There’s a first for everything.

Last Friday I was on the radio. Well, not exactly... more like I was recorded to be on the radio. The topic was human trafficking of course and the radio station was Calvary something or another. The program airs in Hawaii. Other small Christian networks across the US pick up the program and air it at a later date.

It was a little surreal to be “the human trafficking expert on the phone with us today from Salem, Oregon. Hello and welcome to the program.” What was especially stressful about the interview is that we recorded ten 5 minute segments, one right after the other. That’s fifty minutes of radio interview chopped up in to ten short segments. The short segments meant that by the time the interviewer was done with the intro I had three minutes to tell the world about trafficking. What can you say in three minutes?

I’ve never been good at summarizing. Story telling is my forte. That resulted in me breathlessly speed talking trying to cram in as much info as possible into those short three minutes. Between interviews I had to pull the phone away from my mouth, take some serious deep breaths and coach myself to slow down. I felt like a fish out of water.

But how do you break down a story that would normally take fifteen minutes into a measly one minute? I stumbled around, I skipped over important stuff, I interrupted myself, I babbled, I forgot to breathe. I don’t think I ever want to listen to myself. But I did the best I could and I know the next time I’m on the radio I’ll do better. That, at least is a comfort.

In the end, it’s not about how well I communicated. It’s about how God uses silly normal people being obedient to him to do crazy things to change the world. If that means speaking on the radio and trying to motivate the world to do something about trafficking, so be it.

Just remind me to have the oxygen tank ready next time.