If you were to step into your own world and live for just one day an ideal situation, what would your world entail? Who would you be with? What scenery would surround you and how would it be different from what you are now living? The imagination is what helps us to create our own perfect world, and fortunately happiness is not too far out of reach if we will just create it.
However, just imagine for now that you are ten years old again. But your childhood up to this point has been far from ideal. Your house is a potential health hazard with all the pieces of rusted corrugated tin used as walls. There you live with many cousins, uncles, brothers, half-brothers, and sometimes with your dad. Your family is definitely struggling to put the beans on the table, and the love that should exist there is only a distorted selfishness turned into molestation. You’ve been a victim and so has your sister. But now you’re ten years old and the police have discovered you, putting you with thirty other boys behind the bars of a placement home. Now the question is what will happen to you and will you ever see your mother again. Are you still capable of believing in an ideal world? Is your imagination strong enough to create your own happiness?
This describes the typical life of many of the boys I worked with the past three weeks. My group walks up to the gate that fences off the grounds of CIPI BOYS and bangs on the lock to get the attention of the educator inside. Thirty hyper boys meanwhile are running in and out of the dormitory, shirts off, shoes off, and yelling “¡¡GRINGOS!!” We honestly didn’t know how it would be possible to paint a mural with them around—especially since it was oil-based paint that we were using. But we knew that the need was greater than the trying circumstances and with the help of Heavenly Father himself, we found the way to get this mural done. Miraculously, HF also taught me how to involve the boys in the painting process without being overly critical and without them running off with a dripping paint brush.
But painting pictures on a wall is one thing. Using images to stimulate and inspire a constructive imagination of these children has been something completely different. I wanted to design something capable of exciting the boys, but at the same time capable of teaching them some important morals to direct their lives. Hopefully what we’ve been working on will help them create a better future for themselves.

After a couple of weeks of designing the thing with Jaclyn, another help volunteer, we began the process of putting it on the wall. The two walls that we chose to paint are where the boys sleep.

So we projected the image with a projector,

outlined it with black marker,

...mixed paint, danced like Michael Jackson, applied the paint in an orderly fashion, danced like Michael Jackson, and kept painting until every square inch was covered in color.
It’s been a slow process trying to help it all come together.Both Jaclyn and I have considered ways to make this mural exciting for the kiddos. Tigers, motorcycles, puppy dogs, and “paisaje” have all been on the request list from the boys themselves.

Their ideas have inspired this final project. And thanks to a little Imagination from Harry Connick Jr., we've come up with the title for the piece.

It's over. The mural is done. The process of making it is no more. And the boys will most likely go back to living a similar life to what the were living three weeks ago. Hopefully what we've left on the wall will be something that they can look at, be proud of, and imagine while they're looking at it, a better world that they can create for themselves and their future family.