Teaching for the Visual Arts for Missions

In Christian, Create International, teaching, Visual Arts for Missions, YWAM by Keegan

This past week I took time off my full-time work in the production room here at Create to do something that absolutely gets my blood running; teaching.

I’m not sure why it is a love teaching, it’s not as if I ever thought of being a teacher, but it really does give me joy. I enjoyed it at St Patrick’s with the younger students. I loved it back at Lifeway, teaching high-schoolers, and primary, or highschool teachers. I love it even more in those short moments in life when you get to pass on some skill, or even just some knowledge, interesting or obscure. When I needed a bit of extra money to raise for the FFS I held lessons for those who wanted it. There is just something that is en-joy-able about teaching. The passing on of knowledge or skill, especially if you’re passionate about it, is wonder-filled. The look on a students face when she understand what you’re saying, or that moment, near the end, when you could walk out the room whilst they are working, and they wouldn’t even notice. They have caught the bug you’re attempting to give them, they’ve learnt all they need to know to do what is expected, and more, they understand how to problem-solve, and all of a sudden you’ve worked yourself out of the job, and it’s brilliant.

So it was this week with the VAM (Visual Arts for Missions School). The school itself is an arts school inside of the University of Nations, which focuses on fine arts for unreached people groups with a strong focus on contextualization and ethno-arts. This year they went to Nepal, and they are currently working on an animated short, using paintings they have done in the native style. My job was to teach them a program called Motion, which will be used to take those still paintings, and turn them into a dynamic, animated piece of work that can be used to evangelize the Newar people of Nepal. I taught the majority of the week, and the students did very, very well. The photo above is one of the students and their teachers.

I do hope that I will get the opportunity to do more teaching in the future, even if it’s just helping to upskill those that work within Create Thailand. Skills-improvement is something that has been on my heart lately, and something that is being kept into consideration while we start to shift the ways in which we work over here in Thailand. Nevertheless, I am back to production work next week, which is amazing, I will keep people updated when appropriate.

It is about three weeks before I fly back to New Zealand to see everyone again. Pray for me as my life gets ridiculously more busy, as well as stressful. Good thing I’ve got someone who has it all under control…

God bless

Photos taken by Carla J