soul cake

I've gotten pretty good at deciphering my students' Chinglish. Some of the smartest kids in my class make the craziest sentences, because they're really trying to express their thoughts in English but sometimes if they don't know a phrase or idiom, they just use a Chinese pattern with English words. Sometimes this works; sometimes not so much. (I struggle with the reverse in Chinese, of course.)

So here's the sentence I got using "midst": "The godfather stood midst the children and gave them soul cakes."

I know godfather- that's the direct translation of what they call priests in Chinese (and no, elementary school students don't quite get why it's so funny to call the priest "The Godfather".) It took a few minutes of conversation and this kid explaining a move he'd seen until I finally understood- soul cake is a Communion wafer!

Cute, eh?