No, this is not a blog about the difficulty of wrestling with some key terms in the translation of Scripture, although they truly do bite as well! No, this is a blog about the power of words, as I was reminded through the mouth of babes.
It wasn’t long ago (October) that I wanted to write a blog entitled “Mmmmoo, Ayaya, Beep” as these where the three words we heard at least 6 dozen time on the fifteen-minute walk down to the water pump. “Mmmmoo” is obviously the sound of a cow, in which Micah very much stressed the “M.” This stemmed from one day when we were walking to the water pump and a mother cow was looking for her lost baby. She was running up and down the road mooing really loudly. Micah of course started mooing right back which seemed to annoy the distraught cow and got everyone within earshot busting up laughing. Micah relived that incident over and over. “Ayaya” was Micah’s lengthened version of the Gumuz word for water – “aya” – as he felt the need to remind us and other travelers where we were going. We understand “beep” to be an early attempt at pronouncing poop (rather than his own bleeping of foul words from his mouth). Whether dry and shriveled or hot and steaming, Micah’s eagle-eyes didn’t miss many piles of it, and thus, neither did we. And so, as you can see, Micah’s repertoire of words kept us thoroughly entertained.
Since that time, Micah’s vocabulary has grown significantly, that is in Gumuz, Amharic and, most of all, in English. He has the luxury of choosing the language that is easiest to roll off his little tongue. So everyone gets scolded in Gumuz “Batash!”, shown the flowers in Amharic “ababa”, and requested for food in English “Eat!” Be prepared for a haphazard foreign language lesson the first time you meet the little jabber jaw.
As mentioned in the story about Micah’s sicknesses, we went out of Gesas to get fresh air at the highland house of one of our friends. While preparing for dinner, it was clear that Micah had something very important to say. He said it to me (Travis) twice before giving up and seeking out his preferred translator…mommy. Mommy, of course, picked up his question and relayed it to the rest of us. “The power of words,” our friend remarked, “It opens up a whole new world for him.” “True,” I responded, “it can also get him in some pretty big trouble.”
It’s not unusual for me to make statements like that whose truth cuts much deeper than the conversation at hand. Without explanation, I drifted into the world of my private mind and mulled over the major storm brewing 430 kilometers down the road – a storm caused by my own poorly chosen words in an e-mail sent the previous day. As with all storms, this one will pass but the truth it reflects still remains. Words can bless and words can build up, but at the same time, words can destroy and words can come back to bite their owners. Believe me, the ugly side of this truth takes on new significance when the teeth marks still throb.
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