Illustrator needs guidance

by Ilka
(Rome, Italy)

Dear friends,
I am an illustrator currently working on a project in my home country South Africa. We are creating a curriculum for churches to use for teaching children about God. They are developing ‘ready- made’ lessons for every week consisting of songs, stories, and activities that children can do. This is great for people who would like to teach but are unable to develop teaching materials themselves.
As I said, I am the illustrator so I create all the pictures and images for the texts and stories from the Bible that the children learn. For me it is a great honor and privilege to be able to “show” these young eyes what God “looks” like, to make my pictures fascinating and something they can identify with. I have the honor, the power and the responsibility to make these stories visible and we all know that a good picture is worth more than a thousand words. My pictures can reach hearts.
We have covered some scary stories in the Bible or things that are hard to understand if you are only 4 years old but I was able to portray these stories in a way that will not frighten a child away from God or make him afraid at night. For example, a story like Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac can be very frightening for children, but every time I have been able to produce images that tell the truth without scaring anyone;
I am however working on a series of Jesus and His miracles and we are also doing the story where Jesus was tempted by Satan. In this series I was asked to depict Satan and I am really going to need your prayers because this is a hard one! I obviously do not want the red horned little guy with the fork and we also don’t want to frighten anyone.
I ask that you will pray for me and this program. Pray for me to be a channel through which God can show these children who He is and what he has done for us. I need the guidance of the Holy Spirit while I’m working. I need to see once again, like I did with the others, these pictures in my own mind in order to create them.
I thank you all.
Love, light and laughter