It’s been quite the incredible past few weeks since last I posted! Ever since I got to this place people have raved and spoken about ‘Carnival Outreach’. But really it wasn’t until I was in the thick of it did I understand the grand scale of such a festival. Once a year, crowds flock to this 6-day long ‘block party’. There are parades, concerts, food stands, contests, and many, many, MANY people. A lot traveling from out of town to enjoy the festivities. Carnival is Mazatlan’s biggest event of the year, not to mention the 3rd largest Carnival celebration in the world, following New Orleans and Rio De Janeiro. For us Americans, it is the equivalent to Mardi Gras. What a way to launch into this Lenten season of reflection and repentance.
YWAM Mazatlan’s heart for their city really palpitates during this time. All ministries, classes, and responsibilities halt and it’s all hands on deck to serve and minister to the masses, right in our own backyard. For about a week our schedules shifted, we worshipped and prayed every morning (for a whopping 2 hours!), prepped with our teams, and spent our 8PM-1AM’s out in the thick of the crowds. It was thrilling, powerful, and exhausting. In the mix of all the chaos and noise, we loved on people, gave out free coffee, had every sort of conversation under the sun, made public art, and most importantly got to preach the Gospel in an attainable way to God’s beloved ones amidst the clatter.
I was naturally on the art team and had the privilege of getting to do live painting 2 nights in a row and portrait drawing the next. Neither have I done on the spot, let alone publicly. But it was indeed, such a rich time. Out of my usual, a tad uncomfortable, which left all the more room for the Holy Spirit to use me for creative, new things.
One of the many concerts that occured during the week. There are multiple stages down the Malecon (the boardwalk that houses the whole of Carnival).
highlights:
THE PROCESS of team collaboration for live painting. This was such a different method of teamwork that I’ve ever experienced before. I sat down with 3 other people and we prayed over this painting we would be doing in the thick of Carnival. We asked God to reveal images, colors, words, bible texts, and more. From there we worked together to edit and sketch a rough plan of what we felt the Lord was wanting us to portray on the canvas that particular evening. We repeatedly returned to prayer and humbly submitted ourselves to the process of listening to God and each other. The painting’s themselves were wonderful and so much fun to create with others, even a few passerby’s jumped in. But I personally savored the time I had working with my teammates on this piece that was going to potentially stir hearts, speak to people, and ultimately bring God glory. By the 2nd night I was so ready and pumped to get back in it to see how God would continue to work in and through another piece!
PORTRAIT DRAWING. On my last night of Carnival I was on the ‘Giveaway Art and Portraits team’. This team parked themselves at the cafe ministry that was set up to attract guests for a quick free coffee and place to hang out and make a friend. For about 3 hours I sat with person after person and drew their portraits in 5-15 minute increments (depending on how much they squirmed) and then gifted them with their little piece of art. Y’know those moments where you recognize how much you actually received by doing an act of service or kindness, in fact likely more than the recipient? This was one of those nights for me. There’s something that shifts in the air, and even in your interactions with a human being, when you’re forced to pause and be with them for a solid chunk of time, intently focused on their face. I had the honor of doing that at least 15 times that night. I was made aware of God’s thumbprint on each man, woman, child that I had in my seat. I sensed their belovedness, their focus on my face, soaked in the pure connection we were forming without noise or distraction in the way, enjoyed the process of observing how God crafted their eyes, nose, and lips. I believe that He created us to be in that sort of communion with one another. It just feel too right and pure to not be from Him.
1ST TASTE OF ART EVANGELISM OUTREACH. It was so good dipping my toes into the water of what potentially our outreach trip will look like (which starts in approximately 1 month!). But more importantly, it was so amazing to witness how impactful art is as a ministry tool! Art causes people to stop, pause, soak, and potentially engage. It has the power to welcome viewers rather than aggressively shoving the Gospel into their faces. I even had a girl from the States that stopped to chat about one of the live paintings and I wound up sharing the entirety of Jesus’ life to resurrection and God’s love of creativity with her! Look at what a simple image of a lion and lamb can provoke. But what struck me was when she commented on how ingenious and gentle our ‘method’ was, and just how much she appreciated that.
YWAM MAZ’S COMMITMENT TO THEIR CITY. I was so utterly encouraged by this base’s passion to jump, head-first in to this city’s festivities. Not only did they recognize the amazing opportunity, but never once has it even been an option to keep the goodness of the Lord within the confines of this building. I want to embody that. In wherever place, whatever chapter or context, I want to possess that mission to love on my city and join rather than distance. Because really, isn’t that what Jesus did and commanded? He was in the thick of all the commotion and crazy.
Photos from the 1st night of live painting. This painting was inspired by our team’s prayers; themes of the Lion and Lamb, the color yellow, honey comb, unity, and happiness. I got to paint with my classmate Jhon Freddy (who by the way only speaks Spanish, so you can imagine how much I was stretched in that process) who was an amazing partner and rolled with the punches alongside of me. As you can see, the piece evolved into an interactive activity with the kiddos and peaked many conversations.
*Fun fact, the tails on the lion and lamb were not in the original sketch. A vendor was strolling by and mentioned they were missing, so I made him paint them in.
Two new friends that I made, my last portraits of the evening, and my classmate Hannah on the right. This is the clearest picture I had of us all, which will tell you about how hysterical these ladies were. So much giggling and exchanging of life. They asked us to pray with them at the end.
The above pics are from the 2nd night of live painting. This piece was inspired by Isaiah 43:2, the phrase ‘breath of life’, a teammate’s testimony, and lots of contributing color and motion. I was most excited about this artwork because this team was so awesome to work with and I felt a little more warmed up to jump in since I kinda knew what we were coming up against for the night. The cool thing about this particular one was that it was so open to interpretation and surprisingly a lot of people wanted to stop and tell us what they thought it meant. And when we proceeded sharing how we came about the message they often were shocked and intrigued to hear it’s origins. Both nights we also encountered folks that straight up offered to buy the piece on the spot, even when it was in it’s early stages of development! After sensing God’s opinion on it, we were fully ready to hand the paintings over as gifts from the Lord. In the end, we told them to return because we needed to think about it and they never did. Guess it wasn’t meant to be, but still such a cool surprise to encounter people that felt so much of a connection to these pieces in progress that they were willing to give something in exchange for it.
*I love mentioning the diversity of nations in our group whenever I can to you all and the crowds we encountered. Here we have Bern, Nice, Mexico City, and San Francisco all repped.
It was only fitting to end our time with more worship. This was at the park where that giant concert I posted a photo of was held.
thank you for all your prayers over me and ywam mazatlan as we were in the trenches. i know i was carried by them and continue to be.
All photos are courtesy of YWAM Mazatlan’s communications and media team.