Big News ~ Mission Year!!

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." 

Proverbs 19:21

That verse has stuck with me since I first read it years ago. It reminds me that I'm not in control of my life as much as I'd like to think, but that's a good thing. God has much bigger and better plans for me than I could ever dream of. I can think of a few times in my life when God showed me that my plans were not His. 

One that stands out is when I had a Pre-Physical Therapy concentration for my first three years of college. It took struggling in a difficult physiology class to realize that maybe three years of physical therapy school to become a Doctor of PT wasn't for me (even though I only had a couple classes left to finish up the concentration). I didn't want to give up something I'd been working diligently toward and enjoying (mostly) for so long, but I also didn't want to find myself in a place where I'd continue to struggle for a few more years. Ultimately, through lots of conversations with friends, family, and God, I switched to study education and became a teacher. 

Sometimes it's hard to make sure decisions I'm making follow God's will instead of my own. At times our two plans line up, but it takes a lot of prayer and discernment to find out either way. Andrew and I were very careful to make sure our most recent big decision wasn't based on our own agendas, but rather on following God's call for our lives.

We have always known that we wanted to do missions of some sort - going out to make the world a better place in God's name and being transformed ourselves in the process. Before Andrew and I met each other, God placed a passion for justice and equality in each of our hearts. It breaks us to see people treated unfairly - in an inaccurate representation of how God loves them. We've dreamed of what our missions experience could look like someday down the road, discussed a couple different organizations that we could partner with, and were comfortable letting God guide those decisions when the time came around.

We were at a fun, Irish, worship-y Rend Collective concert in September when Andrew had an experience that's really difficult for him to describe. 

"The best I can do is to say that while they were playing I was completely overwhelmed. This feeling or sense was so strong that it was akin to being hit by a 2x4." - ouch - "I couldn't focus at all on what the band was doing. About 45 minutes out of the hour-long set are a complete blur to me. There was also this rushing warm sensation - like crawling into a bed with flannel sheets and an electric blanket in the middle of January. While I couldn't focus at all on the band the only thing I could focus on was the word 'Go!' Instantly when this feeling hit me I knew it was something from God."

We had a very quiet drive home, mostly saying "That was a really good concert!", talking about the new/unreleased songs Rend played, noting on the opening bands a bit, and then silence. I thought the silence was a little weird but didn't think too much of it. 

Andrew didn't mention anything about his 2x4 experience until the following evening at home - he wanted to take time to journal and pray about it before saying anything. I didn't have any similar experiences at the concert, the bands didn't mention anything about missions, and his comments caught me off-guard. However, I fully believed what he was saying and wholly trust that it was a not-so-gentle nudge from God that our missions experience is closer than we had originally thought.

So... Get to the point!

I could give so many more details, but I'll spare you. Andrew and I are taking the "Go!" command literally! We believe that for whatever reason, God is calling us to wrap things up here this summer and GO this fall. 

We applied and were accepted to participate with an organization called Mission Year. September 2015 to July 2016 we will be living in in a more under-resourced neighborhood within an inner-city (either Chicago, Philadelphia, or Houston). We will be living with a small team of Mission Year participants, volunteering at local agencies that directly serve the community in some form, attending and participating in a local church, and spending the rest of our time getting to know our neighbors and treating them with the same kind of love God has for them. There are many unknowns at this point and a few more details we do know - if you're interested, please keep up with our Mission Year blog at https://akhudgins.wordpress.com. We will be updating it with more general information about the organization and program, why we chose Mission Year, which city we end up being placed in, our experiences throughout the year, and more. Believe it or not, I'm trying to use this blog post just to share the news (although I'm sure you can't tell based on how much I've already written...)! 

What does this mean for what you have going on now?

Photography

First, I am honoring everything I have booked this year (thankfully I had only booked through August anyway) and am available to book more sessions and weddings from this March to July. These clients will receive the same experience that all my clients have received; I am in no way backing down throughout the year! Continue following along with us here and on the Facebook page.

Photography is still my passion, and I believe it always will be! That being said, I hope to use photography somehow throughout our Mission Year year to serve the community and the agency I work with, but it is impossible for me to run my business while I connect with my new city and fully participate in the Mission Year program. Kelly Hudgins Photography will be put on pause, which makes me really sad. However, I trust that the experiences I've had in the last few years and the things I learn about myself and about community in the upcoming year will be SO formative to my business when I restart it. I fully intend on and plan to restart my photography business when our situation allows it, and I hope that's in God's plan too. :) Only He knows where we'll be when that happens (we won't necessarily be coming right back to Northern Virginia) and what my business will look like, but I am confident in saying that I won't really feel whole without a camera in my hands and smiling faces looking back at me. :) It is my dream to use my business as a ministry somehow, and I'm thinking that God will mold my heart during Mission Year such that I'll have a better idea of what that will look like. 

Teaching

I've been playing the full-time teacher, part-time business owner and photographer game for about a year and a half now. I haven't reached a lot of discernment as to whether being a full-on teacher is part of God's plan for me, yet. It's easy for me to love people of all types and ages, but there is so much that goes on with teaching that isn't actually teaching. (You've probably heard that before.) When I told my co-teachers and my principal about our upcoming plans, there were lots of kind words and sad faces - Comments that make me feel bad about leaving, but reassure me of my effectiveness as a teacher and value as a staff member. I'm asking Mission Year to not place me in a school setting so I can see how much I miss it - to better discern whether God ultimately has me in a school or not. I'm more open to an after-school program kind of setting, so I'll let you know what I end up doing!

Andrew

One of the main reasons we weren't planning on going anywhere next year is because Andrew has one more year of seminary school before he earns his Master of Divinity degree. He was also just appointed as Associate Pastor of Youth at our church this past July, so now he'll only be serving one year in that role. His education will be put on pause, which can be difficult. There will be opportunities to transfer credits elsewhere and finish his degree once we finish Mission Year, but we (he especially) have had to become comfortable with the idea of potentially not finishing the degree. We just don't know what life will look like! He never went to seminary to become a pastor, but rather to receive more theological education. He's certainly done that, but there is still value in finishing what you've started and having an impressive degree to prove your hard work. We're trying to be comfortable in valuing the process more than the piece of diploma paper at the end. Ultimately, he's received an awesome education and made wonderful friends through it. 

Sometimes when I start blog posts I don't have much to say, and other times I start and have a hard time being concise. Thanks for sticking with me, since this one definitely reflects the latter! I mostly want you to know that I value what I have booked for this year, will be putting my business on pause, and fully intend on starting it back up when I can. For more information about Mission Year and our upcoming experiences, refer to our personal blog, since I don't plan on posting many more details about it here. 

YOU are incredible. Thank you, as always, for your amazing encouragement and support.

Love,

Kelly