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!