World Missions Unveils Anniversary Painting

A brief ceremony was held on Tuesday morning in which a painting commemorating the 125th anniversary of Christian Reformed World Missions was unveiled in the Grand Rapids, Mich. office of the Christian Reformed Church.

The ceremony was beamed live to the CRC offices in Burlington, Ontario, and Palos Heights, Ill.

“The image of this painting will be appearing all over the place — on mousepads, magnets, and sheets of paper paper — as part of our anniversary celebration,” said Steve Van Zanen, CRWM’s director for missions and engagement.

While the painting was the centerpiece of the morning celebration, CRWM has come out with Generations Faithful to His Call: The Christian Reformed Church in Global Missions, a 128-page pictorial history that was to be featured at a booksigning at a local bookstore on Tuesday night.

After the colorful, 50-by-40-inch anniversary painting was unveiled, Van Zanen invited guests, many of them former missionaries, to mingle and have refreshments.

Several took the opportunity to greet Sy Ellens, the artist, who is from Kalamazoo, Mich.

Ellens is a shy man and speaks in a soft voice. But he was clearly excited to speak about his painting, which is arranged in four quadrants divided by a cross.

Pointing, he said: "If you see here, you'll see that two tips of the cross are sharp, like a sword," piercing countries with the love of Christ.

He also gestured to places in his painting that held personal significance, mentioning how "when I did this painting, it brought back many memories.”

In the upper left is an image of his aunt and uncle — Cora and Herman Schripsema — who served as missionaries among the Navajo in New Mexico in the early days of CRWM's efforts.

Also in this section is the depiction of a hogan, which is a Navajo dwelling, a mission house, and the image of a missionary baptizing a Navajo child.

Below that, in the lower left quadrant, are images of CRWM’s outreach in Africa, showing an ordination taking place in Nigeria, a baptism in Sierra Leone, and a steamer carrying missionaries overseas.

There also is a picture of Johanna Veenstra, a pioneer CRC missionary in Nigeria whose stories inspired Ellens when he was growing up at a church in McBain, Mich.

Ellens, a long-time art teacher, and his wife, Jan, served for a time as missionaries in Nigeria.

In the lower right quadrant are pictures from China — a water buffalo pulling a cart; Mao Bao, the first woman of the early China mission to be baptized, and the image of a building in present-day Qufo, China, near the birthplace of Confucius.

Ellens taught English in China and is familiar with that town.

Considering China today, he says that it is a country whose people are wide open to and ready to be filled up by the gospel.

Reflecting on his painting, he said: "I tried to picture the missionaries doing their work in those places. I tried to exemplify those times and influences that they had.”