To all of my artistic, hipster, aesthetically driven people. This one’s for you.
Since the Race has started, my mind has been so focused on building community within my team and squad, completing the daily tasks at hand and discovering who God is calling me to be. Being away from Portland and my creative environment that I cultivated back home, made me realize that it’s still very much a huge part of who I am. Like I wrote in my previous blog, Nicaragua is my jam. I love it here so much, the people, the buildings, the colors, all the things. It’s so artistic and has sparked a lot of my creativity and my joy, but because of my past with the art community, I never thought to bring Jesus into my artistic side, let alone think that being creative could be used as a ministry opportunity.
I’ve been categorizing my walk with the Lord for as long as I can remember. I would place God in this box and make sure that I fulfilled my time with Him, reading the word, praying, worshipping, but rarely would I incorporate Him in my art. I would make layouts, take photos, design cards and create things without even acknowledging His presence. This hit me hard one day when I realized, my work and my talents were never my own, they have always been His. It’s because of Him that He’s gifted me with the ability to take photos. He created and crafted me in His image. The Lord has been wanting me to invite Him to a place where He can be the core of my passion in what I love, creating.
I started to realize that ministry is in everything. I can’t control my environment all the time, like what my team and I do for ministry or how often we get to invest in the people around us, but I do have the freedom to create my own form of what I want to invest in on my off time and make that a ministry in itself. It’s like art. I stumbled upon La Sirena at a time I needed it the most. I was ready for some much needed alone time and so I decided to wander around Granada with hopes of finding solitude, coffee and new things to photograph.
La Sirena opened that door for me. The room was so open and inviting with naturally lit artwork all over the place. The aroma of the room was filled with paints, metals and coffee. Roberto, Melanie & Hilbert were in the studio making prints to sell in the market. The first thing I noticed about the studio was how these artists were not afraid of letting strangers in to see the process, to see the mess. They were delighted to invite me in for a cup of coffee and chat in broken Spanish about their creative process. I felt so encouraged being there and continued to listen and hear more about Nicaraguan art. God is truly a hand-crafter. He called me to that place for a reason, to remind me that I don’t have to categorize Him away from the things I love that don’t seem like you’d find them in a church or a ministry site. I can include Him. I learned that He wants us, all of us, just the way He made us. God created me to love and appreciate local artists and I can’t wait to see what He does with this passion of mine this year. I felt so encouraged to go out and find opportunities to connect with artists and build relationships to share the gospel through art with them. This is only the beginning, but I’m learning not to hide my messy, creative process from Jesus because I know that He will always love me through the mess and make something beautiful with me when I let Him in.
Love, B.
