Next Assignment

It's been just over 2 weeks since our last team meeting and one of the things we needed to do (by last Friday =/) was write our personal testimony for the purpose of delivering it to a group of people in Thailand. 

I just got through typing out a rough draft and it's harder than it seems - mostly because it has to be translatable.  This means that as we are giving our testimony to a group of people (probably both kids and adults) we will have someone there translating everything into Thai.

Here are a few of the things we need to remember while we are composing our testimony:

• Keep it short - no more than 3 minutes long
• Avoid slangs or idioms that don't translate well such as "by the skin of my teeth"
• Avoid long sentences
• Avoid Christian jargon or clichés
• Avoid jokes
• Avoid illustrations that are specific to North America such as "as wide as the Grand Canyon"

Funny how we don't really think about these things in our everyday language and how it might sound to someone from another country.  I'm also trying to keep my testimony simple with the kids in mind.

Once we have written it down we have to consider the following when actually delivering our testimony in Thailand:

• Don't read what you have written down (lol)
• Open with a greeting in their language (Sawadeet Kaa is Hello in Thai)
• Face the audience, not the translator, when speaking
• Speak in short sentences - only 1 or 2 at a time

I'm pretty sure this will be the very first time I've ever given a speech in another country using a translator - should be an interesting experience!!  Once I have my testimony completed I'll post it =)