to our kids, quite a bit. We had been told (cautioned really) that he was very reluctant to speak any English and we would need to really encourage him to speak.  While that was true the first couple days, at this point, if he understands the question, he will attempt to answer it :).  Huge praise!  Here are just a couple examples - This morning, Andrew asked him if he wanted to play a game as a partner to Lucas or by himself.  He replied, “I play myself.”  Today at the museum, an exhibit rotated Cantonese then English.  We watched it in Cantonese and when it was finished, we got up to leave and he quickly said, “No!  You stay!  In English!”  And I love that there have been numerous times that I have seen his head bent close to Lucas with the 2 of them happily talking back and forth :).  I have to think his case worker would be in shock!  The sweetest bit of language happened this evening.  First I need to back up a couple days.  When we went ice skating, the few times Ka Hei fell, I immediately put my hand on his back and said, “Are you ok?” The first time or two, he did not respond, but then he must have figured out that the above phrase was one of concern, because he then replied, “Ok.” or “I ok.” Back to tonight…when Lucas hurt himself a little bit, Ka Hei quickly went over to him and asked, “You ok?” with genuine concern on his face.

There are so many answered prayers right there, I’m just blown away.  I am truly so thankful!  Thankful God has been working in Ka Hei’s heart to bring him closer to us and more comfortable with us.  Thankful for his willingness to step outside his comfort zone to reach out to us.  Thankful for all of your prayers that all of this would happen!  Please keep praying.  I think we will have some hard days ahead of us….some final farewells that will be hard.  Please pray God is close to Ka Hei during those times and that God shows us how best to comfort him.

One final picture.  Remember how Ka Hei looked at Andrew like he was a bit off his rocker for asking to hold his hand?  Well tonight, he turned to Andrew and said, “You hold my hand?”  I quickly grabbed my camera and got this:

Before you tear up you should probably know….he had pulled his hand out of his coat sleeve and was cracking up :).  Total stinker!