Dan Harrison's Journey (Urbana 93)
A reflection of the extent of God's grace and loveby Kris Potts
Note: The following appeared in the Convention Newspaper on December 27, 1993
Urbana 93 is finally here. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 people will pass through the doors of Assembly Hall this week and traverse the campus of the University of Illinois to attend seminars and visit exhibits. And it all begins with tonight's opening general session.
InterVarsity Missions and Urbana 93 Director Dan Harrison will address delegates during the opening session. Harrison was born to missionary parents and lived on the field for a number of years. During college, he participated in InterVarsity's work at Cornell. Since that time, he and his wife, as well as their four daughters, have spent nearly their entire lives as missionaries.
While all of this seems to make Harrison an obvious choice to lead an event like Urbana, his past reveals that he was anything but an likely candidate for such a career path. A strong storyteller, Harrison will recall some of his more memorable anti-missionary escapades in tonight's message. After hearing him, delegates will find it incredible that God led him to head up a mission event Billy Graham has referred to as "the most important event in world missions today."
A storied past
When Dan Harrison was appointed associate director of InterVarsity Missions in 1987, it might not have seemed an unusual move for the son of missionary parents who had spent 25 years living among Tibetans. But the oft-told tales of pastors' kids and missionaries' kids almost pale in comparison to the radical departure Harrison took during his teens from the Christian roots his parents had planted for him.
That is just one of reasons the Urbana 93 director understands so personally that God loves this world, and why he wants Urbana 93 delegates to understand the extent of this love: Because it was that real, active love of God that brought him back from a world of deception and failure.
Born in 1941, Harrison had quit school at least five times before he was 15. "I was physically full-grown, and able to doctor up somebody else's credentials," he explains, "so I bought booze for all of my friends. Still, even in the whirlwind of rebellion, there were things I wouldn't do. Even after hitch-hiking the 20 miles to town to get drunk, I never stole a car to get home. I'm grateful for that, or I might be in Sing Sing today."
At that point, however, Harrison seemed imprisoned by a life of unfulfillment, disappointment, mediocrity, deceit and rebellion. And to escape it, he left home at age 15, changed his name and lied about his age to get a job selling insurance.
Up to that point, Harrison admits that he had no difficulty lying when it protested his facade. But as it began to compromise a growing relationship with a young woman and her family; he started to come to terms with his failures and deceit. So he went home to finish high school and go to college.
In the ensuing years, Harrison began to work through many of the issues of family dysfunction that had contributed to his prodigal period. "My parents took seriously the Scripture that exhorts us to 'seek first' the kingdom of God," he remembers. "But they interpreted that to mean that if they were faithfully ministering to the Tibetans, God would somehow look after their family."
The result, he added, was that he and his siblings were often separated from each other for months. Nurturing and communication, which took weeks and months in that era; became almost nonexistent. "In the end," he notes, "we stopped sharing problems."
Although still somewhat rebellious; Harrison enrolled in Bryan College, a Christian college in Tennessee. It was during his first meeting with the college president that Harrison experienced a grace he had never before known. The Bryan dean encouraged Harrison to come to him anytime he broke a rule to talk about his failure.
"He never condemned me," Harrison now recalls. "He'd always ask me if I enjoyed it, or if I was going to do it again. He was really accepting. That kind of grace really made an impact on me. As a result of all this, I found the Lord there at Bryan College."
In the years that followed, Harrison became a part of InterVarsity via the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship (now InterVarsity Missions Fellowship) at Bryan. He and his wife, Shelby, eventually became missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators. After earning a master's degree, he transferred to Papua New Guinea, where he taught high school. Six months later, the former truant was asked to be headmaster of the school and establish a high school.
Harrison was later invited to found a children's education department for Wycliffe worldwide. He also became superintendent of children's education. After a transfer back to the U.S., he served for five years as area director for North America and the international vice-president for development. He then became executive vice president of English Language Institute/China (ELIC).
In January 1987, InterVarsity Missions (IVM) Director John Kyle hired Harrison to serve as associate director of IVM and Urbana 87. Upon Kyle's retirement Harrison was appointed to that position. He has since directed Urbana 90 and Urbana 93. "Finally," Harrison concludes, "God's grace has given me tremendous privileges - serving him, being a husband for 33 years and a dad for 29 years, fulfillment in my work and the opportunity of serving the Lord on the InterVarsity team.
"That's all grace."
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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