Beautiful Artists

Kyle is winding down his trip. He has two days left. Saturday he will be just hanging out at the compound and resting. He will preach again on Sunday at the church of one of the Ethiopian friends he has met. Then Monday he gets on a plane to make the long trek home! Thanks for all the prayers and the thoughts you have sent our way. It has truly been an amazing trip. I expect to have a couple more posts from him. Tonight, they had the families of the Ethiopian team over - wives, fiances, children. They are hoping to come to Tulsa next September for a conference if they can get visas, so maybe we will get to return some of the hospitality they have shown Kyle. What a blessing!

Also, my friend Shannon made it safely to Peru on Thursday morning. I am hoping to hear more from her soon. Please continue prayers for her.

But you must be wondering about the photo, and how you can get your hands on a set of notecards as beautiful as these! Well, do I have a deal for you...

These notecards are reproductions of original paintings done by patients in two psychiatric hospitals in Azerbaijan. We work in one of these hospitals when we are in the country. The patients at the hospital are given art lessons during the week. The program is sponsored by the humanitarian organization we work with, and as you can see these patients are quite talented. Many of these patients are in the hospital, not because they have been diagonsed with a mental condition, but because their families have dumped them there for various reasons (if the women are thought to have a bad reputation, if a husband has found another woman he wants to marry, if a stepmother doesn't like her stepdaughter, etc.) Unfortunately, after being in the hospital for so many years the patient's mental condition does deteriorate. But as you look at the paintings you see that these patients have so much creativity in them. The conditions in the hospital are so horrible that it is hard to describe. The patients live in a dark world, yet these paintings are filled with beauty and light. But we would like to improve the physical conditions in the hospital, so we are selling these cards for $8 for a set of 8. These would make a great gift, also! If I sound like a commercial, that's okay. We want to sell enough sets to be able to replace the windows in the psychiatric hospital. Tomorrow I will post photos to show you the difference between the old windows and the new windows. It gets cold in the part of Azerbaijan where the hospital is located, and the old windows don't keep out the cold, so the patients get sick. This is the last thing they need - on top of the other health risks in the hospital. So, how many good reasons do you need to buy a set of these cards?...or two sets...or more! I will be peddling them around, and most of you know my email address, but IF you don't know how to find me, please comment and let me know and I will tell you how you can get the cards.