And now he is nine! Nathanael's birthday hits Easter week here in Austria, so we had an exciting and eventful birthday party at the end of March. I'll have to post more about that one later. Until then, here is a portion of our birthday letter to him this year:
Dear Nathanael,
You are nine! What an exciting age to reach! And you, our son, are an amazing nine-year-old! God has led you and walked with you and carried you and celebrated you every moment of every day this last year, and we delight in celebrating you as well!
We want to begin with noting some highlights from your year. You completed the school year at your new grade school, Selma Lagerlöf, really well, and your teacher Beti Neuwirth was greatly encouraged by your progress in the second half of the year in second grade. Third grade has been amazing for you. It has definitely been difficult, and you have worked very hard, but you have also really seemed to find your place at school, both relationally and academically.
Your teacher told us this month that you have well caught up with the other kids in German and are doing really well now, including in hand-writing, a huge accomplishment after missing the first year and a half in German! You are extremely strong in math, excel in science and social studies, and you have loved giving some great speeches this year! Gym class and music have of course been fun, and you did awesome in swimming this year with your class, earning a swimming certificate for your accomplishments. You have especially liked being a Monsterfreunde class this year, walking through the stories and subjects with Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La and -Ti and learning much more about Vienna from them! Handicrafts and Origami are not your thing, but we are proud of how you still apply yourself and come out with a good project. Our favorites are always the gifts for us on holidays! English continues to be a bit boring for you, but you completed all of the English reading books and have stepped into longer chapter books for your assigned English reading. Speaking of reading, we are not surprised that you continue to love books. You get lost in Donald Duck comics at the library; it is almost impossible to pull you away. You also are really into the books in Blyton’s Fünf Freunde series and the Drei ??? Kids and Kugelblitz. We greatly enjoy reading together and have had fun finding new books in English or German to explore together. Finally on the subject of school, we visited the bilingual middle/high school this year, and you (and we) really loved it. It seems like the next step God has for you, and we are excited to walk with you in that direction.
Relationally you have had an amazing year. You joined the Pfadfinder Group 12 (Boy Scouts) with Florian and Elias, and you have seemed to really come alive with that group of kids and that fun mix of activities. You and Florian are great buds, and you have also really become good friends with another Pfadi boy (I can’t keep the names straight since they’re scout names!) and a couple other boys in your class - Vincent and his twin Rafael in the 3b, Phillip, and Theo in the 3b. You are friends with all the boys in the class and seem to have stepped back into your role of the one who brings everyone together. You are extremely well liked, considerate and thoughtful, and a natural leader among your classmates and friends. At church, it has been fun to watch you continue to grow in friendship with Luca and Jacob, and we are grateful for boys your age at church with whom you connect. That is a gift.
Your creativity is astounding. Whether it is coming up with an activity to play, coming up with a way to create something in the sand, creating with your Lego collections, or taking anything like boxes and styrofoam and making it into a really cool play structure, you have a knack for creating order and structure where it does not exist. You participated in a few events with the Center for Architecture during school breaks, and we continue to notice how fitting this type of subject is for you. Additionally, your love of music and singing is quite high. God has given you a beautiful voice and really good pitch. You listen to music and pick up songs quickly, singing them everywhere you go. We bought you a ukulele this year, and you have had fun attempting to play along to some songs, although not yet showing interest in learning the fingering.
You remain incredibly active and fast, physically engaged, and full of life when you are outdoors and in nature. You loved riding your new bike and took to the gears really quickly. Activity in nature is life-giving for you. We enjoyed berry picking again this last year, and we made it out to fly kites a few times as well. We gifted you with a pocket knife before sending you to youth camp, and you loved learning from Dad how to chisel at a stick to create spears! We spent a lot of time down in Oberlaa this last year, playing at the park there, playing in the stream, taking walks, eating ice cream at Zanoni. We continue to ask God and wait for Him to move us to that area of Vienna, and it is fun to hear you join us in that prayer for God to provide us a home there. Your love of animals has also really grown this last year, and we are grateful for your curiosity and concern for animals.
Some additional highlights we want to be sure to mention from the year: It is always special having visitors, which you love. This year, the Bryans were able to come and hang out in October, and we celebrated an early Thanksgiving together, complete with turkey head-pieces! Grandpa and Grandma came for Christmas, along with Uncle Drew and Auntie Carrie, and we finally made it to Prague together! A highlight was the steel museum there, climbing in huge cars and onto giant figures! And of course the sweets at the Christmas market! Last summer, we hosted our first bigger short-term team from two of our Boston churches, and they helped put on an English week at church for kids. You loved being one of the kids, and of course, all the gifts from the States which they brought you and Eva were fun; time with Nick Cioffi was a definite highlight! Family vacation at Side Breeze Hotel was a hit, especially after you had learned to swim alone. You were so busy swimming and sliding that you didn’t want to participate in the Kids’ Club very much this year! As is normal, you loved the programs for kids at our GEM-Austria retreat in Neutal and the GEM Annual Conference in Slovenia. Last month, we made it to a circus in Oberlaa, and it was a fun family experience.
This has been a year full of trauma for you. We mourn the losses with you, and we join with you in feeling sad for the pain and disappointment you have experienced. We are all still on a journey in processing the many traumas, but we are confident that God will continue to carry us and walk with us through this process... ...You have had so many reasons to be sad and disappointed and mad and confused, to question where God was and why He would allow these traumas, and we are proud of you for continuing to walk this difficult and painful road. What you are walking through as a kid - which we would never wish upon any kid - is pushing you forward in maturity spiritually and emotionally, and we also see how God is bonding us more together as a family of four as we process these traumas together and individually.
Nathanael, you are God’s wonderful creation. We see God in you, in your excitement and energy, in your laughter and singing, in your creativity and orderliness, in your love of people and curiosity and questions. We love you, dear son, and we thank God for you!
Happy Birthday!
your dad and mom
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