Here is a large portion of this year's letter:
Dear Nathanael,
DOUBLE DIGITS! So cool. You are TEN! 10! Wow. And what an incredible 10-year-old you are! We - Mom and Dad - could not have imagined how amazing it would be to have a 10-year-old son. You keep life a huge adventure, and we thank God for you every single day! You are made in God’s image, and your life exclaims to the world that our God is grand and strong, adventurous and creative, sensitive and observant, and full of exuberant life! You are his Ebendbild.
What a year this has been! A few days after your birthday, we responded to an ad and visited our now-home in Oberlaa together as a family! We all fell in love with it immediately, and God gave us a big YES later that week! You handled the move incredibly well and settled in beautifully, loving the freedom of having your own room, a backyard (water play and a small pool in summer!), kids in the neighborhood, a bike path and forest and stream out our door for hours of creative play and building with sticks and dirt and rocks, and your classmate and Pfadi friend Elias nearby in addition to lots of other kids from school. We have loved watching you lean into the freedom of living in this home and claiming a bit more independence in those freedoms. It has also been fun for you to have kids in our private neighborhood with whom you can run around and play.
You concluded your third grade with all 1’s (we’d say straight A’s in the States). What a huge accomplishment! And you have sustained it all through fourth grade, even through exams (Schularbeiten) and some pretty huge personal challenges. That is evidence of your high intelligence. Well done applying yourself, learning well, and well showing what you have learned. You continue to give great speeches in both English and German. You are a natural, gifted teacher. Monsterfreunde songs and learning are a highlight for you, and you sing the songs, in addition to Deine Freunde songs, all around the house. You also took piano lessons this year and were able to progress quickly through the songs assigned to you. You have an ear for music, not only playing piano well, but also singing marvelously! This year included an orientation talk and an interview for the bilingual program at the Draschestrasse Gymnasium to sign up for your next school, and you succeeded easily. We are all excited for this next step for you!
We had lots of fun visits from friends and relatives this year. Grandpa and Grandma helped us move in May and visited again in February. The Bryans and Opa and Oma came for Christmas! (So much silly fun with Desmond and Peter!) Krishana visited over the summer. The Hope and Sudbury team came for English Days, and you really bonded with many of them again. You love playing games as a family, and that is one of your favorite activities to share with our visitors. Labyrinth, Sequence, Scrabble, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Checkers, War, Taco vs. Burrito, and many more… You are also quite skilled at Pokemon after hours of playing during school breaks, and you taught Dad and Grandpa how to play the game with you! You love to trade Pokemon cards with friends, and you have an extensive knowledge of all things Pokemon!
We had some cool trips this last year. You attended Jungscharlager again last summer, and it was an awesome experience for you. You still wear the armband! You had a blast at GEM’s Annual Conference in Frankfurt, enjoying the freedom to run around with other like-minded kids your age. We spent three weeks in the States in August, and that was awesome for you to really see and observe and experience some of the differences there. Of course, time with both sets of grandparents plus Auntie Carrie was a highlight! We visited Jufa Neutal twice this last year, once for a special long weekend before your Jungscharlager and then again in March with GEM colleagues. It is such a fun place to go, and you love the freedom to run around the property, explore, play, be near the animals, and eat good food.
Some new experiences for you this year include ice skating a few times this winter, twice with dad, once with Jungschar, and once with school, and then inline skating this Spring. You attended your first concert, Deine Freunde, in February with Elias (and Dad). So cool! You and Dad bonded a lot this year over Pokemon Go, and you two returned to Baden again during Christmas break for a special time swimming, eating, staying in a hotel, and watching Lego 2 together! You and Jacob have had fun with sleep-overs this year, and you and other kids at church have had fun trading Pokemon cards after church each Sunday.
Favorite activities include bike riding, scooter riding, running fast, climbing, building with Lego, building with whatever is around, playing with cars, remote-controlled cars, Pokemon, reading books, doing activity books, listening to audio books, watching educational shows like the Who Was Show and Brain Child, anything with friends, swimming, board games, listening to music, playing iPad games, and watching movies. Your favorite foods and drinks include eggs, salami or Hawaiian pizza, pasta, tavuk döner, chips, rice, cucumbers and peppers, sandwiches, bacon, sausages, mac and cheese, Kaiserschmarrn, Schnitzel, Rindsgulasch, pancakes, French toast, mango, cranberries, fries, corn flakes, peach tea, Almdudler, and coke.
This has been a year of working through some of the trauma from the previous year, and you have engaged in that work, that battle, amazingly well. We are so grateful that God provided us with a therapist who totally gets both of your worlds (she has an American mom but grew up here in Austria), and you two seem to connect well. You have become an expert at asking for re-dos and choosing healthy paths. We are so incredibly proud of how much you care. You are totally worth all this hard work, Nathanael.
Finally, six weeks ago, we entered this odd season of life under the Corona crises. On the day you were going to pass out your birthday party invitations, we received a text at 7am telling us not to send kids to school that morning. Since then, we have been staying at home, spending tons of time together as a family, and getting out just for walks and scooter rides and bike rides to stay sane, always keeping our minimum one meter distance! (Abstand halten!) We were able to ride to school last week to pick up new schoolwork, but otherwise you have been at home. This has included many losses for you, and we are proud of how you have been willing to express those losses. It has been really difficult at times, but you have not given up using the tools you have learned in the last year to work through the disappointment and sadness and anger. Well done, son.
Finally, you have continued to grow into your true identity as a covenant child of God! We see you asking deep questions of God, and expecting God to show up in your life. You and dad have started reading books about complicated matters of faith, and we are so proud of you exploring who God is! You sing worship songs energetically, you pray with honesty and passion, and you are eager to share with others your experience of God. You are a growing leader in the faith, in your best moments being both sensitive to the thoughts and emotions of others in spiritual life, and always eager to lead by example for your peers in the faith. Already in our local church community or at school, you seem to be respected as an authentic leader, a follower of Jesus who is well learning how to represent your relationship with Jesus both in word and deed. Already as a ten-year-old, you are growing into the man of God you are meant to be!
We love you, Nathanael, and we thank God for the gift of knowing you! We bless you, son!
Happy Birthday!
your dad and mom
