The GO Mosaic Project: Shaping Broken Pieces

Before beginning her graduate studies at Yale University this fall, artist Megan Mitchell led a team of eight women to Haiti earlier this month to create a beautiful, wall-sized tile mosaic for a children’s community in Croix des Bouquets. The mosaic theme would be based on the passage from John 14:2 that reads “…in my Father’s house there are many rooms….”

For the children who struggle with the loss and abandonment of parents and family, Megan and her team wanted to reassure them with God’s promise of heaven.

The plan was to work with GO Project’s pastor-partner, Joesph Kesnel, and to co-create the mosaic with the children in his community.

Pastor Kesnel selected a wall for the team to create the mosaic on. It faced the street outside where the local community of Croix des Bouquets came each day to get their supply of clean drinking water. A window in the wall with a small metal door allowed customers to make their purchases.

The grey concrete wall felt bland and uninviting, not reflecting the spirit of Pastor Kesnel’s vision inside the wall: to care for scores of orphaned and abandoned children.

What happened next was an unexpected blessing.

As Megan and her team prepared the wall, assembled the materials and broke ceramic tiles into small pieces for the mosaic, a small group of volunteers from the community appeared. Interested and willing to help with the project, the passers-by began to collaborate with the children and the American artists.

Quickly, the mosaic began to take shape. A river emerged from the wall. Then a landscape. Then a sky and a sunrise. And then a cross and a dove above it.

When the team of children, locals and Americans completed the mosaic, a local sign painter stepped up and scribed a verse from the Bible that Pastor Kesnel selected. It was John 17:2, which reads “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.”

Within a few short days, Megan and her team transformed thousands of broken pieces of colored tile into a beautiful and uplifting mosaic about God’s promise of heaven. And, like each tile piece, we are part of God’s beautiful mosaic, broken as we are. Yet, working together in God’s love we are capable of creating and sharing His joy and beauty with those around us.