Language Barrier

MOSCOW -- Baptist Pastor Alan Fluegge is here on a mission from God.What other inspiration could there be to bring his wife and 10 of their 11 children to live in Moscow, where they've had to squeeze into a three-room apartment, make six-hour treks for basic groceries and even learn a new language?The Carroll County preacher has come to save Russian souls from hellfire.In taking on this spiritual challenge, he has deposited his family into a social crucible that, by comfortable middle-American standards, is a form of hellfire itself.

Because so few of the great operas are in English, Americans sometimes assume that the words can take a back seat to the music and the spectacle. So long as we understand the gist of what's going on, there's no need to sweat the small points. Unfortunately, that philosophy doesn't quite work with Mozart's "The Magic Flute." It isn't just that the opera boasts a plot so complicated that even in summary it seems confusing; there's also such wit and subtlety to the libretto that it's hard to get the full flavor of the drama without paying close attention to the words.

It could be an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie: The Phraselator. But it's not. It's the name of a technology developed by two local companies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Using the Phraselator, military personnel utter a phrase into a weatherproof microphone, and the machine repeats it back in one of 40 languages, including languages spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan such as Pashto and Dari. "Are you carrying a weapon?" Robert Olsen, president of Applied Data Systems Inc. in Columbia, asked the Phraselator during a recent demonstration at his office.

Seven prekindergartners are making their way into Miss G.'s classroom when one of them offers an unprompted greeting. "Buenas tardes," Janay says. Even the teacher, Diana Gutierrez, seems surprised by the Spanish "good afternoon." The girl is only 4 years old. "The younger, the better," Gutierrez says. Every pupil at Furman L. Templeton Elementary is taking Spanish this year, the first of at least five years that the troubled West Baltimore school will be managed by a private, for-profit company, Edison Schools.

As Hollifield Station Elementary School teacher Debbie Roesch held a parent-teacher conference with Sunae Lee to talk about the progress her daughter was making in school, a third person listened intently and scribbled notes. Turning to Lee, Kimberly Kim explained - in Korean - that the mother's fifth-grader, Ashley, was doing well in reading and writing. During the 20-minute conference Friday, Kim interpreted the teacher's remarks and other crucial information about Ashley's work to Lee. Kim's role is an important one that will be played out at hundreds of parent-teacher conferences at Howard County schools this week.

For two years, the church members ignored a fire marshal's notice that their building was unfit to occupy. On Christmas Eve, they were caught and booted out in the middle of a service. A few days later, they tried to meet in a tent, but they didn't have a permit for that either. The 150 members of Glen Burnie Korean Presbyterian Church are still without a permanent place to worship, and they're uncertain when they'll be able to re-enter the sanctuary they had used since 1998. Their problems stem from an apparent miscommunication with Anne Arundel County fire officials, which they say resulted from their limited knowledge of English and American law. The congregation has met down the road at St. Alban's Episcopal Church the past two Sundays and will continue to meet there for the foreseeable future, said Rev. Chang Eun Chung.

Twenty-six-year-old Byung-Soon Lee steps onto the stage at New York's Metropolitan Opera House and walks quickly across the floor to the Steinway where her accompanist is waiting. She slips into the hollow formed by the instrument's curved side and turns to face the audience. For a moment, she seems nonplused by the sheer size of the hall. Then she begins to sing.At first, her voice sounds lost in the cavernous hall, its 3,200 seats almost empty now except for a handful of friends and supporters who have turned out this Sunday afternoon to witness the country's most prestigious competition for aspiring opera singers.

Immigrants -- This series on the impact of the rising number of immigrants settling in suburbia continues in the Howard County edition of The Sun tomorrow with a look at how Columbia's Oakland Mills village is being transformed by its growing Latino population.Answering a domestic violence call at a Columbia home, Howard County police officers are stymied: the victim is Chinese, the alleged perpetrator is Vietnamese. Neither speaks much English.It's a problem confronting Howard County's human services agencies -- police, fire, courts, the Domestic Violence Center and shelters for the homeless -- more frequently as they scramble to provide services to the county's growing Hispanic and Asian populations.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore and Baltimore County. Baltimore Western Stolen auto -- A blue 1994 Plymouth Acclaim was reported stolen from the 2200 block of Ashburton St. at 5 p.m. Sunday. Property destruction -- A front apartment window was smashed in the 1600 block of North Avenue about 10:15 p.m. Sunday. The owner heard a crash and went to investigate but found nothing missing and no clues as to what was used to break the glass. Southern Stolen scooter -- A black electric scooter worth $3,500 was reported stolen from 1304 S. Carey St. on Sunday.

An employee of a popular Cherry Hill carryout died last night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, about three hours after he was shot in the head for no apparent reason while waiting on customers, police said. Nae Chun Pak, 46, of the 6500 block of Limerick Court in Clarksville was pronounced dead at 9:43 p.m., said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. Pak was standing behind the counter and waiting on customers at Cherry Hill Fried Chicken Carryout `N Fish in the 600 block of Cherry Hill Road about 7 p.m. when he was shot, Moses said.