Hello world!  My name is Zach Smith and I work for LUO here in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa.  In the days to come I will be sharing some of the LUO journey with you and I hope you’ll check back every Monday for my weekly updates on the happenings in ZA.

-May your hearts be full of…

Love. Joy. Peace.

Zach

As the teachers prepared materials for the first charcoal sketching class, the room full of children looked on with eager anticipation.  Each child’s eyes’ excitedly followed the teachers’ hands as they pulled out sketching paper and boxes full of charcoal pencils from their bags.  It was like Christmas morning and a soft, energized whisper began to fill the room.   “What is in those boxes?” their faces seemed to ask.  The kids were on the edge of their seats as the boxes were opened and their contents were spilled onto each table.  However, a strange, puzzled look formed where joyful smiles had been moments before.  One brave child picked up a piece of charcoal and as if speaking for the entire group, matter-o-factly said, “I thought we were going to draw, this is for making fire.” His peers’ quizzical brows and heads nodded in agreement as if to say, “you can’t fool us, we are onto you.”  For someone who had never used charcoal pencils to draw, the pile did resemble the wood charcoal they use for cooking.  We all had a good laugh after explaining that it was indeed for drawing.

At Ithemba we are revamping our afterschool tutoring/mentoring program.  In doing so, we are trying to create an environment that pulls children in, that is, programs that kids actually WANT to be apart of.  A large component of the new programming focuses the ever-fabulous “arts,” specifically real art and dance.  Here is why-

Art attempts to capture beauty, to encapsulate the ethos of an idea or moment with all its nuanced shading, to celebrate burgeoning creativity, to tell a story in form.  For most of us beauty is all around.  We live in a world of beautiful people and of beautiful places.  In many cases humans champion beauty, even worship it. The longing for beauty is woven in the very fabric of out soul, an invisible thumbprint of the Creator God.

Yet for some beauty is not so obvious; their reality speaks of decay and their lives are painted with hardship.  I don’t mean to imply that art doesn’t exist in these places, because art is everywhere, but rather a formal space is not carved out to celebrate art.  Perhaps these are the places and people that need art the most- to serve as a reminder that beauty does exist in a broken.  A splash of color here or stroke of the brush there may bring life where it once was forgotten.

Life, abundant, beautiful life is what we want for the kids we serve at Ithemba.  We want them to know that their Heavenly Father is not only Creator but has also gifted them with the ability to create.  This is now our second week of the art program and let me tell you, create they have.  IT’S BEEN AWESOME!  To see kids, who think they can’t make anything, glow in pride after realizing that they can create has been priceless.   As they realize they CAN do something, their confidence and self worth continue to grow- all this through art.

Liza Marie, the local art teacher who is helping run the program, has already identified some kids who have some talent.  Because of the new program we will be able to foster their artistic gift, as we continue to develop well-rounded children.  How cool is that?  Liza Marie has been a great teacher and encourager for the kids and we’re excited about her commitment to Ithemba.

I could keep going but I’ll let the pictures do their “thing.”