In the bad old days when travel by outsiders was pretty restricted to the tribal parts of Manipur (which I guess still rings true today) - it was rare to have foreign guests, and even rarer to have a whole posse of Koreans.
But that is what our dear friends in Churachandpur town got - a visit by a delegation of Korean church leaders.
The team was feted and given many opportunities to speak. During my time in Churachandpur it seemed that people attended church on what seemed an average of 4-5 nights a week. The Koreans were thus asked to speak repeatedly.
The problem was that they did not know much other than Korean. Even their interpreter did not seem to know much English. And he had to translate it, after which it was translated into the local dialect spoken by that particular church.
On one night the Korean pastor speaking forgot that we was being translated. While preaching his sermon he launched into an impassioned speech that lasted a good 20 minutes - all in chaste but otherwise uncomprehensible Korean.
His interpreter stood dumbfounded as the torrent of words continued.
Finally they stopped and it was his turn to now translate all that impassioned speech into English - after which it would get the local treatment.
The interpreter stood silent for a few moments and then gave this classic summary of the sermon till then:
"Eat Bible"
The church erupted in laughter - the belly aching laughter that just doesn't stop and that our brothers and sisters in Churachandpur love.
The story was lovingly told to me - what must have been years later - and the laughter continued even then when it was brought out again.
"Eat Bible" is not a bad idea. The more we feed on the word of God - the more we will know the living Word.
We do have a literalist among us though - I had to think of this story when I saw this photo recently of Stefan and Neeru's son Ashish:
Classic Eicher photography of the next generation combined with classic Eicher story-telling.
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks for the laugh!