Found in Translation by Roger Bruner

gave me a strange look. Then I realized I’d already cleaned my plate and Aleesha knew it. That girl was too observant sometimes.
    She was right, though. If I hoped to make up with this crowd for yesterday’s mishaps, I shouldn’t start today on such a negative note. I needed to renew my resolve to quit whining. “All right, already! I’ll be good. I’ll keep quiet.” Aleesha smiled and patted me on the head, mouthing, “Good girl!” the way a dog owner might praise a stubborn puppy that’s finally achieved housebrokenness after nine months of messes on the oriental rug.
    “We’re going to have a great day in the Lord today,” Charlie said. “It’s His work we’re here to do, and we want to create a favorable and lasting impression on our new friends.” I looked around at the villagers’ blank faces and realized that none of them had a clue what he was saying.
Where are our translators, Charlie?
Every once in a while I saw their eyes brighten, maybe at hearing an English word that was similar to the Spanish, but those times were infrequent.
    “Some of you may have noticed that the villagers don’t speak any English,” Rob said, his face scalding in a sea of red. “Are …” I couldn’t imagine why he looked so scared of continuing. “Are any of you fluent in Spanish?”
    Rob, don’t tell me we don’t have translators.
    One hundred forty-four young adults looked at one another before shaking their collective heads no.
    “I took Spanish for a couple of years, but I barely passed it,” one girl said.
    “Same here,” a boy responded from the opposite side.
    “I used to translate written Spanish fairly well, but I’m out of practice now. It’s been two years since I last tried, and I never was good at English to Spanish. And to translate spoken Spanish? Forget it.”
    “That’s my problem, too,” a voice spoke from the middle of the group. “Native Spanish speakers go far too fast for me to follow, and it sounds a lot different here than in high school.”
    If that observation had been a locomotive, almost-audible nods of affirmation would have overloaded the cars that followed it.
    “Yeah!” somebody yelled with a laugh. “Here it sounds like a foreign language and not a school subject.”
    A caboose reverberated with laughter and one single loud, “Amen.”
    “What about it, brothers and sisters?” Rob said. “Isn’t anyone here better at Spanish than these poor honest souls who’ve admitted that only a miracle … ”—he stopped to gasp for air—“that only a miracle could transform them into translators at any time in the near future, much less today?”
    When he started gasping again, I squelched an inadvertent laugh just enough that it sounded like a loud burp. Rob’s unexpected diplomacy tickled me, but better to belch than sound disrespectful.
    Although everyone looked around for the source—I pretended to do that, too—no one bothered looking at me. They probably didn’t think Miss Prep could be that crude.
    “Are any of you Pentecostals who can speak in tongues or interpret tongues?”
    I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. If the strange looks I saw on dozens of faces were any indication, neither could anyone else.
    Rob searched the crowd for a more positive response. He hadn’t looked this frustrated when he mentioned my lateness at orientation.
    Then I made the mistake of yawning without covering my mouth.
    “What’s that, Kimberly, uh, Kim? Speak up.”
    “Me? Oh, I’m sorry. I was just yawning. I’m not bored, though—just sleepy.”
    Although the laughter lasted forever and I felt my face burning slightly, I didn’t feel nearly as embarrassed as I had at orientation. So I decided to say something positive while I had the floor.
    “I took four years of high school French, though—mostly As and one B. I don’t suppose any of the villagers knows French, huh?
Parlez-vous français?”
    I addressed my question to a group of villagers standing in the