With two Laundry Love Projects under our belt, we are quickly realizing that while the concept itself is sometimes hard to understand in English, it’s even harder to explain to those speaking Spanish (or other languages).
We had twice as many Spanish-only families this month as last month and we found it increasingly difficult to communicate with them throughout the two hours. (It’s nice to see that a smile and friendly gestures can still cross cultural and language barriers.)
As families entered the laundromat Saturday night, we would approach them, with quarters in hand, offering to pay for their laundry. The looks of confusion on their faces were often priceless.
We’d try and use hand gestures as much as possible to figure out how many loads of laundry they were doing. (Luckily I still remember my basic single digit numbers in Spanish.)
After we filled their machines with quarters, several individuals tried to give us dollar bills in exchange, as if we were simply giving them change for their cash. We signaled for them to put away their money but several still tried their best to offer the cash in exchange.
As the numbers grew, we did a quick Internet search and translate, “We want to pay for your laundry. Its free!”
Our online translator, told us “Queremos pagar por su ropa. Es gratis!” And so I did my best to properly pronounce this to each person.
However, it may have made things more confusing for them in the end.
We found out that the next day that while “Its free!” does translate to “Su libre!” the phraise in Spanish literally translates to “You’re free!” as in “You’re no longer enslaved or imprisoned” in English.
We should have looked up the translation for, “It’s free” which would have correctly translated to “Es gratis!”
Perhaps their looks of confusion were more about us claiming they were no longer in bondage than the fact that we wanted to pay for their laundry.
But imagine if we could honestly claim to each of these people, “We love you! God loves you! You’re free from the bondage of poverty! You’re free from oppression! We’re gonna take care of you!”
I don’t think anyone in our group (myself included) is quite ready to take on that sort of commitment. But I’ll keep praying that it becomes our goal. That we truly work to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor — the year of Jubilee!
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If your interest has been peaked at all, we’d love to have you come and experience the joy in sharing this kind of love for yourselves. Our next event is planned for July 25th. You can visit redoakllp.wordpress.com or follow @rollp on Twitter for more info. If attending our next event isn’t possible, you can also find other ways to get involved on our donation page.
What a great idea!! And the “Su libre” mix-up is very beautifully funny, a joke God surely enjoyed!
What a great idea!! And the “Su libre” mix-up is very beautifully funny, a joke God surely enjoyed!