awakened insomniac

Ministry over the last few months in Africa has extended to Ireland as we moved through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Once a year, AIM hosts a conference, the Awakening, for the world race community and gathers all the racers out on the field to one place for a few days of teaching and worship. This year it was in Dublin, Ireland.

 

Back in Kenya when on a house visit, I had a vision for an art show. I’m a photographer/visual artist and it has long been a thought in my head to turn my collected visual experience on the WR into an exhibition when I get off the race. Ideas have been rolling around as to what it might look like and locations I could host it at – but when I walked into that small Kenyan village house, I saw a simple cardboard frame cut out for photos. Such a simple approach, easy and cheep. It occurred to me that I don’t have to wait until I got home for an opportunity to have an exhibition. I could do this thing out on the race too – at the Awakening.

 

This is how it turned out….    

 

….and just below is the real story of how it turned me into an insomniac

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

   

 

I believe God has made me to be an artist and I want to spend my life serving him with art. I want to create something new, something interesting – something that uses the words of the bible or hovers on religious issues without cliches and stereotypes of typical christian movies, tv, music, people, conversations etc. I want people to look at the work because it’s cool and interesting. Then find out after that it’s all about God.

I realized maybe a month into planning this art exhibition that this was a small stepping stone on my journey to becoming the artist I need to be and to do the things I want to accomplish. Now, it may have been a small stepping stone when looking at the big picture, but this was no small task. It took nearly everything in my to pull it off and only worked out with the help of a few amazing friends. Here’s the basic play by play.

mid June – idea for exhibition forms
late June – proposal send to AIM and planning starts
early July – t-shirt design for the Awakening gets thrown in the mix of to-dos
mid July – exhibition planning and t-shirt designing
late July – sending shirt design to printer (which ends up being a week+ long project involving days of wasted time, internet connections that cut out, finally buying an internet modem and sending the files in a 3hr 150mb single file upload session)
early Aug – plan to get serious about exhibition planning
mid Aug – actually getting serious about exhibition planning (and stressing out about all the loose ends I can’t possibly tie up until reaching Ireland, but stuck in Africa with the most horrible internet connection and trying to order supplies, prints, and coordinate with 15+ artists, AIM staff and venue contacts across 3 continents)
late Aug – realizing my 5th attempt to build a wall to section the space and communicate that to venue staff just won’t work, but found a cheaper and easier solution out of a clothing rack from IKEA. Having issues trying to get all the prints I ordered for the show and other supplies delivered to Ireland from my house on time. Deciding to go with DHL but realizing I won’t be there on a day they’re open to pick it up in time for setup before the event. Scrambling to find someone who can pick it up for me and get their name to put on the packing slip before it goes out for delivery in less than 1 hour. Finding an amazingly willing Lisa Anderson from M squad who came to the rescue. Issue resolved….until
Aug 28 – I get word the package isn’t at DHL, that DHL office anyway, after I can’t do anything about it cause DHL is closing in hours and I’m flying out of Africa in hours. I also am faced with the fact that I will not be able to set up my exhibition until after the first day of the conference. 🙁
Aug 29 – I arrive in Dublin with the rest of my squad. One of my teammates Caleb and I catch a bus, walk and hop a fence to IKEA to pick up supplies and loads of cardboard. I can’t pick up my DHL package cause it’s Sunday and DHL is closed.
Aug 30 – I have to make a quick 2+ hour trip to Belfast to go to the genius bar at the apple store because my computer is not working properly and it’s out of apple care warranty the week prior to arriving back in the US. I arrange for one of my former teammates to pick up my DHL packages. After a long but semi successful Belfast apple store trip I arrive back to Dublin and the Awaking to find that only 2 out of 3 packages were picked up, they= couldn’t find the third.
I walk into the conference space and realize that the room is nothing like the layout pictured in a brochure I had from the hotel. The plan was to set up that night but I had to re-figure everything first to work with the space. A few hours and set up volunteers later, we were ready to start.
11pm – basic set up, start building the wall structure
1am – trying to separate riveted metal with no tools. try bending it loose, nope. bending only bends the metal. try finding a drill to drill it out, maintenance man at the hotel who has one doesn’t come in until 9am. found a screw driver, maybe this could work….prying….yes!
1:30am – trying my best to delegate when I don’t know how this is going to come together and people are starting to get tired.
2:30am – almost everyone is just lying on the floor not doing anything. I tell anyone who’s not ready to work and get this thing done should just go, it’s silly to stay at this point. I loose over half my volunteers.
4am – Two more leave to finally go to bed
5am – Alycia, who’s stayed with me all night and has been working the last few hours painting words onto a cloth goes back to our campground where we’re staying at down the street to shower and return in a half hour.
5:30am – the night watchman brings us sandwiches. I’m so hungry and sandwiches hit the spot.
6am – the night watchman brings us some tea.
6:30am – I return to the campground for fresh clothes and head right back to the conference room
7am – I call DHL to track down my package. It’s the wrong number
7:30am – I finally find the right number, but DHL doesn’t open until 8am even though their website lists 7.
8am – I walk down to tesco to get a few more supplies and some breakfast food
9:30am – a few more hands return to clean up the outside of the exhibition area. Inside is still a mess but enough is together to not be a shamble when people arrive for the 10am session.

by 1:30pm and during a breakout session, I’m so incredibly tired that I go to the back of the room and crash on the floor for an hour. I was awakened suddenly by someone with a car who could take me to DHL to pick up my remaining package. Through a few more calls and emails, my package was discovered. A short trip to DHL, a few more hours and workers getting the remainder of the show together, and we were opened by the evening session of the second day of the awakening.

The way things turned out wasn’t ideal, but it worked. I learned so much through the process. I made mistakes and I made some good edits along the way. I had incredible helpers and support to get it done. (thanks a million to my family, sorry about the stupid DHL fiasco – Jeanne, Hannah, Tanna, Lisa (ditto on the DHL), Caleb, Tara, Beth – John and Auston, thanks for staying so late – Alycia and Matthew, thank you for staying all night, I can’t tell you how much that saved my butt)

every minute, every penny+ spent, insomnia, stress – it was well worth everything