I have to tell you something so funny! This will give you a great laugh, and don't we all need them to keep our sanity?
This past week we were at District Council. My husband and I were spending time with two couples who are our friends that pastor a church in Miami. They are both Spanish.
During the course of our conversation one night, Larry was telling them about a song in our church that we sing in both english & spanish. (We have a very multi-cultural church...20 nations represented - so far. But we have a lot of spanish speaking people, in particular.) So, we are sitting at the table talking about worship songs, and my husband starts singing this song to them that we sing in our church. My husband rarely sings anyway, so that is something in and of itself, but then he's singing in spanish on top of that which is getting rather interesting. Well...he starts singing the spanish words which should have been...(translated in english), "Father, I love you, my heart is filled..."
And instead, our friends burst out laughing and one of them says, "Larry, you just sang, "I love you, green uncle!"
Oh my gosh, we just about fell off of our chairs laughing. When I got home and told the kids they thought it was hysterical.
Thank God he was not leading that from the pulpit. Our spanish people would have probably not been able to get a grip on themselves and stop laughing so we could continue the rest of the service!
My best friend from high school is a missionary in Mexico, and has tons of "lost in translation" stories...
My personal favorite is the one she told about a lady who was going to get up and give an announcement in church. She was a YWAMer who didn't have a super strong grip on the language...the pastor of the church gave her a bunch of compliments and told the congregation all about the work she was doing and how great she was, and yada, yada, yada. By the time she got up to give her announcement, she was beet red. She laughed and blurted out in Spanish what she THOUGHT was, "I'm embarrassed, and it's all the pastor's fault."
Unfortunately, the Spanish words for 'embarrassed' and 'pregnant' are very, very similar...
xoxo
