Adventures in Speaking

I ran into a friend last week...one I met in the Bible study I attended this past year...and she asked me about a church event where she heard I was going to be speaking. After we talked briefly about that, she said, "So this is what you do? Like for a living?"

So in case you're new here and are also confused about what I do for a living...let me catch you up!

Back when I worked at the radio station, people would sometimes call in looking for a  speaker for events they were having. At that time, Lynne and I were the only two female on-air voices, so if a women's group called, they usually wanted Lynne. (And who could blame them? She is amazing!) She would take the invitations she could, but if something didn't fit in her schedule, she began to recommend me to the groups. Sometimes they would extend the invitation to me instead, and that's how I began a side career in public speaking.

Right after I left the station, I continued to receive some invitations to speak from people who remembered me from the on-air days, so I decided that in addition to writing and being a housewife, I would continue to speak, for as long as the invitations continued to come in. Even though most of those opportunities now come from word-of-mouth rather than people remembering me from the station, I appreciate each one and have gotten to meet some really wonderful people through these adventures!

In the last four years, I've spoken at: women's weekend retreats, mother/daughter breakfasts (and brunches and dinners), bridal showers, Sunday morning worship services, a men's business breakfast, library classes, a leadership conference, Bible studies, staff luncheons, book clubs, school chapels, college classes, breakout sessions, senior adult events, achievement nights, Valentine banquets, and even online workshops. Even though sometimes I present the same material I've used before, each opportunity is different and exciting in its own way!

Even though it's not full-time, self-sustaining work, I appreciate the fact that in addition to getting to share my heart and meet great people, speaking allows me to contribute financially to our home. That's a great feeling! The work itself is fairly cyclical. Because my biggest audiences are women's groups, I tend to speak most often in the spring and fall. Several churches host their women's retreats in the spring, and of course Mother's Day usually brings about a flurry of banquets and brunches, even though most places don't call it a Mother's Day event anymore. No one really schedules anything in the summer, because people are too busy (or too on vacation) to attend. Things pick back up in the fall, because it tends to be another popular retreat and study season. When you live in the Midwest, you don't do much in the winter. No one wants to plan anything for fear of canceling due to weather.

So that's a catch-up on what I do and what it looks like! And in the last couple of weeks, I've spoken at two events that I haven't been able to tell you about yet!

Back on May 4th, I spoke at a women's brunch at a little church up by our beloved lake. It's always interesting to me how people find me...and this was one of those different kind of stories. The pastor of that church put a request on Facebook, looking for a speaker for the brunch. One of his friends from college happens to be a friend of Ryan's, and he tagged me in the post. I reached out, introduced myself, and ended up being officially invited to speak! I didn't know a soul at the church and had never met the pastor or his wife before I arrived, but it was a great morning!

I think we made contact less than a month before the event, so by that time, Ryan's work schedule was already set in stone, and we knew he couldn't come with me. That's always sad, because I really love it when he gets to come with me. But I was excited that the church was in familiar territory for me, since it was so near the lake. Our car practically drove itself there. The day was kind of blah weather-wise, but I was grateful it wasn't raining when I tried to load and unload the car! (Save the hair!)

My website has a list of topics I've spoken on before, so when I do events like this, the organizers often choose something from my list, unless they have a specific topic in mind they want me to create for them. This group chose my Sparkling for Jesus topic and had all the tables decorated with bling!

They told me it was the first time in several years they'd had an event like this, so they hadn't been sure if it would be well-attended, but when I arrived, they had quite a few tables set up! I was so happy for them that they had a good response!

Ryan wasn't there to take pictures for me, and since I didn't know a soul in the room, I felt awkward asking a complete stranger to document my morning. I took a quick selfie to prove I'd been there, but I don't have any photos of the actual talk.

The men of the church served the breakfast, and it was DELICIOUS. They did a build-your-own-"omelet" bar. They had a huge pan of scrambled eggs and then dishes with all the toppings you would typically put in a omelet, and you could build up whatever you wanted to eat. They also had fruit, muffins, donut holes, and all kinds of breakfast-y goodness.

The room filled right up, and I enjoyed sharing with them.

Before I came home, I took a peek at the lake and got some coffee at the little coffee shop Ryan and I love so much.

Then last week, I went to another church for a women's dinner. If you heard this week's podcast, you heard about this adventure. I spoke at this same event at this church last May, and I was grateful they invited me back! The church is over by the Ohio line, and the ladies are so friendly! (This crew really does remember me from the radio days!)

We had dinner together, and Ryan helped serve, and then I spoke. Our big joke was that last year, when I was at the church, Ryan got so caught up in my talk that he forgot to take any photos of me speaking. I reminded him a bit excessively this time...and he forgot again! We laughed and laughed! I did get a picture of the sanctuary before the evening began. I think it's a pretty church.

And I snapped this one during the giveaway time:

Annnnnd then after the night was done, Ryan turned all the sanctuary lights back on and we took this one:

I needed one of us together:

On the way home, it absolutely poured. Like crazy-storming, windshield-wipers-almost-flying-off-the-car kind of pouring. Ryan hadn't been able to eat dinner at the church because he was helping to serve, so we stopped at a Wendy's drive-thru to get him a meal, and then we went to Starbucks to get me some caffeine. We ended up just eating and drinking in the Starbucks parking lot because it was so hard to see to drive - AND eat. Since I have never been accused of being a super big fan of storms, I was really glad Ryan was with me that night!

So there you go! Some of our latest adventures in speaking! We are grateful for each opportunity!