Translating God's praises

One of our young adults is going beyond by serving in Madagascar for a year with Young Adults in Glogal Mission (YAGM). Recently, she got to join with kids in singing God's praises in both English and Malagasy. Read her story below...

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At my home church in Tanjombato, I work with a group of level 2 English students (who are amazingly smart and good at English after only 6 months). My students usually work through having conversations, so we had a 'get to know you' conversation about likes and dislikes. As an example, I said that I don't like to dance, but I like to sing. And of course, that lead to them wanting to hear me sing. Oof. But it turned out to be a good thing.

In my mad scrambling to try and find a song that was both 1) something I knew well enough that I could teach; and 2) easy enough that the students could remember it, the only thing that was in my brain was the Doxology. Lutherans are fond of singing it, before offering sometimes. Our YAGM group sang it often as a mealtime grace. 

You might know it:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
Amen

So I taught my group of 15 Malagasy kids the doxology. And when we still had time left, we went over vocabulary. I asked them to try to translate it into Malagasy, and they came up with this:
Ry Tompon'ny harena o!
Fanatitra an'tsitrapo
Atolotray anao izao
Mba raiso ka tahionao!
Amen

I love it. Half of us sang the English, while half of us sang the Malagasy. The words mushed together, our voices melded imperfectly, our pronunciation terrible. But I believe God wept tears of joy in Heaven to hear us. It was beautiful.

Hannah K.