Missionary missteps: even missionaries make mistakes when stepping into unfamiliar territory
‘Fed’ vs. ‘ate’
At a concert in the city of Cloppenburg, Germany, some years ago, I was talking about the miracles that Jesus performed. What I wanted to say was, “Jesus performed many powerful miracles. He even fed 5,000 people at one time.” The German word for “fed” is very, very close to another related word. What I actually said was, “Jesus did great miracles. He even ate 5,000 people at once.” At the time, I had no idea why suddenly the audience burst into laughter!
– Danny Plett
Bad timing
On December 24th, I arrived at a home at 11:50 pm. Upon arriving, I shook everyone’s hand as I greeted them with a “Merry Christmas.” One lady commented tongue in cheek, “Is it 12 o’clock yet?”
Ten minutes later, everyone greeted each other with a hug and a “Merry Christmas!” I was ten minutes too early with my greeting!
– Travis Zacharias
A need for space
Even though we are missionaries in Mexico, I am Mexican. So, my cultural faux pas was actually in Canada. As Latin Americans, we greet with a loose hug and an “air kiss” just touching the right cheek. When Canadian friends tried to go along with the Latin American way of greeting, they hugged me soo tight and kissed me on the cheek. It was very awkward trying to get some space and pull back a little. It was then that I became more empathetic when my Canadian friends try to keep their space.
– Blanca Infantes
An ‘alarming’ experience
I had just started grade 8 in Canada. I didn’t know anyone yet, and the way they did things in school was completely new to me. We were all sitting in the library, silently reading our books, when the alarm system went off. Fear shot through my whole body as I had never experienced something like that. I just followed the crowd in a slight silent panic, thinking of all the possible reasons why the alarm was going off. The strangest thing to me was how calm everyone else was.
When we got outside, I mustered up the courage to ask someone what had happened. “Oh, just a fire drill.” At the moment, it was terrifying for me; afterwards, it was quite hilarious. The only reference I had to fire alarms was from movies. I was just thinking about our “alarm” in our private school in Tres Palmas, Paraguay. Just a bell with a little string you had to pull.
– Daniela Kroeker
Unfortunate mispronunciation
I had been in Chihuahua city, Mexico, for about six months and was making good progress on my Spanish language acquisition. Though I was making lots of mistakes, most of the time the people were very gracious, often correcting me with hardly a shrug of the shoulders.
However, one mistake that I kept repeating elicited smiles and laughter, even though I thought I was pronouncing the words correctly. Finally, my dear friend Aldo clarified that while I had been trying to say ground beef, or cow meat (Carne de Res), I had been saying ground king or king meat (Carne de Rey). I don’t advocate for cannibalism, but that’s how it was coming across. I’ve never forgotten how to pronounce that correctly since then.
– Gerald Reimer
