Ok, so the Evangelism never really panned out for me, so I decided one day to find an art store and start doing some paintings. The first painting came from my frustration of really feeling defeated by trying to Evangelize to people. This girl represents me. She is playing music on her guitar, but feels sad because she feels she’s supposed to be doing more. I felt that, by painting in Ireland, in a way, I was hiding behind what I already knew how to do. I felt that I was, at all costs, avoiding the actual ministry we were called to Ireland to do. I can’t say that picking up a paintbrush wasn’t refreshing and comfortable. It made me feel normal after a few weeks of only showering every third day, being cold and wet most of the time, and being frustrated at my lack of ability to tell people about Jesus.
After telling a friend what it meant to me, she said that she didn’t see that at all. She saw that this girl was using her art to tell people about Jesus. I still felt inadequate, like I was letting God down, my team down and I actually began to think to myself “why in the world am I here”. This is the first time any doubt had entered my mind about being on this trip. After I embraced the fact that I wasn’t going to be any good at evangelizing in the way Abundant Life church was teaching us, I created these paintings, some during worship and others just during our ministry time. I felt like I was giving up, but in the end, these paintings turned out to be a blessing to a lot of people around me.
I didn’t really know what to do with these paintings, since they wouldn’t really fit in my pack. I decided that the church of Abundant Life (where we were helping to evangelize) had done so much for us in the way of cooking us meals, inviting us to their private homes for meals and company, and just showing us such pure joy in knowing the Lord, that I would give the paintings to the members of the church.
The first painting of the girl with a guitar called “Behind the Art” went to Jacinta (A woman who invited us into her new home even before she was fully moved in to spend the night and take real showers!!!)
I wrote this verse on the back of hers: Matthew 16:25 “If you try to hang onto your life you will lose it, But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
This painting “Sharing in the Light” went to Alan (who picked us up every day, was with us during our ministry and brought us his own personal microwave when we broke the church’s).
This painting called “Walk in the Light” went to a woman who took it upon herself to make us two different meals at the church.
This is the verse I picked for it. Ephesians 5:8 “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as children of the light.” My idea here stemmed from the fact that most of us who already know of salvation through Jesus still choose to walk in darkness, but the light is right there if we only choose to walk in it, we can be made whole again because of what Jesus did for us.
And this last one called “Bearing Fruit” I gave to another amazing woman Michele who invited us into her home (‘us’ being 22 people, into a home no bigger than 1000 square feet), cooked us lamb and chicken and about 10 other side dishes.
