Our church is about 99% white (maybe 99.5%!) and a decent size congregation – about 1200 members, which equates to about 700-800 people who regularly to semi-regularly attend. It’s an old German church (we just celebrated our 175th anniversary about 4 years ago) full of people primarily of German descent – and then there’s Saresh.

He’s not the only brown face in the crowd, but there’s really not very many. Given his more or less unique status, people recognize him/us even if they don’t know him. He’s also the chairman of the committee that manages the church’s endowment (Saresh and a handful of old white guys, LOL). So he’s fairly well-known.

About a month or so ago, the director of the church school program came up to him to ask how he was feeling and she was so glad to see him up and about. He asked her what she meant and she said she must have confused him with someone else, which we thought was funny. I mean, who else could he be? Then the next week, a guy (our age) who’s in a church social group we belong to comes up and asks how he’s feeling. Saresh, puzzled, says he’s feeling just fine. Guy says, “Well – just glad to see you’re able to get out.” So now we’re thinking, WTH?

A couple weeks ago DD and I were shopping in Target and ran into an older couple we know from church. The wife says, “We’ve been worried about you! How is your husband? Is he home from the hospital? Is he okay?” She says this in a tone like she thought he was on his deathbed. So now I’m certain EVERYONE is confusing him with someone else, so I tell her that I don’t know who exactly from church is deathly ill, but it’s not Saresh. They looked so confused, but were glad at least my husband was okay. Since it wasn’t Saresh that was in the hospital, they didn’t know exactly who was.

I thought maybe that was the end of it, but then one of the guys on the endowment committee comes up to Saresh this Sunday and asks if he’s doing much better! And this guy KNOWS Saresh. They have a quarterly meeting together, so he would know if he was deathly ill (so I wrongly assumed). Again we have to explain that he is not sick – someone else is. Now endowment guy has no idea who is in the hospital either.

Turns out there’s some guy with the last name of Sumariwalla (or something similar). We don’t know him, and his first name is “ethnic” sounding – not even close to the nickname that Saresh goes by. He must not go to church much because no one seems to know who he is, but his name has been in the church program and monthly newsletter for being very sick in the hospital for months now. All these people keep assuming it’s Saresh because of the name – they don’t remember our last name, so they just assume this “ethnic” sounding last name must be Saresh!

Some poor guy is gravely ill in the hospital but Saresh is getting all his sympathy. I imagine all these sweet people praying regularly for Saresh instead of the right guy, and Saresh isn’t even sick! I figure God at least knows enough to redirect the prayer where it should go, but still. It just cracks us up that they even know Saresh’s first name, but still think this sick guy is him, even though they see us at church often. And our last name is short and simple – people sometimes think it’s Spanish. It does not resemble Sumariwalla in the slightest.

I tried to think if Saresh and I knew people’s last names at church well enough – and for the people that have asked about him, we do know their first and last names. And, we have the tougher job because they all have German names. They only have to remember apparently TWO non-German last names. We should probably be irritated, but it’s kind of hard to be when they all obviously think enough of Saresh to be this concerned about him – whatever his name may be. I keep thinking I should write a thank you note (for all the prayers and well wishes) to appear in the newsletter. Better not.