Photo used by permission. (c) 2023 Keenan Morgan, Hope's Promise Kenya Connection Trip, Mathare Valley treasure. We walked their community where half a million people live in six square miles of abject poverty. We slipped in its sewage-laced mud; ducked under its live, pirated-electricity wires; crowded into its one-room, windowless homes; gazed over its garbage…Read more Unspeakable Treasure, Tucked Into the Cracks
hope
Hope and transformation in Vietnam
Our friend tells our team that we will visit a village in the mountains where two kids started their lives who are now members of a Hope's Promise family for orphaned children and where Hope’s Promise implements a Thrive scholarship group for thirty orphaned and vulnerable children who live with relatives. That’s about all we…Read more Hope and transformation in Vietnam
Unquenchable
When I was young, I consumed missionary biographies like candy. These people seemed so daring, brave, other-worldly. Pressing to the ends of the earth with a message more valuable than their very lives. I read of men and women who lived for years with unreached people groups, simply to learn the language so the Bible…Read more Unquenchable
Refuge
Refuge; 19.75" x 11.5"; watercolor, ink, acrylic, water-soluble pastel. Another morning. Another heartbreaking headline. Mass shootings, earthquakes, climate change, disease. I wonder, Where can I go to escape this darkness? Even in the highest mountain refuge, the darkness is still there. In me. I think of Jesus’ words in Luke 21:25-28 “There will be signs…Read more Refuge
When God Weeps With Us
Weeping With Us; 2013; 20" x 29 1/2"; mixed media: watercolor, charcoal, pastel. Many years ago, I painted this image about grief and finding God so very present, actually weeping with me in it. Now, please allow me to share with you about a book written by a dear friend of mine that powerfully captures…Read more When God Weeps With Us
When the Physical Expresses the Spiritual
Tonia Nifong and Evelyn Wyss, 40:31 Dance Collective of Colorado Springs, "Hide me in the cleft." I am currently intrigued by the idea of the physical body as a seed for our eternal being, as a tangible hint of transcendent truth. Through artistic studies, I'm ruminating: What if our visceral beings germinate in the soil…Read more When the Physical Expresses the Spiritual
Hope When the World is Deconstructing
Immortal Seeds, Fall; 2022; 19" x 23"; watercolor, ink, acrylic, graphite, chalk. In Autumn, the world deconstructs. Leaves whirl, trees bend, flowers wilt. Do I believe God sometimes rescues us, that God is able to change circumstances with a mere thought? Yes! Absolutely! And sometimes He does. But sometimes fall yields to winter, and nights…Read more Hope When the World is Deconstructing
Evening Song
Evening Song; 2021; 15.5" x 25.5"; watercolor, acrylic, pastel, chalk, graphite, ink. John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome." There was a time not too long ago when the darkness hovered near. Chaotic world events and challenges all around leached me dry. I snuck away to a monastery for…Read more Evening Song
Hope in troubled times…
It's not that I'm ignoring the pain and chaos. No, I am not forgetting, but transcending....