Siloam Danish Mission Boarding Home, Tirukoilur, India
Our art and teaching have led us to India, where nearly three weeks were spent near Chennai. We had designed a prayer canvas for Quo Vadis, an interfaith dialogue center in Tiruvannamalai. Our travels took our LPGM group to Siloam Boarding School, where nearly seven hundred girls live and are educated. Siloam is located in the heart of the Arcot region in the town of Tirukoiler. The headquarters of the Arcot Lutheran Church School Project is located on the Siloam campus along with a school, boarding home and church.
Siloam is where I met Pr. Janne Anita, an amazing woman who is the Deputy Manager of the school. She is a teacher and tasked with the education of the girls. She also had a love for art and asked if I would talk to a number of the girls who were serious about their art. We gathered one evening and found, with the help of a translator, their art to be a language that allowed them to express their stories. I met, Priyanka, who is pictured with me above and found her to be a very gifted artist. We spent a long time talking about what art meant to her and how she found it to be a spiritual language.
That night after our conversation, she found art materials and stayed up most of the night drawing the Taj Mahal. Priyanka knew I was leaving in the morning for Northern India and wanted to see the Taj. That morning she found me on the campus before I left for Delhi. Priyanka presented me with this amazing drawing as a gift of our new friendship.
See more conversation in EARTH and ART
