Francisco and I have had the incredible privilege of hosting these two students from Bethel College, Indiana at the art site for the last two months. Tyler and Michelle came on a semester program with 19 other students to study Spanish and work in occupational ministries with Students International. Originally, each were assigned to a different work site-- Michelle at education, as she is an English major and wants to teach, Tyler at medical, as he came to find out if nursing was something he'd like to pursue. Due to overbooking, these two were placed at my site. It was the hand of God. Tyler and Michelle are both very talented artists and each have the spiritual sensitivity to go along with it. They immediately jumped right in to what we were doing at the art site: hanging out with our students and building relationships with them, making art of their own, cleaning up when it needed to be done, running errands with me, and teaching two mornings a week at a local school.
Along with teaching art at our art school, Ty, Michelle and I spent 5 weeks at Jarabacoa Christian School teaching art and how God feels about art. Our lessons were as follows: Week 1-God as Creator: we read the first few verses in Genesis and the beginning of Psalm 19, talked about creation, shared about Vincent Van Gogh and his life, and we did drawings in crayon based on his Starry Night painting. Week 2- Bezalel and Oholiab: God's Skilled Artists: Exodus 31, talked about our gifts and callings from God and how we are to practice them, become skillful and do them excellently. We shared about artist Cezanne and how he saw everything as though it were encased in shapes. We drew glass bottles, starting with rectangles. Week 3- True Worship vs. Idolatry: the Golden Calf story (how art was used to worship false Gods), talked about how we can use the gifts God has given us in ways that don't please Him; God's perspective vs. man's perspective; featured artist M.C.Escher who was an expert in perspective drawing and then we taught them how to draw some basic perspective. Week 4: Being Made in the Image of God. We talked about what it means to reflect God's image. We showed the self-portraits of Van Gogh, Cezanne and M.C. Escher and then showed the classes Michelle and Tyler's self-portraits that they had worked on. The art project was to draw a self-portrait based not on appearance, but on who they are as image bearers of God. Week 5- God's Love for Cultural Diversity: Tower of Babel (God confuses languages, causing humanity to become different and spread out) and how the 'glory of the nations' will be brought into the New Jerusalem (art being some of that glory). We showed students different art from around the world and then we taught them how to make Origami cranes.
What an amazing time it was. We really bonded with the kids (ranging from 2nd grade to High Schoolers). Here are some photos:
Ashli showing off her self-portrait
Me showing off some African art to the 5th graders
Tyler, Michelle, the 2nd graders and I showing off their origami cranes
A fun time was had by all.
A fun time was had by all.
Tyler and Michelle are finishing up next week and I am really sad to see them go. They have each brought with them some amazing reflections of Christ in His splendiforous array and I will miss them terribly.
No comments:
Post a Comment