Figuring It Out Later: Hutchmoot 2013

“I’ll probably figure out what this weekend meant to me in a few days,” I said to Rachel and Christine as we drove home from Hutchmoot on Monday. After I attended for the first time last year, I discovered that I couldn’t put into words what it had meant until I’d read the offerings of a few other attendees. When the experience congealed enough to examine, I was able to see how it had begun to heal wounds and weariness deep within my soul and how God was pointing me forward to what would come next.

***

When I lived in Alaska, I struggled greatly with the lack of sub-created beauty. There was plenty of beauty to behold—don’t get me wrong. The mountains, the rivers, the wildlife: it was all gorgeous. But on those bent branches, no one had built straight baselines. Architecture in the far North is utilitarian at best. The visual art is almost exclusively representations of the scenery.

I found that I wanted to be surrounded by artists—visual artists, musicians, performance artists, writers—who would seek to create new beauty as image bearers of their beautiful Creator. It was one reason I chose to leave Alaska and pursue my craft.

In leaving Alaska, though, I lost my primary missions connection. I’d been serving as a missionary there, involved in a global agency, and seeing lives changed through the power of the gospel.

***

A few months after the 2012 Hutchmoot conference, I sat down with my boss at the University and sketched out my thinking regarding my vocation and my job. One of the things Hutchmoot had made clear to me was that the two were not the same. In the course of that conversation, Todd took a step back and asked me—as a friend, not an employer—what it was I wanted to do in life, what I really love.

I stumbled through an answer. One of the reasons life thus far has been somewhat random in terms of experiences is that I really love a whole variety of things. I love writing. I love college students. I love missions. I love art. I love teaching.

I think I said all those things, but what Todd picked up on was that my voice broke when I said “missions.” He said, “You’re still passionate about that. Remember that.”

***

At some point during Hutchmoot in 2012, my sister observed to me that she hadn’t seen a lot of international flavor at the conference. It wasn’t a criticism, just an observation. “Not a lot of international flavor” is odd for our family. We grew up in missions, our parents based out of the U.S. Office of SEND International. The family lived overseas twice, in the Philippines and Hong Kong. We traveled the world. Even just growing up in Metro Detroit, global was part of our blood. In high school, I had classes in which I was the minority—my favorite school events were the ones run by the Indian American Association, the Asian American Association, the Pacific Islander American Association…

***

In June I left my job. I leapt, not sure where my feet would land.

I’m still not sure. Currents of wind are carrying me along for now, but I don’t know if they will hold me up forever, or even for long. I’m loving flying right now. It’s been wonderful. And I’ve gotten to do and be involved in things in the past four months that I couldn’t have imagined doing a year ago.

***

The intersection of arts and the global engagement has been a theme of my past year. I’ve begun working with Curator, a publication of the International Arts Movement, and gotten to know more about the organization as a whole. My roommate, a missionary, is discovering what her place in the arts is and could be. I’ve begun working with a missions organization that publishes books. I’ve built friendships with artists who are engaging with art on an international level.

Most of all, I’ve become convinced that in our global society, the message of the gospel, the Kingdom message, must be communicated through creative means. Whether we are crossing cultures, or if we are Westerners communicating to our own culture, art is a way to communicate the Message to a culture that is not able to, or does not want to, understand us.

***

I returned to Hutchmoot this year with two friends, the spilling over of my experience a year ago. As the Lord would have it, both of them have global missions experience.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that this would be the year I would meet other ’Mooters engaged with global missions. Perhaps Randy Goodgame singing about aliens living among Israel on the first night was prophetic. Perhaps it’s because of what God’s been doing this year that my ears were more open to others who were thinking about the intersection of the arts and global missions. Perhaps it’s because I brought two friends with me.

But I met people whose world was bigger than the contiguous United States. I heard phrases like, “I lived in Europe for a while,” and “Have you been to Romania?” and “I may not be staying where I am right now, God’s moving me on,” and “You’re an MK? Me, too!” and “Next year, there should be a session on Art and Missions.”

I walked away with some definition to the global corners on a few of the dreams I’ve been dreaming. And in the time since the conference, I’ve learned of some ministries that fascinate me, because they are doing just what I have been wrestling with in terms of global engagement in the arts.

***

I still don’t know exactly where I’m going. But if I could distill what God taught me last year through Hutchmoot 2012 into one sentence it would be this: “I’m a writer.”

As He continues to work in my heart in the coming weeks, as I continue to process the things He taught me during Hutchmoot 2013, I’m wondering if a single sentence will come to the fore again. If it does, I suspect it may be this: “I’m a missionary.”