On 8 March, women and men around the world will celebrate International Women’s Day. Leading up to that day, and as a contribution to the many conversations going on in honour of women, Pacific Mormon Newsroom is profiling a number of Mormon women who call New Zealand home.
Christeena MacDonald
As a young child raised in Timaru, New Zealand, Christeena MacDonald-Paea developed faith as she learned to create and renew old objects.
“Faith renews and replenishes us just like making something old become new and beautiful again,” she says.
When Christeena was a child her father would fix and repair discarded items because they couldn’t afford to buy new things. As a professional artist she finds joy in creating new things.
She has made dresses from records, painted on discarded linen, and carves the reclaimed wood from demolished buildings.
“It is like you have something,” she says, “and it has lost its life. You could throw it out, but instead, you can make it into something else and make it new and beautiful again.”
“That is what faith does for us as people.”