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Laughs and Language Blunders
Oh Lord, What’s This? For dinner one night, Craig decided to surpise the kids with waffles. The batter was a bit thin so the waffles didn’t raise properly, but they were still edible. So, Craig cut some up as best he could for the kids and put syrup on them. He placed the plates in front of the kids and reminded them to pray. Andrew took one look at the food and prayed: “Jesus, please let me know what this food is, I really want to know!”
Polish Rancher? During their time here in Poland, we took my parents to the part of Poland where our ancestors are reported to be from. After we returned, I was telling some Polish friends about the trip. Unfortunately, I used the wrong word. Intead of saying I went to Innowracaw to look for my relatives, I said I went to Innowracaw to look for my cows!
Katya’s New Theology? We were out eating with my parents and some friends and were having a great conversation. Katya, now three and a half, wanted to join in, so she announced very clearly; ”You know, God has spices on his bottom!” Shocked, we quized her on this pronouncement, but she stood by her statement and repeated it slowly; “God has spices on his bottom!” Further questions revealed that she was talking about Jesus. Then Grandma solved this mystery when she asked Katya if she was talking about Christ’s burial, when the ladies came and put spices on his BODY.
A Prayer For Tongues? Andrew asked his babysitter, a young Polish woman who speaks a little English, to read his children’s Bible to him before he went to bed. She tried to explain that she did not read English very well, but he persisted, so she decided to try. As she was unable to read the story at the pace Mom and Dad do, he decided to help, and explained the stories she was trying to read before she could read them. Later, as he was praying with her before bed, he prayed: “And Lord, please help my babysitter to learn English so she could read the Bible to me.”
Marry Me? Katya, Andrew and Carol Lynn were talking about marriage and when Carol Lynn explained that Katya would have to marry a boy, Katya exclaimed that she would marry Andrew, her brother. Without missing a beat, Andrew replied that he wouldn’t do it because he has met other girls who are more beautiful.
That’s My Girl One day, Craig was snuggling with Katrina and asked her, ”Are you my pretty little girl?” “Yes!” she answered. He then continued: “Are you my smart little girl?” “Yes!” “Are you my good little girl?” “Yes!” “Are you my kind little girl?” “Yes!” “Are you my obedient little girl?” Her eyes twinkled as she thought a second about her reply, “No!”
April Fools Joke On April Fool’s Day ‘03, we sent out an update with a photo montage which suggested we had another child. It was an April Fool’s Joke, To see the letter and the photo, click here.
Lemon Heads We went to a museum of soviet art which had many statues and paintings of key soviet era figures such as Stalin and Lenin. We identified some of the busts for Andrew who was very interested in who these people were. As we went further down the display, Andrew pointed to one of the busts and said, “Look Dad, another lemon head!” Apartently, he didn’t understand that the man’s name was Lenin not lemon!
Waiting For the Punch Line In a Polish lesson, our tutor offered to teach us a Polish joke. While she told it, Craig began to laugh before the punch line. As we discussed it, he learned he didn’t understand the joke completely. In the joke, an old man was giving a cat a bath in a tub outside, Craig thought he heard the teacher say that the old man was taking a bath outside.
Translation Service On a phone call, Andrew informed his grandparents that he is learning Polish and offered the following example. “Oi! Oi! Oi! in Polish that means “Oh man!, Oh man!, Oh man!”
The Marrying Man Part 1 On the way home from church one Sunday, Andrew announced that he wanted Mommy’s wedding We explained to him that someday, he would have to have his own, and that he would have to marry someone else besides mommy. With that, he turned to the college student whom we were giving a ride home to and proposed to her. The young lady spoke enough English to understand what he was asking and smiled. We all explained to him that he needed to wait until he had a job and could take care of her, and she told him that if he was still interested at that time, she may consider it.
The Marrying Man Part 2 Over the weekend, Andrew we met a family with a 9 month old baby. Andrew was so taken with the beautiful little girl, that he asked the mother if he could marry her when she grows up. Later, when we were with a fellow missionary family, he decided he was going to marry their daughter instead. When we reminded him of the others he had proposed to he said, “Yeah, well, I just changed my mind.
Excuse Me! We took the family ice skating. Afterwards, we returned the skates we rented and the man there, glad to see Americans enjoying the ice rink said “zapraśamy!” (pronounced “zaprashamee” We invite you back.) To which Craig blurted out rather strongly “WHY?” Craig thought the man said “pszapraśamy!” (pronounced “pshaprashamee”) which means please excuse us, and Craig couldn’t think of any thing that had went wrong for which the man needed to ask an apology for.
Prayers of Protection One day before lunch, Craig told Katya that he was so hungry he could eat her up. With that he scooped her up, intending to pretend to munch on her tummy. Katya cried out. “No Daddy! If you eat me, then I will be in your tummy!” This made her daddy laugh so much that he forgot about munching on her and instead, placed her in her seat for lunch. Before the meal, Katya prayed, and her prayer included: “And please God, don’t let daddy eat me, because then I will be in his tummy and I don’t want to be in his tummy.” Oh well, God understands!
Computer Geniuses? Both kids love computer games. One day, I let them play a game on my computer and walked away from them to do something else. Normally, this would not be a problem. But this time was different. Apparently, they got bored with the game and wanted to change it, so they released the disk. This brought them to the desktop and from what I can gather, they began to click on the icons on my desktop to see what they did. I say apparently, because I was not there to see this, but later, when I went into Microsoft Word to complete work on a file, I noticed the following file name. “Gvbhjuikomkknbvxfgjijhj”.They had openned Word, typed a page full and then closed it and when asked to save the file, chosen “yes” and the file was saved.
Dad, Hear Our Prayer Praying before dinner, Katya took the opportunity to say: “And Jesus, please let us go up and finish playing the computer game after we eat, because we don’t want to go to bed yet.”