~By Danielle
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness…” -John Keats
At this present moment our office situation is anything but a thing of beauty. For the past couple years Baby Safe has been driving back and forth using various rooms and amenities other ministries have graciously lent us. We’re either down the back halls into the tiny white room with the leaky ceiling at a local church, in the over-crowded, busy, and VERY yellow All Nation office at Africa House, or we’re shuffling around other organizations and trying to find a spare room at the meeting places in the communities. Don’t get me wrong, we’re grateful! Each of these places provides space and services as they are able and for free. But we daily pray and long for a place to call our own.
As we are praying and working towards this goal, we recently received a very generous and beautiful gift. Ellen Spencer is an artist in California who knew of Bethany through mutual friends; her work has a strong African influence and often centers around women and celebration. In hearing about Bethany and our work here Ellen contacted Baby Safe and offered TWO of her paintings, framed and shipped, as a gift to our office and the women who will enter it. We were overwhelmed! The pieces recently arrived; “Mother and Baby” capturing the special bond between a woman and her child, and “The Dancers” exhibiting the beauty of women rejoicing. Both so perfectly capture the heart of our ministry here!
In our work here we find beauty in the most difficult of circumstances and the unlikeliest places. We see it in a woman’s choice to give life to her child, in sometimes making the sacrifice of choosing another family to raise him, in hope-filled eyes where once there was despair. Every day we advocate to see mothers raised up and freedom where there was bondage; “Beauty for ashes and garments of praise for heaviness.” So as we continue to move towards a permanent office on our own property, we pray that it would be a place of hope, freedom, celebration, and beauty; and we pray these lovely gifts will be a constant encouragement and reminder of this to our own team and to every woman who walks through our doors!
http://www.ellenspencer.com/