The Spirit of Adventure

Watching Toy Story for the first time was one of the definitive moments of my life. It not only introduced me to the power of good storytelling, but it also introduced me to Pixar Animation Studios. What's significant about this is that Pixar has been one of my most crucial sources of inspiration/influence, because everything about them has captivated me and my creative self. Pixar's been the face of the ideal life I would love to have: a place that was all about creating, where I could give of my ideas and skills to make a final product that could be seen by thousands and impact thousands. I've always been a kid with loads of imagination, maybe too much if you ask me; I always found myself caught in daydreams of whatever my mind was thinking of at the time, and the ideas kept coming. Since drawing was my means of translating my imagination, it was my go to medium; I still have a collection of sketchbooks and notebooks from school that are filled with the vast majority of my childhood's visual development. In these books you'll find lots of concepts about space, whether it was planets and what they would look like, alien races and their way of living, all sorts of transport ships and the like, etc. In some others you'd find lots of concepts about superheroes (you could see Marvel's influence all over these), and in a few others more designs and concepts about secret agents, Ghostbuster knockoffs, and my take on the spiritual warfare between angels and demons. When I looks back at all this stuff, it's easy to see that I invested a lot of time into every new project; 99% of the content is designs of characters, environments, resources, tools, weapons, etc. All I ever did was try and make my own versions of things I saw and was inspired by; another in depth analysis shows me that despite all my work coming up with a diverse collection of people and places, I never could give them a story to call home, a setting for them to live in. My creativity could only go so far, and before I knew it, I'd close that project and start another until I ran out of ideas for that one. Things changed for me when I was introduced to the Academy of Art University; my dad heard about these small courses being offered to high school students, and he felt like it could be a great opportunity for me to take my creativity to the next level. So for 3 years, every spring I would take my Saturday mornings and afternoons and attend these courses, where I got to learn from people that lived what they taught; it was a fountain of knowledge, and I was taking in everything I could. Before I knew it I was one semester away from being in a position where scholarships were in my grasp; I was that much closer to realizing my dream of working for the most influential studio of my life. But that's when my Father stepped in and called me back into the mission field; so instead of taking that final class I went on a 2 month mission trip to the north island of New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. There He did His thing and not only showed me a taste of the glory, saw what it tastes like, but He also introduced me to something I had never seen before: Hillsong International Leadership College. It totally caught my attention, and upon my return I had a new option in my hands; it would be a life changing decision, regardless of what direction I chose. I felt called to go to the land down under, so I did (the couple hundred posts of this blog are just some of my experiences from that), and now I'm back home with another life changing decision on my hands: what to do next. The 3 years of ministry training I finished several weeks ago gave me the kind of skills, values, and wisdom that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, but what I didn't realize was that it also gave me the spiritual strength I would need to live in our world. God showed me that HILC was His way of preparing me so that I could handle the "real world", one that God isn't the center of; if I ended up going to this art university straight out of high school, I would have been wrecked. I love how sometimes He likes to show off that His plans are higher than my own. So where does that leave me now? Well, the time has come for me to revisit the original dream. The plan is simple: to make 2013 a year of preparation so that 2014 would mark the beginning of my new chapter of studying. My dream is the same, but thanks to my years at Hillsong, the packaging of this dream looks different. I want to study the art of creating, the ability to take an idea or concept and building a story. I believe that the world of Christian media needs to get past the stereotype, overly cheesy way of bringing a message and start making stories and movies that will reach out to the rest of the world. I want to be part of projects that share the heart of Christ, but are presented in a way that everyone can enjoy, instead of being exclusive to the church. I know that it'll be a long journey, but it will be worth it. Charles Muntz said it pretty well:

"Adventure is out there!"

And I'm pretty keen on going on a little adventure.