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YWAM or YWHAM? JCUM or JuCUM?

  • Writer: Daniel Secrist
    Daniel Secrist
  • Nov 18, 2022
  • 1 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

I have been asked to explain why in Spain our mission is pronounced and written as JCUM (Hoe-ta-coom) but in the rest of the Hispanic world it is known as JuCUM (Who-coom).


I’m possibly the last person living who knows the answer to this pressing question, so here goes! The mission was founded by Loren Cunningham and he called it Youth With A Mission. (The acronym “YWAM” is pronounced WHY-wham). It was awkward but who wants to argue with the founder?


Wedge Alman was the face of YWAM in South and Central America and traveled for decades around the continent preaching and leading schools and evangelism efforts. He had decided early on that JuCUM was an easier way to say it in Spanish, so all Latin America was trained to say it thusly.

A black and white photo from 1973 showing 6 young  people standing in front of a van in Madrid, Spain
Daniel with a YWAM team in Spain, 1973

I didn’t know this, so when I went to Spain with the first permanent YWAM team in 1971, I simply took the English equivalent (Y-WAM) and shifted it to Spanish: the acronym for Juventud Con Una Misión is J-CUM. So how do you pronounce that in Spanish? Simple, just like it was done in English: J-CUM or JOTA-coom. And that’s how it happened.


Years later I was quite surprised when Latin American Ywammers began arriving in Spain calling it JuCUM.


Well, Spain is always different anyway, so it just seemed to fit the whole cultural picture. After many years of calling it JCUM all over Spain, our name was known. Why change it now? We stuck with JCUM.


2 комментария


Mark Vening
Mark Vening
04 мая 2023 г.

I love this. I was looking for exactly this question on the web and am delighted by the answer. Nothing technical, just how the heart wanted to express it. Fabulous.

Лайк

Erik Magnusson
Erik Magnusson
30 дек. 2022 г.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing!

Лайк
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