Learning language has been a fun challenge for our family, filled with many amusing mistakes along the way. One day, a good friend brought us some “sweet cakes” his wife had made. These coconut candies are one of our favorite treats, so as he left I made sure to thank him. However, the word for “sweet cakes” (nom pah ‘ihm) and diabetes (noam pah ihm) is very similar, and I very sincerely told him, “Thank you for the diabetes.”

On another occasion, I asked Adam to pick up some salt (umbul) at the market. He came home chuckling and told me that when he asked for salt he got a kilo of sour tamarind (umpul) instead! When we shared his blunder with my language helper, she laughed so hard there were tears in her eyes.

With all our language deficiencies, we have been thankful for our language helpers. I have always thought of an interpreter as someone who can listen to one language and then re-say the words in another language. However, since we have moved to our village, we have discovered a different type of interpreting. Though our language helpers don’t speak English, they seem to understand what we are trying to communicate and proceed to translate our poor Khmer into good Khmer. They also are able to help us understand others more easily. They can listen to a person, who is often talking very rapidly, and then translate it into basic Khmer.

Good language ability will be necessary before we can communicate a clear picture of the Gospel to people. Please keep us in your prayers as we press on with our language learning. And praise the Lord for the blessing of our “interpreters.”

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