Ok, I know everyone wants to hear the moments with sad eyes that broke your heart or where crazy healing happened or people got delivered of demons. And I will keep telling those stories. But just like life here in American, not every moment was filled with glory and power. Some moments were dirty and hard and embarrassing. Super embarrassing. Just like in day to day life here, sometimes you did some dumb stuff. Turns out I still am me no matter where God puts me. So here are a few of the epically embarrassing moments that transpired over the last 11 months. Enjoy!
The Dominican Republic, Month One:
Both of these stories happened in the same week when I was fresh out on the field. I guess God knew I needed to be humbled and literally look like a silly child for what He had in the months to come.
I speak Spanish. Because of this I found myself dropped off at a house on a mountain for an in depth bible study, completely in Spanish. My team was at other bibles studies all over the city where they had translators, and I was flying solo.
The study was great and really deep. Honestly really hard for me to follow. I prayed that they would just let me be a fly on the wall as I tried to keep up with the conversation. I really liked the leader. You could tell he was very respected and esteemed by the rest of the group; a man of great wisdom and depth of relationship with the Lord. And I loved his interesting accent.
I have been to four Spanish speaking countries and love to differentiate each accent. His was clearly from Spain. How cool that he ended up in the DR from there. I wondered what the story behind that was and decided I would complement his accent and ask him after the bible study.
So the night wrapped up, the sweet lady hosting offered me fresh Granadilla (passion fruit) juice that gave me diarrhea for a week. And I sat around with these interesting people that lived on a mountain in the DR and didn’t even notice when the mosquitoes came out and ate you alive like I did.
I was left around the bonfire with just the bible study leader and his little brother, both grown men with families. Now was my chance to satisfy my curiosity and look impressive with my accent differentiating skills.
“So how long have you lived in the DR?”
“Mi vida entera.” My whole life.
“Oh, really? So were your parents from Spain?”
“No, I grew up in a village near by.”
“Interesting… you speak Spanish like you are from Spain. How did you get that accent?”
Even in the fire light I could see the annoyance hit his face. His brother burst out laughing and smacked him on the back. I was so confused.
“He is not from Spain. HE JUST HAS A LISP! HAHAHHAHAHA!”
Yep, I had thoroughly insulted him. Highly embarrassed, I apologized and gave a compliment on how good the granadilla juice was, chugging it and sealing my fate to be BFFs with our contact’s toilet for the next week. I guess that was my punishment.
Lesson learned; people can have speech impediments no matter what language they speak.
A few days later…
September is “La Mez de la Biblia!” the month of the bible in the Dominican Republic. Way cool. Every week in church Pastor Raul, our contact that month, would challenge the church with memory verses, emphasizing the importance of knowing the word.
At the end of one of the services he asked us to shout out the refrences to our favorite scripture. I get really excited and want to look impressive so I shout out my favorite; Isaiah 44:16.
I had been reciting this verse all over the city for weeks at this point as we traveled from classroom to classroom sharing the importance of knowing scripture and a little bit about our testimonies as well. Mine included this verse. It talks about God’s love and faithfulness to us (Isreal) even though we run amuck.
“I will not forget you… See, I have written your name on the palms of My hands.”
Good message for all huh? I thought so. Too bad I had the numbers waaaay off in my verse. That was Isaiah 49:16. I have always been better with words than numbers.
So, a few minutes after I had shouted out my verse proudly in church a girl on my team passed me a note. Yes missionaries pass notes in church too, especially, when there is no one translating the sermon. I opened the note and read this:
“Isaiah 44:16???? Really? I don’t get it.
“Over the fire he prepares his meal. He eats his meat till he is full. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm.””
You know those moments you can almost hear God laughing at you from His heavenly throne? I know them well. My team could not stop laughing at the end of the service. At least three of them had looked up the verse during the service and giggle behind me while I sat proudly on the knowledge that I had nailed this scripture memorization thing.
Moldova, Month 10:
I got a phone call from the Pastor we were working with this morning. He was actually calling my friend Ashlee and I ignored the call once (she was in the bathroom) and when he called a second time, at 7:30 am, I grabbed her phone and answered it with a feeling of foreboding.
“Oh, Rebecca, good morning. Are you well? The Lord has told me you are to preach today?”
Crap I knew this was coming. You see, before I left for the race my friend Nat (a wise race alum) told me to have several pocket sermons ready to preach at a moment’s notice, cause it will come in handy. And it did a couple times my first month. But shortly after that I was raised up from a team leader to a squad leader and the day to day obligations to “ministry” changed as my ministry became the squad.
So, as the end of the race drew near, I was shocked that I had not had to preach in over 8 months and man did I feel lucky cause talking in front of people still freaks me out. I knew the time was coming and therefore the need for this phone call. I was not prepared to preach at all but after about 30 minutes of wrestling with God I told the Lord “Fine!” and in his goodness he gave me a killer sermon in just 20 minutes, just in time for the first service. #typicalworldrace #faithfullJesus
So, when I got up in front of the congregation I was a little nervous but confident about the message the Lord had given me. It was a lively group that were really digging in and getting it! You could just feel it. No boring church this morning.
My message was to be translated in Russian and then Romania so every word was repeated, twice. I had a plan to relate with the audience, to warm them up. Just like a visiting preacher to the south will talk about the latest football games before his sermon or mention how crazy traffic is on so and so road. You think, “Oh, he knows about what goes on around here.” So my plan was to say every phrase that I knew in their native language of Romania. And I had been in Romania the month before so I had two months of phrases to recite.
“Buna dominiatza!” Good Morning!
“Isus e inviat!” Jesus has risen!
I spouted a few more out, and they loved it. My plan was working. The translator would take these Romania phrases and change them into Russian for those that did not speak Romanian. It is weird preaching with an echo. So I figured I would close it all with the first phrase I had learned in Romania, taught to me by my Romanian contact, Pastor Raul. High on the congregation’s approval I called out my last phrase boisterously, louder than the rest: “Caputz!”
In Romania I had learned that you use this to say, “That is all I got, I am done.” Like after a long day of work when you are just plum tuckered out.
Those were all the phrases I knew and I figured that would me a fitting way to end my schmoozing. Apparently, not in Moldova.
I was still laughing at my own lingual skills when the silence descended.
Crickets…. Shock spread through the room.
You could see it on every face. Great.
And the translator was shifting awkwardly.
“I cannot translate that phrase. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
Panic. “Um ok…. Sorry.”
I pressed on knowing if I lingered on this self-doubt and shame would make the message God had given me suffer. The message went great, I got a few “Amena!”s. This church knew the grace of God and had showed it to me but what had I said that was so offensive???
At the end of the service, the translator Alex pulled me aside.
“Rebecca, I must tell you to save you from harm. Do not say that phrase.” “Ok Alex, I am sorry but what does it mean?”
He paused conflicted about how and if to deliver this message.
“It means…. I curse you to hell.”
Yep, I had just told a whole congregation, a room of like 70 people that I was sent to encourage with a word from the Lord, that I curse them all to hell. Wow. Talk about your conflicting messages!
Sometimes you just got to laugh at yourself. I do and I know God does too.
At the end of the day, at the end of an 11 month trip across the globe, and at the end of this life, there is one thing I will never stop doing. Looking like an idiot. Haha. And I know the Father loves it! It rids me of my pride and makes me the most precious thing He has ever seen; a child. His child. And I guess that is alright with me. I’ll dust myself off and keep putting one wobbly foot in front of the other.
So look silly! Say dumb crap! Maybe not on purpose all the time. But God sees your heart and intentions and others do too. There is grace and there is always always always laughter.
