Throughout the four-day Alliance Leadership Summit in Indonesia, participants encountered not only language, worship and cultural performances, but also visual tapestry that captured real-time flows of the event. Behind this artwork was Wendy, a professional visual scribe from Singapore.
After practicing as a visual scribe for 14 years, Wendy said that while she wasn’t the first time she worked with Mission Agency, this was her first time serving at the Alice event. Her role was to create a visual record of the conversations they unfolded to portray the key themes, stories and moments from the session.
“This is primarily a witness job, not a work of art,” Wendy told Christian Daily International. “The main skill involved is listening, not drawing.”
Wendy explained that she serves clients in the sector, including government, business, academia and nonprofits, but has long prayed for the opportunity to use her gifts in church. For many years she has served local churches, seminaries, para-church ministries and mission organizations.
Her background is not art, she said. In fact, she was previously employed in government and trained in analytical thinking. “I never drew anything in my life,” she said. “So when something like this happens, you probably get the sense that it is our mystical god. You choose to use the most unlikely people for a particular purpose.”
At Arise 2025, Wendy’s illustrated committee acquired biblical insights, personal testimony and new themes from keynote speeches, panel discussions and prayers. She emphasized that visual scribes are the most effective when speakers use stories and phors rather than abstract frameworks.
“You rarely pass through people cognitively,” she said. “But when someone tells a real story, it’s something personal, something vivid – that’s where the photo comes from. That’s what pins the message.”
Wendy, who acts as what she describes as a “neutral mirror,” sees her role not as a commentator, but as an honest listener who reflects what is being said. Her illustrations, drawn in real time during the session, are designed to assist in memory, reflexes and collaboration between participants.
More than artistic decoration, Arise’s writing process helped to strengthen the core themes of the summit, intergenerational mission, Z mobilization, intercultural collaboration, and biblical fidelity sent to those who do not reach it.
Hosted in Jakarta, the Arise Leadership Summit attracted nearly 300 participants from 22 countries in Asia and beyond. The meeting included a period of overall speeches, panel discussions, workshops, and prayer and worship. These are intended to equip a new generation of leaders for a global mission.
For Wendy, the opportunity to serve at events was not just a professional mission, but a deep and spiritual act of participation. “This is not about introducing my skills,” she said. “It’s about participating in what God already does and visually testifying to it.”
