Janet's Retrospect

What a day!

Yesterday we cleaned in The Sanctuary, scraping paint off the floors, using some high powered solvent to get paint off the door frames. It was a lot of hot, hard work, down on our knees all day. I think we all went home pretty tired and some of us not feeling too well. I have managed to come down with a cold which, like any summer cold, is the pits. Oh well, I am thankful that we packed some Sudafed!

But today...what a day! We worked at Rahab’s House painting the mural that was sketched on the wall yesterday by Sean, Adrianna, Melanie and Karen. We started with Sean mixing a big pail full of green and blue paint and we began to paint the grass and the sky. Instead of cutting in ceilings and door frames, we were cutting in kids, sheep, flowers and Jesus! As we painted, we attracted a lot of attention in the community, both from children and adults. Kids seemed to come out of the woodwork and of course, each one wanted to help paint. We were working in the front entrance of the building which is open to the street so adults walking by stopped to watch and even motos going by slowed to take a look.

Then we began to paint in the flowers—pink, red, yellow, blue—and the children in colourful outfits. Some of the younger kids actually did help with the flowers and the older girls helped with the faces of the children. A couple of the girls really stood out for me. One, in her school uniform, came and sat beside me to watch. Then she asked for my paint brush. I hesitated, not sure how well she would paint, but gave it to her. (I also thought that it would cause a stampede of boys and girls each wanting a turn, but it didn’t). She very carefully dipped the brush in the paint and proceeded to delicately paint a flower. Then I watched as one of the older girls fixed up a plain red flower by adding pink radiating out from the middle—not unlike many of the flowers we have seen here. She was making it Cambodian. As I watched these children I couldn’t help but think that, in spite of the conditions around them and perhaps the unspeakable things they may be forced to do, they are still just girls who enjoy drawing and painting and being creative. It was a treat to interact with them.

It was just a fun, wonderful day and it passed so quickly.

Janet