Not Liver Failure!

Tonight I made a BIG mistake in French--totally unaware of course. I was preaching on missions to the youth group at my church (my first full-length sermon in French) and I spoke about a "crisis of faith" at one point in my missionary career. I translated it literally crise de foi, only to find out afterward that in French that means "an attack of the liver" (crise de foie). Fortunately, no one laughed, because it was a very dramatic story and I think they understood what I meant.

They did laugh really hard a few times (appropriately) when I told them different funny stories. Several months ago, the manager of the local pizza place offered me a free beer. I couldn't figure out if he was hitting on me or if it was a promotional offer, to know how I should respond. I ended up just saying, "I don't drink alcohol," which is true, but I said it kind of abruptly, so if the poor guy was hitting on me, I really burned him. They thought that story was was hilarious and some of the girls told me after that they've been hit on in various pizza places around the city. That made me feel like I really belonged!

I noticed that my accent gets a lot worse when I'm nervous, and afterward a few people teased me about that. For the most part though, it went way better than the first time I spoke at the youth group in Albertville, when I was so nervous that I almost passed out halfway through. I practically had to put my head between my knees and breathe deeply. I joked with them tonight that it that happened again, I'd be okay if someone loaned me a small brown paper bag to breathe into. But as it turned out, I was fine. I still made some mistakes in French, but as one girl said "We understood everything you said!" I guess that's the point.