The impromptu speech

I'm becoming a pro at the impromptu speech by living in this country. For some reason, people here LOVE speeches. The longer, the better. Even though during the long speeches, everyone starts to nod off, or starts calling people on their cell phones, or examining their soda cans closely... anything to not have to listen to the long speech. So why everyone always insists on having these long speeches is a complete mystery to me. But I have sat through my fair share of long speeches. I'm still at the point where I at least try to feign interest. I just can't quite let myself be quite as obviously bored as some of the others in the audience!

But no one seems to get too bored when I stand up to start speaking :) Mostly because I keep it pretty short, because most of the speeches I do are completely impromptu, and I haven't had enough time to think of anything clever or witty or even boring to say!

It happened to me again on Friday afternoon. I thought I was going along to simply observe the closing ceremony of a Scripture Use workshop that one of the translation teams was holding here in town. The team mentioned to me that I was invited, so I thought, well, it would be a good opportunity to go and show my face, and to show one of our short-term workers what a closing ceremony is all about.

Little did I know, though I should have guessed, that I would be one of the "keynote" speakers. Of course, I had to sit in the front, in the special chair (which was covered in "pleather" so made my backside sweat like anything), lead the opening prayer, hand out certificates and then make the keynote address! As soon as I got seated in the front of the crowd, my mind started wondering... hmmmm.... am I going to have to make a remark or two here? But after the opening prayer and handing out the certificates, I really thought I was off the hook for any further participation in the proceedings.

However, the team leader then stood up and started to introduce me. Great. An impromptu speech to close a workshop that, quite truthfully, I hadn't paid too much attention to the specific topics of the workshop or even knew too much about who the participants were (I don't work in the Scripture Use "department", and had been busy with my own Primer development workshop the past week!). Anyway, as soon as the team leader started introducing me, I realized I'd better start composing a speech... and fast!

So I did an on the spot impromptu speech, representing my organization and encouraging the participants to use the Scripture portions that have been translated and to encourage the use of the mother tongue Bible in their churches and communities. So hopefully the Lord used my lack of preparation and that I was able to come up with something that was encouraging and that were the right words to speak at that time.

At least it was a short speech. So that must count for something?!