Getting There: Reflections from Urbana 15

This might end up all over the place, since I’ve been meaning to write some stuff up each day, but that doesn’t really happen at 1am after Roommate Huddle. Oops.

Getting to the city

Before I can even start thinking about what happened at Urbana, I consider how I even got to St. Louis at all. As mentioned in my previous post, there was a pretty ugly (oxymoron?) tornado in the Dallas area around Christmas. The stormy mess made all the wind currents go a little crazy, so the flight I booked for 3:30pm on the 27th didn’t happen. In fact, we got to the airport at 1pm, waited for 6 hours with delays hour after hour, and then the flight got cancelled with 10 minutes till boarding. Woo. With the airport in Black-Friday-style panic (uh it was the day after Christmas, not Thanksgiving…), we were calling customer service lines, waiting in physical lines to talk to people, and honestly just going crazy. It was no longer a matter of making to Urbana on time (the first session started at 7:30pm); it was a matter of trying to go at all. We got a flight for Tuesday morning, but we would’ve missed another whole day. Was it even worth it to go? After getting on the #hack4missions Slack channel, though, and talking to a mentor who knew his way around the airport atmosphere (attempted a pun, did it work?), he convinced us to get on standby for a flight the next day. He was pretty sure it would open up.

My parents, though, panicked and insisted we come home for the night. They said it might be better to wait till Tuesday morning. After I went upstairs to go to bed, though, I decided to give my dear friends at customer service (seriously best friends by now, haha) one last call. “Uh, we’re on standby for 7am tomorrow. Do you know the chances of seats opening up?” “I have seats open right now. Would you like them?” Whaaaaat.

So after 4 hours of sleep (sorry parents), we headed back to the airport, rushed through check-in and security, and made it to St. Louis by 10am. Just in time to check in, get food, and get hyped for the morning session at 11am. Yes, the 6 hour airport wait was not fun. Yes, the 4 hour rest (or lack of) was tiring. But I think God just wanted to remind us that He is in control. Anyone probably thought it’d be silly of me to call again that night, especially after being told the flight was full just an hour ago. But now I know God just wants us to trust Him. And furthermore, because I knew God opened the seats for us to get there, I knew He wanted me there. He wanted me to be at Urbana, so I knew I had to be fully engaged.

Getting to the nations

When you go to a missions conference you obviously expect conversation about the world. As someone who has taken Perspectives (take it), part of me, though, came in with a hard heart. Maybe not completely hardened, but maybe something like James Harden’s defense — Harden’d but still soft (I’m actually a Rockets fan, but a clever one okay shh).

I knew God has a heart for the nations, and I knew I should, too. But there’s difference between knowing and doing. Or not necessary actively doing at the time, but even considering how I might do. As in, I honestly didn’t contemplate how I might play a role in God’s heart for the nations. Part of me thought — I’ll just be an engineer and donate money to support. And don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with supporting missionaries financially and emotionally and spiritually, and some people are truly 100% called to be senders. And that’s super super beautiful and necessary. But, choosing to be a sender because it seems like the “easy way out” (which I know it really isn’t necessarily) is not right.

Through the speakers and activities (ie: praying and worshiping with a fam of 16,000 people nbd), God pushed onto my heart something that He’s been sticking to me this whole semester: being active. God hates the lukewarm (Revelation 3:16), and being passive is being lukewarm. It’s easy to choose Netflix over reading the Bible. It’s convenient to nap instead of thinking about my place in God’s global mission. It’s comfortable to joke about my future and education instead of valuing it and cherishing it and seeing where school fits into God’s glory. I think God was saying, “if howICanServe has been declared but not defined, you’re not function-ing properly.” Even if I don’t know what the value is, I should at least be actively praying and pondering and searching. Urbana gave me the resources — now I have absolutely no excuse to be passive.

Getting on track (haha get it, “track”)

One specific aspect of Urbana that I cannot stop being grateful for is #hack4missions. When I signed up for it, I’m not going to lie: I was skeptical. Like a lot of people expressed, I was afraid my skills would be inadequate to contribute. I didn’t think we could hack in 9 hours (honestly, it was probably even less than that). I didn’t think any of my questions about my future would be answered. I still signed up, though, honestly because I didn’t know there was a “general” track, and thought I had to pick one. It sounded better than nothing.

After our final presentations (just 36 hours ago!), I realized that I wasn’t wrong. There was no way our group could’ve put together what we did (the ideas, design, development, and presentation — which I thought was pretty sweet) in 9 hours. Almost none of us knew Android app development. I had never opened Illustrator before but signed up for the design team. I can’t believe that the Holy Spirit isn’t real (double negative on purpose shh). There’s no way that could’ve happened without His hand in it all.

More than just creating something, though, was the community. I loved the design team. The project leads I got to work with. The other hackers in other teams that I didn’t even meet. The mentors and Ally and Nick. Honestly, the environment just made me feel at home (more so than any other hackathon I’ve been too — sorry UT, UTD, Rice, Yale). It wasn’t the food (but fresh fruit is 10/10) or the physical room. It was the way everyone there was interested in everyone else’s success and enjoyment and God’s glory. We all wanted each other to not just have a good time, but gain something. A normal hackathon has five loaves and two fish, and few walk away satisfied. God multiplied that, and I think everyone walked away filled with joy, win or “lose.”

Getting to the future

What did I take away from Urbana? What are the next steps? What are the resolutions I want to commit to?

Since I’m studying abroad next semester in Scotland (actually, in 4 days…), I’m excited because I think God wants to work there. This might not be the best way to think of it, but I think this is an opportunity I get where my identity is a blank slate. No one will say “why are you so serious” or “why are you different” in Scotland. No one knows me. I want to use this as a chance to share my story with anyone. My discipler challenged me to start casual conversations on the bus about my story, my faith. I wasn’t super sure before, but hey, if people are using routers on the bus to share God’s story, surely I can “connect” to people and share some of my “free content,” too, right?

I will tell the gospel story in my context.

Something else that I think has really made me think. A large part of me up to this point has really considered grad school, particularly the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology program’s Medical Engineering doctorate program. Why? Because I think medical tech is beautiful way to serve people, and through #hack4missions, I’m seeing that it’s hard to open doors into unreached people groups, but healthcare is a valuable starting point. But is grad school the right choice? Is that program — which will take five (or more) years of life — a Tarshish (settling for an option that isn’t the most effective) or my Ninevah (where God can use me best)? The main reason why I wanted to go to that program was the chance to see the world’s needs. But what better way to see the needs of people than to go seek out people in need?

I will serve (short-term) in a global or cross-cultural setting.

And ultimately, if I want to be active every day, the best thing to do is pray (hey that rhymed). I have a free copy of Operation World from Perspectives, and the resource of the Joshua Project (which btw I have a cool hack idea for!!). Let’s go.

I will regularly pray and intercede for the global church.