This week was not without its setbacks. The first hurdle we had to overcome was the weather. The forecast for Monday to Wednesday was of constant light and sometimes heavy showers. The artist, Lydia Caprani, was travelling from Hull and staying all week here, so there was really no margin for delays, and it was obvious that constant rain would devastate the outdoor project. Painting in rain just doesn’t work. The paint just runs! The project itself had been delayed over a year because of Covid-19; if we couldn’t manage to paint in July, when on earth could we hope to do it?!
On Sunday afternoon and evening we had a thunderstorm and torrential rain. This could not even be called a heavy shower. Garry and I went to the site to pray for fine, dry weather as the rain lashed around us. I reckoned that if this project was God’s idea and not just my own crazy imagination, then He would have to do something about the weather, because I surely couldn’t. I reckoned that this was not without Biblical precedent: Elijah commanded the heavens to be dry and there was no rain for three years until he prayed again for rain to come (see 1 Kings 17-21). Jesus commanded the waves and wind to cease. (Mark 4:35-41) I needed God to demonstrate not only to me that He was in control of the elements (I knew that) but to show others something of His power. For me, I needed to know that this project was something He cared about and therefore I needed to see His power in action in visible, specific ways.
God’s faithfulness in this area was a great blessing to someone who finds it hard to let go of control, to someone who lives with self-doubt every single day. Each morning, the sky would be ominously grey and the spits of rain would be present. Each day I would command the rain to go in Jesus’ name and sing the chorus of ‘Build Your Kingdom Here’ in faith. Each morning, people would tell me ‘it’s not looking good today, is it?’ and each day I would say, ‘we’ll be fine; God can sort this.’ Each lunchtime without fail, the rain would pour down; each afternoon when we returned to the site after lunch, the rain would stop. People laughed as I told the black clouds to move on and asked God for blue sky, but despite one torrential downpour on Wednesday at 5 p.m. which meant a lot of touching-up the next day, the rain held off and Thursday and Friday were bright and sunny. “We were lucky with the weather, weren’t we?” someone commented towards the end of the week. I said that luck had nothing to do with it!
A community project involves all aspects of the community, and the plan was for 5 schools to be involved. Covid-19 had already dented our original plans, limiting each school to six pupils on site, but even that was thwarted. In the end, none of the schools could come, either because of staff shortages, positive Covid-19 tests forcing self-isolation onto pupils and staff or simply wariness because of increasing infection rates. It was disappointing not to have children involved in the project, but the adults who came along willingly to help worked hard and the project was completed on schedule even after this setback.
Pete Davies, a local resident and friend of the arts’ festival, came along twice each day to capture our progress on camera. What I found so wonderful about his photos is the way he captured the spirit of the work that week. Lydia, the artist, told me that she loved having photos like that because it reminded her not only of the work of art itself but the people who had helped create that art. Community projects are never just about the finished project; they are about the teamwork and sheer fun which go along with the journey.
