The Santa Cruz district women are planning a very special outreach - offering crafting and cooking classes to ladies in the neighborhood of one of our churches. The goal is to not only offer a life skill and a possible way to increase their income, but also to provide a bridge between the church and the neighborhood and a way to introduce these ladies to Jesus. When I first heard their idea I thought this is really a great idea. When they told me that one of the things they wanted to offer was painting on cloth (table cloths etc.) I immediately thought of a friend of ours who does a very unique form of cloth painting and wondered if she would be willing to give a class to a group of our women who are involved in planning the classes. She was willing so we arranged a date to meet her at her workshop (she works in an orphanage - her paintings help provide money to feed the kids in the home).
On the appointed day, three women plus me (Niki was supposed to go also but something came up and she was unable to go) went for our painting lesson.
Since we were just learning the trade, so to speak, our friend had picked out a simple pattern for painting on the cloth - fish illustrating Jesus' call to make us fishers of men. The first step was to draw the fish with paint.
While waiting for the fish to dry, we toured the orphanage and ate lunch with the kids. After lunch the fish then had to be painted.
By then the kids from the home were back and three of the girls were helping with the painting.
The next step was to fill in the water around the fish.
After a short wait to let everything dry, the canvas had to be washed.
Dried.
Split into appropriate lengths.
The final product - beautiful hand painted scarves.
Now the ladies hope to use this new skill to teach others. The ladies will be inaugurating their Academy of Crafting and Cooking on September 11. Please pray for this outreach that it will result in catching many "fish" for Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment