Lest I become too comfortable and then unduly complacent in the Hispanic ministry group I mentioned joining back in the fall, I was hit with another stretch-goal last night: sharing mi testimonio (my testimony as a Christian) – en español.

I think our group leader likes me.  But he announced to the group a few weeks ago that “Kim has volunteered to go first and will be sharing her testimony in Spanish next week.”    – Announced it to them before announcing to me that I would be speaking so soon! 

Only he said it IN Spanish, so it sounded like

 >>Kim se ha ofrecido a ir primero y va a compartir su testimonio en español la próxima semana.<<

… good thing I understand more than I can speak or I’d have never known!   

I wasn’t exactly feeling the love at just that time.

But then it snowed, and “next week” got postponed a few more times, until last night.  “T-Day,” in my mind.  Less beach storming, but just as much risk of coming under fire, I felt like.  And so with much “ansiedad” (anxiety), I went prepared with my little pieces of paper from which to read.  (‘Cause Lord knows I really DON’T speak much Spanish!)

To be perfectly honest, I don’t much relish the idea of giving my testimony in English.  It involves revisiting things from my past that I don’t love talking about.  So adding to that a translation into another language and then sitting with a group of people who don’t know me all that well yet (how can they?  I rarely talk!) … I was more than a bit jittery.

But I made it through, and the funny thing to me was what stuck out to the group:  “in this country lots of people keep journals.”  [The co-leader went on to explain how we can use them to look back on where we've been in the past.]

That’s it.

When I talk about my history, my worst fear is not being believed.  Second worst: being rejected because of some part of my story.  What I’m very comfortable with the whole world knowing is that I journal ridiculously and have been doing so since elementary school.

And what was the one thing that was mentioned about my story after I was finished reading?  The part I was not the least bit anxious about.

Funny how we build things up in our minds to be so intimidating.

So to be clear [in case Mario is reading this!], I’m not ready to have to speak at any length again anytime soon.  But the exercise of writing out my story, popping it into Google Translate, and then painstakingly going back through it and making sure that it actually said what I meant – THAT was a new milestone, and probably a good one.  Regardless of what my lack of appetite before tonight’s meeting, case of the trembles, and other biological side-effects I won’t mention here may have indicated.

It’s set me a new goal: I want to be able to speak from my heart in Spanish without having to spend hours ahead of time with a dictionary only to “just read it” in the moment.

It’s going to be a while, I know.  But that’s where I’m aiming.

“Huzzah!” for another stretch.

Fred and I had one of our (many) gringo moments the night we first set up this blog.  While we owe the name idea itself to a good friend (Hi, Chris!), we discovered that HOW we spelled it sends messages we didn’t even realize. 

Mamasita – according to UrbanDictionary.com (and confirmed among other sources), “is a misspelling of mamacita, the Spanish for ‘little mother.’”  It means “a hot mama; a hot babe; a ho of particularly hispanic/spanish but possibly other decent.” 

Whoops.  Yeah, not that one, thanks.

Mamacita – means “little mother.”  And “rather like the English word ‘momma,’ mamacita can mean a mother of both the standard and the red hot kind.”  UrbanDictionary is even so kind as to note: “If you spell it ‘mamasita,” you probably don’t speak Spanish.” 

Yup, pretty much, though I’m trying to learn it in the midst of everything else and was clearly aiming for the more maternal meaning (though I do want to reserve the right occasionally to be thought of as a hottie).

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.  Spelling does count.  The English-major within me rejoices that we caught that one before I began snagging porn-seekers from all over the not-so-Spanish-speaking world!