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.