"FIRST" LANGUAGE???

You know, the more I look at what needs to be done, the more I think I'm going to have to take a little break from regular blogging.  I mean, I'll keep popping in here and there with reports but will be spending most of my time working on the material begun about 2 decades ago. To give you an idea of something I might jump in and post someday

Here are several pages I read and found even myself chuckling at. I had forgotten how my sisters and I started out...oh stop, June; just post it already!

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So the girls grew up speaking Japanese as their first language. In fact, they went to "Hikari-no-Ko Yochien", a Japanese Christian kindergarten, speaking only Japanese. One year, when Christmas program preparations were being discussed, the teacher mentioned there would be Americans present at the program. Wouldn't Satoko-chan (the Japanese name for my sister Joyce) give the opening greeting in English? The teacher must have thought of course Joyce would be able to speak English, with Western missionary parents. And Joyce accepted the teacher's request!

"But you don't know English". Kimiko remarked, when Joyce got home from kindergarten one day with the news that she would give the English welcome. From that day on, it was cram training for the Christmas program. (How much cramming can a kindergartender do?) 

And Joyce learned to say, "Thankyu for kumming to our Kristmas program. Mey theLor blesyu."

Perhaps Kimiko was not a certified linguist, Roy thought; but she was a miracle worker.

When Roy and Kimiko started work in Okinawa, there was no school on the island for missionary children. But by the time the girls were old enough for elementary, a school--first started by one teacher in a classroom of twelve missionary children--had grown to several hundred. Christian missionary teachers came to teach there--so the girls were able to receive good, solid education from qualified instructors with an emphasis on keeping Christ central in all of life.

One day, Roy heard me excitedly reciting what I had learned at kindergarten:

"God is gray, and God is goo;

And we thank...forah phoo! Ah may!"

(God is great, and God is good;

And we thank Him for our food. Amen.)

Perhaps what was said before lunch everyday? Roy thought back to the Christmas program welcome Joyce was taught...and decided Kimiko really WAS a miracle worker.

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I know this is WAAAAY out of place. But I told you all the pages were out of order, didn't I? I'm getting them chronologically correct right now. So you just got a preview of a latter part of the book (well, two separate excerpts). Actually, in the first part of the book, where I should start work on first, of course, my sisters and I haven't been born yet. Actually, my parents haven't even met! The book starts out telling about Grampa Oshiro, the draft dodger, which you read about in Sept.18 "Grampa Was A Nonconformist".