travelers wanted: you!

After our trip to Southeast Asia in Jan. 2007, each one of the travelers began thinking about ways of sharing our journeys and our discoveries with others. Some of us preached sermons, some blogged, some wrote poems, and some created visual art -- all this to recreate and deepen our experience of being immersed in multicultural experiences that have transformed our lives.

It became something of an obsession for me, HAT, which blossomed into ideas about writing a crown series of poetry. I collected some of the reflections written by fellow travelers and using them as material crafted a series of poems that expresses the myriad of encounters we experienced on-site. I engaged abbykk in the effort to render these meditations/reflections-turned-poetry as visual art. abbykk's artistic envisionings continue to change and transform, and the words-images are becoming, each day, more and more powerful re-interpretations (not exact, mind you) of the multitude of sights, sounds, and textures that we found on our journeys.

Countless meetings and discussions and emails have led us to this point, when we are able to proudly announce that we have exhibition dates (more details to come), we have a blog, we have email, we have the resources for funding (more forthcoming), and we have great hopes for whatever is ahead, for whatever we will find or unfind on our journey...

One definite resource we hope to find and keep is: you! If you are here reading this, you have already begun the expedition with us. We hope you will be curious enough to remain throughout the journey to find out what exactly we mean by "found" or "unfound".

We will offer you a mixed course of words and images that will shake things up and turn things around. We will question our assumptions and beliefs. We will overturn our misconceptions and interpretations. We will honor our cultures, flaws, and faiths. We will be bold. We will be humbled. We will be awed. We don't want to do this without you. But we will forge ahead. Unravel yourself enough to join us on this journey.

welcome

almost 18 months ago, a groups of seminarians, professors and staff got on a plane to hong kong. we did not know what would come of it, and certainly had no idea we would be writing this blog, this many months later.

we hopped on and off planes, trains, and buses for fourteen days as we made our way from hong kong to singapore, through malaysia to kuala lumpur and finally to vietnam. along the way, we visited churches, temples, and mosques, we met priests, seminarians, professors and students, we sang on sunday morning in a methodist church, we made fools of ourselves in the street over the taste of durian, and mastered the art of crossing the street. but these were the simply the details of something that was much more than the sum of its parts.

we went far from home, and found and unfound ourselves, over and over and over again. we encountered places and people that were new, but encountered ourselves anew as well.

when we returned home, those of us who took the trip as a class, for seminary credit, had to write papers--no surprise there. these reflections were a seed to an art creation that has been germinating ever since, and will flower this fall.

this blog will follow our current journey, grown out of our journey to and through southeast asia and ourselves, as we create art, and bring it to the public.

here you will find our reflections on this journey, as well as keep the details of upcoming exhibitions current.

we hope you will journey with us.