Jane Vance has a new OMNI-inspired painting in progress called “Deliver in Time.” Take a look at the beginnings of this work.

Jane writes:

Blind and voracious, termites the size of rats have removed an old man’s abdomen. A gigantic scorpion, fluorescent blue, picks at human crumbs. A horrible pieta–an emaciated child, and his peppermint skeletonized mother–are encased in the termites’ partitioned mound. A nearby campfire is long dead.

This twilight zone superimposes on a real and current Africa, where a child soldier trains his AK47 like a hypodermic into the jugular of Sudanese peace activist, Emmanuel Jal. Jal shines as the son of the African sun, but still his own nightmarish childhood–being abducted into war at age seven–fills his eyes with strength and sorrow.

“Deliver in Time” presents a time-lapse landscape, decades of suffering, and the politics of ricochet: from greed, to corruption, to the residue of war, to malnutrition, to disease, to more war. Cruelty permeates this place, where human and animal lives are shackled and tormented. Hope dwindles, and succumbs to neglect.

Into such a world, why enter? Among devastated and abandoned people, why arrive?

OMNI’s message in response to these crucial questions is clear: the only way to confront suffering is to individuate. You move in to save one human being, one child, at a time–to deliver–in time.

Vance’s new work endorses the activism of OMNI’s compassionate and sanctifying aid–Karen Remine, Dr. Henry Maicki, and Gil Harrington appear in the painting, hands busy with healing work. And, “Deliver in Time” endorses Emmanuel Jal’s intelligent music–rapping without misogyny, materialism, or ego. Jal’s voice turns instead to blessings, dedications, and grace.

Vance calls Emmanuel Jal her favorite African Buddha, someone who, like the hardened skyscraper of the termite mound rising above the flattened African savannah, has been strengthened beyond the ground around him–chewed, spit out, and transformed into a brick-hard permanent forceful voice for change and compassion.

One child at a time, one song at a time; one wound cleaned and dressed, one heart uplifted. May we all collaborate to help save the next child, Help Save the Next Girl, and Deliver in Time.

Jane Vance releases Visions of Sugarplums in conjunction with January 26, 2012, to mark the second anniversary of the discovery of her murdered Virginia Tech student, Morgan Harrington’s, remains, on January 26, 2010.

If she had lived, Morgan would have traveled with her mother, Gil Harrington, with Karen ReMine’s indefatigable Orphan Medical Network International (OMNI) team, to meet these Zambian children. Now, in Ndola, Africa, the new Morgan Harrington Educational Wing shelters, feeds, educates, and inspires these children, in Morgan’s honor. Those children will become the leaders of their country. They will help to point their generation toward the great freedom of beautiful choices.

From Jane Vance’s website:

The Zambian children who look out at you from the core of this painting are not extending a pleading hand, because they expect nothing from you. They have not lost hope–the expression you see in their faces is too direct and in a way too strong to be called despair. Jane Lillian Vance’s newest painting in her Africa series, Visions of Sugarplums, begins in the eyes of children who have not lost hope, because they had no hope to begin with.

No hope means no resources and no alternatives, and Vance’s composition maps three separate zones, beginning with the dark situation of subsistence. What food there is–a yam, an onion, maize–is healthy food, but the likeness of the maize stalks to prison bars suggests that what grows in poverty is limited, confining, and insufficient.

The green zone is the place of beautiful foods, fresh, delightful, plentiful, Edenic fruit. With easy access to this zone, we grow beyond hopeful. We become inspired.

And in an ironic progression outward to the sky-colored zone, the riot of candy corn, dark chocolate kisses, and sugar-coated gumdrops evokes the spell of excess: how tempting, how addictive!

So the separate zones move from a place where there is little to hope for, and very little to consume–to a maelstrom of access, where you are consumed by the overabundance that your culture packages and markets as your choices.

When you sponsor a student through OMNI, you provide more than just food and an education to child in desperate need.

In these photos, you can see an OMNI student and her family. She was told that her sponsor bought the food for her family, and her grandmother then lifted her hands up in thanks and praise because the family literally had no food.

Artist Jane Lillian Vance has created another OMNI inspired painting. Here’s a sneak peak at some work-in-progress details of the new painting. Check back on the 26th for the full image.

Jane Vance releases Visions of Sugarplums in conjunction with January 26, 2012, to mark the second anniversary of the discovery of her murdered Virginia Tech student, Morgan Harrington‘s, remains, on January 26, 2010.

If she had lived, Morgan would have traveled with her mother, Gil Harrington, with Karen ReMine’s indefatigable Orphan Medical Network International (OMNI) team, to meet these Zambian children. Now, in Ndola, Africa, the new Morgan Harrington Educational Wing shelters, feeds, educates, and inspires these children, in Morgan’s honor. Those children will become the leaders of their country. They will help to point their generation toward the great freedom of beautiful choices.

Vance thanks Gil Harrington and Karen ReMine for the use of photographs and for the inspiring conversations and ideas that led to this painting. May we all exercise our choice to extend our resources, and may we bridge to those in such need that they were not expecting us.

The end-of-the-year school break is nearly over for the students. Soon it will be back to work for over 200 students.

The students are breaking for 1 week and will report for classes on Monday the 9th of January 2012. The feeding program was going on very well, though the attendance was going down. Now we thought it wise for them to have a one week break.

We thank you for the Christmas gifts to our students. They were so happy to have a party.

Thanks,
Teddy

A Roanoke Family and OMNI Supporters are Finalists in the Million Moms Challenge

From WSET ABC13, The Lowrys are raising awareness of birthing complications in Zambia through their entry in a photo contest.

OMNI President, Karen ReMine spoke to ABC13 about the serious issues a mother faces when giving birth without the necessary supplies.

When you sponsor a child at the OMNI School, you will receive a Christmas Card from your student:

For just $30 a month, you can sponsor a child and change the life of a young student living in Zambia.

Your tax-deductible donation will provide a daily meal, quality education, school uniform, and school supplies to an at-risk child that would not be able to have any of these things otherwise.

The need is desperate, but you can help make a difference. 100% of your donation goes to providing for your sponsored child’s schooling.

Click to Sponsor a Child

Some finishing touches on the Morgan Harrington Education Wing at the OMNI School in George, Zambia.

On Sunday, November 14th, host Bruce Bryan and OMNI president Karen ReMine had a great conversation about OMNI for the Roanoke Valley Conversations program on 1015themusicplace.com.

Listen now:

with Karen ReMine, Gil Harrington, Emmanuel Jal, Jane Lillian Vance and Stephanie Anne Koehler

Last Saturday, Karen got to share the story of OMNI with Emmanuel Jal at the Taubman Museum of Art “Saturday Spectacular.” Emmanuel is a South Sudanese musician and former child soldier who now lives in the United States.

Emmanuel is a spokesman for the Make Poverty History campaign, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Control Arms campaign. In 2008, Jal also got involved in the musical movement of spreading awareness about current slavery and human trafficking by performing various songs for the rockumentary, Call+Response.

A documentary about Emmanuel Jal called War Child was made in 2008 by C. Karim Chrobog. It made its international debut at the Berlin Film Festival and its North American debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Cadillac Audience Award. An autobiography under the same name was released in 2009.

Despite his accomplishments in music, Jal’s biggest passion is for Gua Africa, a charity that he founded. Besides building schools, the nonprofit provides scholarships for Sudanese war survivors in refugee camps, and sponsors education for children in the most deprived slum areas in Nairobi. [*]