Many doings and many celebrations. :-) Last year was so full of goodness and busyness. January is already underway and the 20s are before us, but before we dash off into the Next Adventure, let's pause a second to look back and see where the Maker has led us.
For starters: Andrew's first nonfiction book, Adorning the Dark, was released. It was a good and brave work. And it not only inspired us and many other readers, it inspired Andrew! If you go over to his Instagram, you will see that his bio now reads "Singer/Songwriter/Author/Sketcher," and his grid is full of trees and castles drawn by his own Batman-penciling hand. This makes me happy.
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Behold the Lamb of God, complete with a full tour, all-new album art and a deluxe boxed set, new recordings, and even some new lyrics!
Last year was also the tenth Hutchmoot. It is wonderful to think that out of such small beginnings—a blog and the people who connected in the comments, wanting to meet face-to-face—a community has grown and flourished for ten whole years now.
Not only was 2019 the tenth year of Hutchmoot, but it was the first year of Hutchmoot U.K.! It was an enormous undertaking, one Andrew and Pete went into with both fear and hope, and afterward Andrew said, "When we gathered in Oxford on the first day to pray, to invite the Lord to work his will in us all weekend, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the way he answered that prayer a year ago with a resounding 'Yes.'"
In under a year, fundraising for the Rabbit Room's North Wind Manor renovations was complete, and the new barn is already built. The Manor's rebuilding is well underway, too. It's unbelievable that the goal of $450K was raised so quickly. But you know that "art nourishes community and community nourishes art" thing Andrew keeps talking about? Community is what made this happen. The work of the people. :-)
Andrew and his sweet wife Jamie turned twenty five last week. :-) If you love Andrew's music, if you love Nia Wingfeather, you love Jamie.
So far we've been talking about big stuff happening in the Wider World of Andrew, but now that I've mentioned Nia, what about Wingfeather news? Well, here's a shot of the script for the first Wingfeather movie. Do you see how thick that stack of pages is? Movies take a long while. Just today Chris (our producer) was telling me that the meetings with studio execs continue. No news to report yet (pray for them!), but behind the scenes, the team presses on.
Andrew's dear friend Randall Goodgame launched the first season of the Slugs & Bugs Show! Andrew has been involved in Slugs & Bugs since the beginning, and got to be in two episodes of the show (see if you can spot him in the lineup!). Our producer Chris is the S&B producer, too. So fun.
Let's see, what else... 2019 saw the announcement of a complete republishing of the Wingfeather Saga! The first two come out in March, so we'll be looking forward to (and shrieking about) this development all year long. ;-)
Good heavens. This isn't even everything that happened last year—Andrew toured Sweden, was involved in the "Rabbit Room on the Road" homeschool convention circuit, worked on building a new dry-stack stone wall, wrote an afterword for The Light Princess, sent Skye off to Malawi for a month, performed a wedding (!), and who knows what all else. You know what might be the most important thing that happened last year? Andrew made it through all of that! You know what Triliban Plubius says. "Whether crushed or sheltered by the Maker's hand, 'tis beneath it we go, from breath to death."
What did you survive last year? What are you celebrating? And what do you look forward to in the year to come?