Summer has arrived and I have never been so excited to have warmer weather...winter lasted way too long...we had snow flurries on May 1:/ I was counting down the days for the snow banks to melt away, too. But alas, summer is here again and there is nothing like a summer in Minneapolis...the 70's are finally here!!!(Source Golf Tournament...Mandy is working with us at Source this summer)
Okay, enough about the weather, here are some updates on what has been happening!
Disgrace: Good Friday Art Exhibit
We had our annual Disgrace: Good Friday art exhibit/interactive service April 22...We had over 100 people show up to view individuals' artistic representations of the stations of the cross before Jesus' death. People scattered the building throughout the night to watch, listen, and participate in visual art, spoken word, poetry, and music centered on the stations of the cross leading up to Jesus' death and resurrection. You can see more pictures on facebook!
Traveling Art Exhibit: Human Trafficking Awareness
MayDay & Demand Change
May Day was a great success th
is year! Check out our facebook pictures from the event...We recruited/created art to be part of a traveling art exhibit to raise awareness and benefit sex-trafficking victims in the midwest. We had several pieces created based around the fact that these women have to “take a number” to wait in line to get help to transition out of abusive situations. The focus is to spotlight statistics based on the domestic issue of sex traffic
king, prostitution, and the lack of opportunities for these women to get out. This show made its initial appearances at the Minneapolis May Day festival and the Demand Change events in May 2011. (View the event that we joined as a creative awareness project from the awareness art pieces from Breakin
g Free's Demand Change awareness weekend!-Raising awareness of the many victims in the midwest of commercial sexual exploitation).
Annex Construction & Women's Creativity Night
We've had lots of volunteer groups coming through and helping out with the renovation of the annex, the home we are preparing for women transitioning out of sex trafficking. While we are providing more housing as well as Christian community to surround these women, we are still partnering with Breaking Free, an organization providing education and services to women who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation (prostitution/sex-trafficking) and need assistance escaping the violence in their lives. We will be opening up the home in the fall! I'm also excited to say that I will be leading a creativity night with some of the women that will be moving into our transitional housing through this project. The evenings will consist of a meal, creativity, and prayer time for one another. We had our first gathering, getting to know one another, creating self-portrait collages, and sharing them with one another at the end of the night...I will share more in my next blog!
Community Garden
So the house that I'm living in has been located next to an ugly, empty lot that mostly just collected trash from passers-by, but this summer it has been transformed into a community garden! We're really excited about it because it's going to be another great way for us to be involved in the neighborhood...the Fallout has a garden plot that we are going to keep up and involve our kids club with as well.
*Please continue to pray for me as I prepare for the summer and as I continue to build relationships within the community, from the people in my church, the homeless in my neighborhood, the artists that we host, the Somali/hispanic families that I see everyday, and the gardeners that I meet next door...and the Women's Creativity Night :)
