November Outreach

Is it really November? I can't believe how quickly this fall has flown by! After a couple of months of reintegrating myself back in the art school and getting to know our new students, suddenly I had another group of Americans visiting to work with me! Flying in from Connecticut were Big Dave, Dave Jr. (not related) and Rebekah. We had a blast.
During the last couple of months, I have been going into El Callejon once a week to teach art classes both at the Social Work site and at the preschool. Because I had two guys with me and the Social Work site is for 'girls only', I decided to take these 3 along with me to the preschool. We also decided to try the same activity the following day at our Special Ed site, Genesis. The lesson was: God is our Rock. The activity involved each child taking a rock (which we Americans had gathered from down by the river) and painting two solid colors on it and then painting a cross over that. It just turned into painting chaos, but they all had fun and many of the kids thought the idea of God being a rock pretty darn hilarious.


The rest of the week found us in barrio La Colonia, one of the oldest neighborhoods here in Jarabacoa. My friend Elizabeth (who worked at the art site before me) and I have been prayer walking this area for a couple of months as she co-leads a cell group there. The owner of the house where the group meets, still a fairly new believer, found out what I did and asked if I'd be willing to bring a team to paint a mural on the outside front wall that borders his house. I said, "Of course! What would you like us to paint?" After prayer, he decided he wanted us to paint a landscape scene with some animals and a huge message that said "La Colonia, Cristo Te Ama" (Christ Loves You). We spent one whole morning hand scrubbing that wall (which was quite a feat since the town power went off right as we began, causing a water shortage, but Ray, the owner of the house, sent buckets down into his cistern to pull up water for us to use). The rest of the day and the next morning were spent painting away. Dave, Dave and Bekah all learned some artsy techniques, got to interact with a bunch of local kids who came out to watch us and also helped me clean up and scrub the back of my jeep where a gallon of white paint had spilled over. Yikes!


We spent several of our mornings with Francisco who, like always, blew our minds with the deep theological discussion and who, like always, ignited passion. What an incredible blessing our time was!
Thanks to my awesome team for coming and bringing refreshment and joy!

First Festival

On October 18th, hundreds of people came out to see Jarabacoa's first festival of "Art and the Environment", put on by the Touristic Cluster. Even the U.S. ambassador to the DR came and bought three paintings. This year's theme was 'Native Birds of the Dominican Republic' and more than 30 local artists had works entered, including Francisco, our art student Luis Miguel Perez and me, Amy Babb. Below are some photos from that night.

Priscila and Rembrandt Natanael, dressed to the nines checking out the art


Me in front of my common barn owl


Me with our prodigy art student, Oliver


One of Fran's paintings

Part of our challenge at the art site, working with the ultimate goal of community development, is finding venues for our accomplished students to sell their work so that they can see the viability of their God-given talent. There are not many opportunities in Jarabacoa and so having something like this art show that our students can enter and show their work is an answer to prayer. Pray with us for more opportunities like it!

These Days

Wow, about two months have gone by. Time to update!
Fall is a slower season for us here at the art site. It gives Francisco and I a time to paint, read the Word and spend more time with the students who are coming to our school. Especially for me, I enjoy having this time to reconnect with our students after the busy summer months I spent working out in El Callejon. Lately, Francisco, I and one of our art students, Luis Miguel, have been working on paintings that will be in a local exhibition here next week. The theme is 'Native Birds of the Dominican Republic'. Fran and I have both been in shows before, but for 16 year old Luis Miguel, this is quite the opportunity. He is the youngest artist to be featured and his work will show alongside several famous Dominican artists. To have this kind of exposure this young is something beyond what Francisco and I could have ever imagined for this young man, who just two years ago was living with his single mom and 4 siblings in a one-room, dirt floor, partially rooved house.
Luis Miguel started coming to our site after his mom was introduced to Francisco one day. She told Fran about this son of hers who seemed to like to draw, so Fran invited him to come and start taking classes. Luis Miguel would come every morning and work all day. It wasn't long before Fran noticed this young man would go without eating lunch and when he finally asked him if he ate breakfast, he shyly admitted that, no, they didn't have food. Fran immediately got involved with the family, helping them to find a better place to live and ministering the gospel to them. Luis Miguel and his mom both accepted Christ just over a year ago and the transformation has been incredible to witness. In the Spring, Students International offered him the opportunity to paint a bunch of small-sized landscapes that would be offered for sale at the new base. He painted around 40 paintings in a month and with what he earned was able to help out his mom with rent and food for the family. Luis Miguel is an incredibly talented young man who we are honored to have as a fellow 'colleague'. He is not longer our student, but comes every morning to sit and paint away the hours. Needless to say, he has been busy painting birds, birds and more birds!
Francisco's family is doing really well. Ysmayar, the oldest daughter, just turned 9 on Friday. She is in 3rd grade at Doulos Discovery Christian School. It is a bilingual school and she is one of the top of her class in English! I enjoyed listening to her speak English with many of our visiting teams this summer.
Priscila, now 7, just started at Doulos as well and is also doing very well. I have missed spending all the time with her that I used to have, but now when I do see her, she enjoys 'teaching' me things. It is evident that her time in school is paying off.
Natan, 4, has also started school! He is going to the Students International preschool in El Callejon. He seems to like it. He's been drawing up a storm, the theme always being a bridge with water and lots of people. Very interesting. He is a pretty normal 4 year old, still asking me for candy and trying to tickle me when I'm not paying attention.
Fran's wife, Yeimi, let go of the store she had in town for so long and is now spending her time taking care of the kids and their home. She is going to begin taking classes in the University to get her teaching degree.
And, Francisco, like I said, has been painting as well as doing deep Bible Study and extensive writing as he is preparing to write a small book. It has been fun having theological discussions with him as he searches the Scripture and wants to discuss what he's discovering. I have learned a lot from it myself and am continually blessed by his passion for God, the Word and for life.
I, too, have some other projects going on, but I will leave that until next time...
Blessings!

Los Ultimos

Sadly, the summer has ended. No more mystery meat sandwiches, no more adventurous rides in my jeep, no more drawing at the river's edge, swinging kids around in El Callejon or listening to Francisco's wonderfully probing questions. Wait a minute... I still get to do those things... just not with awesome and zany teams from the States!

The second to the last outreach brought Brelle de Groot and Matias Mora from Tulare, CA, with Gerred Wilkie from upstate New York. A smaller team, but with larger than life personalities! This group took quickly to teasing each other like siblings, as well as engaging the community of El Callejon at a deeper level. One of the students, a fluent Spanish speaker, really spent time getting to know the ladies that gathered out in front of our portion of wall. In fact, the area where we were painting the community calls "El Parque de Francia", which means Francia's Park (since the gathering place is right in front of Francia's house)and everyone gathers there because a huge shade tree grows behind the wall, providing some respite during the hot midday sun. Women will meet there mid-morning to style one another's hair, gossip about the neighbors and sort of keep an eye on all the naked and half-naked kids running around. After 5 outreaches, the town was more than comfortable making friends with this new group. Some of the kids even tried teaching us a sort of Spanish pig latin they'd come up with using the word 'chi' in front of every syllable of every word: Chi-bue, chi-nos, chi-di, chi-as (Buenos Dias: Good Morning) They speak it so fast, I don't know how they understand one another. Even some of the moms have picked it up and when they wanted to say something so we wouldn't understand, we'd here this round of what sounded like clucking hens and then laughter. It was delightful.



My very last group (*sniff*) were deigned the 'Calibraskans' (3 from California- Amy Wright, Hannah Larson, Maria Fandl; 1 from Nebraska- Alexandra Heller) and, as I said about them at the banquet, they were girls I would have hand-picked to be my very best friends in high school. Artsy, dramatic, gentle, hilarious, loyal and caring, these four ladies learned the true meaning of 'Today is my BEST day'. During the last few outreaches, Francisco really focused on this statement, a phrase he says to himself when he wakes up every morning. For some reason, with this group, he reminded them of it everyday. And truly, after two weeks of art labor, on their very last day, the very last day we would be painting murals in El Callejon, it was the BEST DAY. All the children we had been playing with, talking with, hugging and chasing around, crawled out of the woodwork, canvased the entire community and brought us flowers from every bush that could be found. We were covered in flowers!! It felt like it was coronation day with God saying, 'Well done, good and faithful servants!' I will never forget it, and I'm sure they won't either.



31 murals in all. Wow. Ready to do it again next summer?? To all the teams who came down and loved the community of El Callejon, THANK YOU. I hope many of you come back next year. Yeimi, Franklin, Tule, Yoemi, Noelia, Yenny, Yensy, Yuliani, Gabriel,Loreini, Estefani, Oscarina, Paula, Luz Maria and all the others will be waiting!

Thanks, also, to my wonderful friend and part-time intern, Brianne Hofsommer, who helped make my summer a royal affair.

Stay tuned for upcoming reports on: So, what goes on at the art site when summer teams are NOT there??

Blessings!

Four and Five

It's been another successful month here at the art site! Time is flying by so rapidly, I can barely catch my breath! Group four of the summer brought in 5 delightful teens from Bakersfield Christian High School in California and from 180 @ The Chapel, Ohio. These 5, Bree, Adam, Natalie, Emily and Tristan kept me in stitches their entire time here. On top of forming an open and fun community, they also came up with some fabulous designs for our mural project. At the beginning of summer, we started painting murals in front of Students International's social work site and were going to up the street toward our preschool. However, after two outreaches, the preschool decided they wanted murals painted in front of their building! So, this crazy group of teenagers and I schlepped all the paint and brushes, etc up the street and began where the wall actually begins (or ends, depending on which side of town you live!) Check out these murals:




My next group picked up where the last one left off. This time we had intern Bri with us and she painted a gorgeous tropical flower that she had designed during the previous outreach. I also got to paint a mural this time since there was wall space left. I had a great time painting alongside my most diverse group yet: a mix of high school, post high school, college, post college and a middle school art teacher! Only two of these 5 knew each other prior to the trip, but this team quickly gelled as they had to pack themselves into my little jeep day after day. These 5: Lois, Carisa, Patrick, Kelinda and Joy along with Bri, visiting leaders, a 5 gallon water cooler, a lunch cooler and me all stuffed into my car gave it the name The Clown Mobile. I absolutely love the designs this team came up with as well as their willingness to be spontaneous with our afternoon activities. When we weren't helping a local church prepare the art part of their upcoming VBS, we rode the Clown Mobile down to the river to sketch the sports site playing football in the water, or made art with the local shoe shine boys down in the park. Good work, guys!

YoMama (Sonoma State and James Madison University)

Francisco and I sat poised on orientation day, ready to share with our 5 new students the history of the art site, a bit of our own stories and the 4 points from Scripture we like to focus on: being faithful in the little (in regards to talents), focusing on putting our treasure in heaven, serving is considered being greatest in the Kingdom, and the multiplication of small things (5 loaves and 2 fish). Little did we know that this lively group of young ladies, 3 from Sonoma State in California and 2 from James Madison University in Virginia, were just as poised and ready to enter into all kinds of scriptural debate with us. The first day of deep engaging set the theme for their two weeks of service with us here. These ladies not only dug into Scripture with us, but also dug into the culture, interacting with the community of El Callejon, interacting with eachother, interacting with art, with themselves and above all, with God. Some of the questions Francisco likes to ask are: Is everyone in the world a child of God? Where did sin originate, how is it conquered and why was it conquered the way it was? What are the difference between talents and gifts? What are yours?
These girls not only tore it up with us, but took these same questions to others from their schools and got everyone searching Scripture and coming back with, "Well, what about this?" It was AWESOME.
These 5 girls: Andrea Smith, Danielle Koehler, Emily DiMarco, Chelsea Gault and Janelle Burns also took on the El Callejon mural project with the same fervor. The people of El Callejon, now getting accustomed to our project, started coming by more often and asking us what each mural meant, or trying to guess. One mural caused quite a stir on the first day. One of our girls, had on her heart to paint a Dominican flag painted in the shape of the country. The colors of the flag are red, white and blue, the white being a cross that sections off four corners of the flag, each quadrant being either red or blue. We asked a couple of kids if the upper left quadrant was red or blue. The consensus was red, so our student spent the morning diligently painting the flag. We left the community, hot, tired and contented with our first day's work. Later in the day, we received some shocking news: the flag was painted wrong!! Putting red in the upper left quadrant symbolized the nation being at war!! Our student was devastated, especially because she wouldn't be able to go back and change it until after the weekend! Francisco, upon hearing about it, suggested that we work with it and try to incorporate the message of the inner war of the soul when it is not in Christ. The idea was contemplated, but in the end, it was decided just to right the mistake because many people in the community can't read and wouldn't necessarily understand why the flag was at war. Through all of this we took it as a blessing... people were paying attention!
The focus of painting the wall in El Callejon is to not only bless the community with beauty, but also to get them to engage with it, cause them to think about the gospel and what it means in their own lives. We are finding the mural is accomplishing its goal.
On top of painting murals, our students also painted faces at the special ed school and hung out with some of our local shoeshine boys while doing art in the park. God really used these girls to bless Jarabacoa, us and eachother. Miss you guys!!
Please continue to pray for the health of our students, for inspiration, and that God would continue to speak into the lives of the people of El Callejon.

2 Down, 5 To Go!

Our summer kicked off with a bang on May 5, bringing with it a small, yet mighty team of 17 students. Bethel College in Indiana and Providence College in California were represented and I had the privilige of hosting 2 beautiful young ladies from Bethel.

The project I had intended to begin, a bright evangelistic mural spanning the entire length of El Callejon, was delayed because of rain. So, Cristina DeLeeuw, Martha Weirich and I took on another fun project: painting an installable mural for the inside of the Special Ed school, Genesis. At their old location the students and teachers at Genesis had enjoyed some murals that were painted on the cement wall bordering their grounds. This time we decided to paint on a large piece of wood that could be moved if the school should ever have to move again.
For inspiration, we visited the special ed site and learned about what was going on there. We spent a day in discussion and design. I asked the question: "How do you think God feels about the kids who go to Genesis?" The general consensus was that He thought they were special and wanted them to know their gifts and what they could bring to the world around them. We decided on the theme, "Christ in you, the hope of Glory" and combined our three designs to make one beautiful painting that I know will inspire all who walk through the doors.


Our next group came from Vermont, Boston University and Grove City College. I had two women, one from BU (Bethany Slade) and the other from Grove City (Joanna Hart). These lucky two were the pioneers of the El Callejon mural project. We spent every morning in El Callejon enjoying a devotional time with the ladies at the Social Work site and then set to work immediately after. I gave them this challenge: how do we communicate the gospel without words? How can we show this community God's love without using traditional Christian imagery (as the island is immersed in Catholic art-- beautiful representations of the gospel, but something they are already surrounded by)? You will see below just what the girls came up with. I let each one have her own section of the wall, while I executed a design inspired by Zach Humphrey from my Jupiter team in March. I also decided that I wanted the mural to start off by saying: Jesus Loves El Callejon, as a way of proclaiming the real reason why we are there painting. Men, women and children will walk by these words and images everyday and though they might not be focusing on them, I know their spirits and souls will be impacted.

As we were painting we had many people approach us and ask what we were doing, why we were doing it, what did the images mean?? It gave us a chance to share Christ's love with them. As I was painting musical notes one day, two girls called out to me, "What are those?" They had never seen musical notes! I explained to them that music is a language and that these black marks I was making were the letters. I will be bringing a music book to show them next week. All the children in the community wanted to be involved and so on the first day we decided to give them a section of wall where they could put their handprints and names if they wanted.

We spent a week and a half playing with the kids, meeting some of the women in the community and painting, painting, painting. In the afternoons, since it was so hot, we decided to leave El Callejon and find other things to do. We spent time talking with Fransisco, doing art in the park and we also created some collage art to adorn the new dorm rooms at the base!
I had a wonderful and inspiring time with Joanna and Bethany and will miss their enthusiasm, patience and artistic talent!

Stay tuned for more to come!!

April Showers

Hard to believe it's April already! Francisco and I have had a fruitful last few months at the ol' art site and there is much to report. January was a sort of 'resettling in' after our much needed three-week vacation. It was a time to reconnect with our local students and to re-envision our goals for the school. February brought in some alumni of ours and at just the right time, too! Students International leadership approached me to ask if some of our students might be interested in painting a bunch of 'cuadros' (paintings) to sell at the base. I jumped on the opportunity and quickly ordered all of the canvases and paint. The next day one of our best past students lost his job and came by to visit us. I asked him if he'd want to participate and for the next 5 weeks he came and painted everyday, sometimes up to 7 hours a day. In the beginning, Luis Miguel, who just turned 16, would have to walk from home which took him over an hour. After selling a few paintings he was able to buy himself a bicycle to get around. Providing this opportunity for Luis Miguel to earn money while using his God-given talent is what the art site is all about.

March initiated the beginning of 'teams season'. Our first team this year was from faithful Jupiter Christian School in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jupiter has been coming to the DR for years and it was my first time working with them. I had four teens at my site and they were great! We worked together painting murals at SI's new special ed site in the physical therapy room, played and did art projects with the neighborhood kids in El Callejon, did art in the park and 'hung out' with some of the local shoeshine boys. We also started packing up the art school in preparation for our move inbetween teams. What??? Yes, it's true, after much prayer, God lead us to a location that is more accessible, cleaner, brighter and much more affordable. Team Jupiter helped me to get it clean and ready for the move on their last day. Thanks for all your help guys!

We moved the weekend after they left and then Monday morning I had the next team help me get it all set up. Team two came all the way from San Luis Obispo, California (my hometown!) and I had a mix of college and high school students. This team took on the challenge of designing and painting two signs for our Centro Especial Genesis location. We also went into El Callejon to paint kids' faces and to do art in the park. This team brought a lot of much needed humor and unity. You are missed FPC!!

Since then, I am happy to report that Francisco has caught an inspirational wind again and has been painting like crazy!! Working alongside Fran is contagious and so I've started painting, too. It is such a privilege for us to be using the talents that God has given us as a ministry and to share God's passion for the arts with those who come through our doors.

Thanks to all who have come down and to all who support us from afar.

We are blessed!


Fran's new office

Our front room

Our kitchen and 'dining'area

Our main drawing room