Mural Time!

At last I got to start the long-anticipated mural painting! This is what I really get jazzed up about.  

There was some initial confusion as to if new murals would be feasible, considering many walls in the orphanage kitchen and bathrooms already had murals, and murals were not wanted in the school. 

However, a few days later, we realized that the main entrance room of the orphanage as well as the bedrooms were bare.  We talked to the house moms and presented a few ideas. However, they really got excited about painting bible stories.  

For the main room, they decided on the stories of Moses and the burning bush, Moses parting the Red Sea, the nativity scene, and John baptizing Jesus. 

Sketches were drawn and paint bought from town a day after the decision was made. 

Of the two large walls each containing one door and two windows, I finished washing one wall, sketching the images, and outlining  it in black paint.  On day two I finished mixing colors and painting one coat top to bottom on the left side of the door and managed to start the right side. 

Since there's no electricity in the orphanage and the windows are fairly small, it was a struggle at times to see the mural as I wanted.  At times I had to crack the door open a certain angle, put my hand up towards the window light so to reflect it on the wall, use my flashlight app on my phone, or use my headlamp.  

Another challenge was using oil based paint. I'm not used to paint that doesn't easily adhere on the wall and produces plenty of drips; I had to go back several times to wipe up the extra. 

The fumes were less than fun as well. The Tonga moms usually wanted to keep the doors closed so that the babies couldn't get inside and potentially mess up the mural.  The downside was that I sniffed a lot of paint and thinner. Later on the second day of painting, as we were doing dinner dishes, I started feeling nauseous. 

While I originally thought the fumes were the culprit that set me back for 24 hours, I was surprised that the other 2 girls living in the same tent as I, as well as another guy, got a similar illness, none of whom spent nearly any time with the paint.  Who knows. 

Our permanent tent was referred to as the sick tent today.  But even as all of us were sick in the cave most of the day, I was thankful to have a day to rest, pray, and reflect. Even now I'm sitting in the sun as its about to go down. Blessings often come in strange boxes.