"Make Me Three Nice "ch" Sounds"

A lovely Australian couple came to Japan for a two-week missions trip. The husband put his construction skills to good use working with two other guys giving the neighbor above us in our mission house a new bathroom. We are so grateful! The floor had rotted out and just in the nick of time we were rescued from having our upstairs neighbor's bathtub in our kitchen sink.

The wife is a skilled speech pathologist and worked with Russ everyday! Until she came, Russ only had one session since his stroke five years ago with an English-speaking speech therapist. This was the first time for Russ to have on-going speech sessions other than working with me. Bethany worked him hard and we saw progress! I listened in and learned things we can continue to try in the days ahead.

I was especially amused when Russ started picking up Aussie phrases and sprinkling them in his conversations. Now that Bethany is gone, he's back to American English, but it was humorous to have him ready to "give it a go" and call me "mate."

I used to work with Russ on speech everyday during his 8-month hospital stay, but haven't been able to keep that up since he's come home. I've been inspired with Bethany's visit and am trying to use pockets of time here and there that might otherwise be missed. We hope that by working on articulation and language processing, Russ will increase his ability to communicate with others. We welcome your prayers.