Tooting Their Horn- Bittersweet Dreams

High Street. Edinburgh, Scotland. August 2008.

Outside, the din of the Fringe Festival runs well into the night. It's somewhere around 2am, and we probe our incredibly hospitable and interesting new friends about their stories and dreams.

A group of creative professionals that would provide design solutions to businesses and non-profits to generate income to raise awareness of organizations fighting injustice around the world and publish a magazine that would creatively tell their stories. That was the dream of Kate Schmidgall. Or the dream as best as I can remember it. As I listened to her quiet and humble yet audacious heart, I knew I was experiencing a prophetic moment. I knew it would happen.

Just a little over two years later, I stood in the midst of a very crowded studio in Washington, DC as people moved from booth to booth, purchasing Christmas presents from Amanda Ya Juu, Jewel Girl, Opportunity International, WorkUp, and other organizations making a difference locally and internationally. It was the first Christmas Party by Bittersweet Creative Group and the release of their second Bittersweet pilot magazine.

Bittersweet Creative Group is the manifestation of Kate's dream. This group of creative professionals offer their creative gifts to provide identity and branding, print design, and web design and development services to organizations. Meanwhile, they generate funds and leverage their influence to raise awareness of local and international justice issues and highlight the work that is being done to bring hope, healing, and empowerment. A lot of organizations show us what is going wrong in the world. Bittersweet goes into the tension to show us that God is present everywhere...even in hell. Or as close as we get to hell on earth.

And their design product is dang good.

Here's what I'm learning from Kate:

• If God has given you a dream, he wants to see it happen even more than you do.
• God can shock you with how successful that dream can become.
• You need to pursue a dream that is bigger than you.
• Even if you don't have it all figured out, start. Take a step.
• Get the right people on the team.
• God blesses the work that points people towards his heart.
• Creative work done by those who claim Christ must be excellent.

I'm thinking about starting a new feature on this blog called Tooting Their Horn to highlight some of the awesome things that awesome NCCers are doing. Or maybe it will just be a one time thing as I'm sitting here thinking about how awesome Kate Schmidgall is.