Arts opens hearts

On a beautiful day in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, a woman sits in a public park, painting the scenery in front of her. Dipping her brush in the brightly-coloured paints, she spreads them across the page. The breeze lifts her hair, carrying the scents of incense, olive oil and spices with it.   

The act of creating and her slow, steady movements catches the eye of a young woman who comes to look over her shoulder. “What are you doing?” the woman asks. She is the mother of some of the children playing nearby.  

“Would you like to paint with me?” Eve* asks.  

“Oh, I couldn’t,” the woman shyly shakes her head, backing away.  

Eve pats the spot on the bench next to her. “Yes, you can. You have the right to play and be creative just as your children are right now. Come join me.”  

Pioneering through creativity  

Eve and her husband, Peter*, met while serving in the MENA region. They married, had children and served as a family overseas, before returning to Europe for what was intended to be a short time. However, they ended up staying for more than a decade. Then, with their children grown, Peter and Eve decided to return to MENA to share God’s love with the people they had grown to love.  

“What motivates both of us is being pioneers, going places where others are not,” Eve explained. As young adults, both of them separately committed to serving in Muslim-majority countries after realising just how few believers live there. When they returned to MENA, they chose an area to live in specifically where there are no other believers.   

While returning to MENA and even the community they chose to move to did not come as a surprise, other things did. “We have been re-learning everything — from the changes the area has undergone in the past 10+ years, to cultural nuances and generational differences. People interact with you differently as members of a different generation,” Eve shared.   

They had assumed they would set up a business in their new community, giving them a way to build relationships immediately, but God had other plans.   

They realised that it is time for their passion for the arts to become their main ministry.   

“Creativity opens something up in someone in a special way; it creates opportunities for talking, especially one-on-one. Arts open hearts. My favourite times are when I meet someone while I am creating something and I can have deep conversations with them,” Eve shared.   

“If we are involved in public events, we obviously don’t use the microphone to preach about our faith, we’re always asked to share about our faith, and all the time we get into extremely deep conversations about Kingdom values. We’ve seen the impact of these conversations in the lives of the young adults, as they say things like: ‘I realised even small lies are wrong, so I went back and apologised for lying to someone I had lied to.’”  

Connections have also been made with local artists throughout the area, who also love the arts.   

Peter and Eve are clear on their roles. They are pioneers, not ‘maintainers’. They are now seeking younger artists who can build on what has been started and work on building connections and relationships within our community and region: “Our job was to open the doors for those to carry it on.”  

To this end, Peter and Eve will continue to invite both short-term groups and those interested in coming long-term to serve communities through the arts. 

One of the unique options available right now for both artists and others with a calling to serve the people of MENA, is STEP into MENA, which is a four-month training programme for making disciples within the MENA context.    

If you have a passion for making disciples within an Arab context, click here for information about STEP into MENA: https://www.om.org/eng/opportunities/step-mena-2025