Esperanza Para Aquiles

About a month and a half ago now (woah- where does the time go?!), I got to make a dream of mine come true and paint a mural. Not only that, but I got to do it in a very special place with a very special piece. When I first posted the pictures on my Facebook page, a lot of people asked me what it was/why I was painting it/where it was, so this is the story of  "Esperanza para Aquiles" .

It all began when I took Printmaking I last semester. Though I started to quickly fall in love with that medium, I knew that the things I was doing with it didn't really mean that much to me. I was simply going through the motions to create something that would give me good grades. I quickly realized what a pitfall that would be to my work and my sanity, and so I started to scroll through my camera roll on my computer to find something (anything at this point,) that would spark something in my soul.

And there he was, the weathered, worn to the bone, exhausted cart donkey stared me down. The trashed and muddy field glared behind him. Such a stark reminder to me of what brokenness and sorrow truly looked like. There was something more than that in the picture though. I couldn't help but see the beautiful creature God had created. The beauty of something that is a sign of shame in these parts. The trash collectors in Aquiles Serdan (a small neighborhood between the red light district and dump in Reynosa, MX) were once described in the local newspaper as, "The necessary evil." The thought that a human being could be seen as a necessary evil for simply trying to raise and support a family just disgust me.

And so- "Esperanza para Aquiles" (Hope for Aquiles) was born. Turning a symbol of poverty (the cart-pulling donkey), into a symbol of beauty. This is how I see the hardworking people of Aquiles and more important, this is how they are seen in God's eyes. The brokenness and trash filled background is now filled with beauty and craftsmanship. It is filled with the beauty of the Mexican culture (typical Mexican tiles). He sees everything around us and accepts us how we are and yet he forms us into reflectors of all the most magnificient things. There is hope for these people and that hope is Christ. Only in him can there be renewal, refinement, and restoration.

This mural is now in my parent's front yard, on a wall at their tiny house in Aquiles. I hope as people pass by they will stop and look at the black and teal through the steel gate, and truly see that hope. That they will see that we love them and see them as beautiful, perhaps for the first time in their lives. I hope they see this as a symbol of the next chapter. This is only the beginning of something beautiful God is doing in Aquiles.