Creative Arts Glorifies God!

HEAL Ministries has worked with at least 50 teams since 2007. All teams have been very different. But out of all the teams, we just said good-bye to the most unique one. Lipscomb University sent some students with their leader, TJ McCloud to run a creative arts week here at the James Place. Other teams have worked in the creative arts area but this team is unique because of the outcome.

The outcome: Over 100 women and over 600 children worked with this team. All the women were in HEAL's program, 300 children were in HEAL's KIDS CLUB, 200 were at a village school that we work with, 100 were at Canaan Children's Home and even more were at CRO of Jinja and Jinja Secondary School.

Working with that amount of people in one week is an accomplishment but the BIGGEST accomplishment is that each person felt love and excitement. Each person was able to reveal his/her own personal story expressed in art. Each person used art to glorify God in all that He has done. Each story was beautiful. Some revealed happiness and sadness through dance. Some painted representations of God's glory in her own life. Some wrote lyrics of the past, the present and the future.

There was song-writing, singing, playing musical instruments, dance and art. Some of the songs and art made me smile and some of it made me cry. One piece of art that stands out is the one of a home and around the home it says "I want my family to be like the James Place." At first when TJ pointed this out to me it made me sad because I thought of it as a person wishing for something. But as I pondered over the art, I realized that God is doing a BIG thing here. He is showing family love to so many people. He is showing what a family is supposed to look like. He is changing things. With God's love, everyone can be a part of a happy family.

One of the song's that stands out to me this week is a sweet lady that sang about God's love and how it changed her. She sang that she "used to be a drunkard, a thief, and a liar but God's love changed her." And then I realized that the artist with the home wishing to be like the James Place is possible. I can now look at the art and be happy because God's love WILL change the family. Some of us are blessed to have a front row seat while the changes happen. Others come and go (but help us strengthen the relationships) and plant seeds through dance, music and painting. All of us work together in the body of Christ. And that is a very beautiful thing called family.