Tent Update

The Temple Micah tent for Darfur is coming along. It will definitely be ready to join the hundreds of other tents as part of the Tents of Hope project on the Mall November 7-9.


I’m in charge of this tent painting project for Temple Micah. I panicked somewhat when I learned that the building renovation would not leave space for us to paint the tent inside the synagogue building over the summer.


But a wonderful elderly congregant who lives directly behind Temple Micah offered us her garage. That’s where the tent has been housed for the last month as the design takes shape.


A talented woman named Margaret conceived the design for our tent. She did her homework to learn what would be appropriate from the standpoint of a Muslim country.


She determined that pictures of people are not so acceptable. So our tent is mostly rural scenes with vegetation and animals. Even the inside has a pleasing frieze along the top of the walls.


We had volunteer painters of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Every one of them took home new knowledge of mural painting, thanks to Margaret’s thoughtful instruction.


It’s been exciting to see this project come together and to know that we will now be ready to proudly add our tent to the many others from all over the country.


There are still hurdles to be jumped in sending the tents to Darfur, but I’m confident that we will find a way to allow the refugees to appreciate the work that went into decorating a home for yet another family in need on another continent far, far away.