We recently enjoyed the blessing of an extended worship family as one of the babies of our friends was dedicated. There was a group of over fifty adults and children present. We would love to see this every week! The fellowship time afterward was great as we enjoyed a meal and talking and the children watched a film. It was an encouraging time for our "baby" church.

Denglish: definition: confusion of two languages: Deutsch and English.

This is a common problem for those of us trying to live in two mental spheres. We get twice as mental. I was recently explaining some of my Denglish bloopers to another missionary when I told him that I was afraid they were a symbol of my approaching senility. Of course I should of said "sign".  His daughter recently asked someone for a "letter of reverence". I do the same thing in German as well. I was talking to a German friend about planting some pansies on my balcony for the winter. The word is "stiefmutterchen" meaning "little mother-in-laws". I called them "mutterstieffellchen", which means "mother's little boots". She thought it was hilarious. 

Another problem is that because the order of words in German are different than those in an English sentence, we quite often use the right words but in the wrong order. Or we directly translate something without re-arranging it. So we ask you things like: "Are you coming with?"

And prepositions are a sudden mystery as we use some of the same ones in German but in a different combination. Of course there are always those words that are just awkward to pronounce but it makes a big difference. One of my favorite bloopers to make is in ordering salad with chicken. Depending on how my tongue chooses to pronounce the word for chicken, I have been known to order salad with chicken, or salad with little dogs, or salad with little hands. Thankfully Germans are quite used to a variety of internationals and so far the worse that has happened is that I ordered a visitor salad with chicken livers instead of chicken strips. I am strangely no longer interested in salad with chicken and find that I seldom order it. So as you are reading my blogs, please know that I am dependent on your grace in (for?) (towards?) my language!