There is a painting on an easel in Esté Jones’ studio right now. It is not finished yet. But already, if you stand in front of it, something happens to you.
A little girl, her back to the world, a pink tutu skirt, mini afro puffs with colourful bobbles, bare feet. She does not know she is being painted. She does not know that her story, the one God has been writing over her life since before she took her first breath, is about to hang on someone’s wall and change how they see the world.
This is The Radiant Collection. And it started with a question: what if art could do more than decorate a room? What if it could carry a testimony?
Using art for a greater purpose
Esté Jones is the founder of Alabaster Box Gallery, a registered nonprofit whose entire premise is that art has the power to serve something bigger than itself. All proceeds from paintings sold through Alabaster Box Gallery go to safe houses, children’s homes, and organisations caring for vulnerable children across South Africa. Este has built something rare: a gallery where beauty and purpose are inseparable.
When Esté first came to Daybreak House for Vulnerable Babies, she did not come as a visitor. She came as someone who wanted to see. To really see. And what she saw moved her to pick up a brush.
The Radiant Collection is the result of that encounter. Each month, Esté will paint an original work inspired by one of the children in our care. No faces. No identifying details. Just the quiet truth of a little life, a back turned to the camera, a pair of small hands, a tutu skirt catching the light, painted with the kind of attention that says: this child matters. This child is seen. This child is held.
The paintings will be auctioned on our website, live, for one month each. The highest bid wins the original. Every rand goes directly to the care of the babies and toddlers at Daybreak House.
The message behind every brushstroke
We live in a world that measures value by visibility. Children who grow up in places of safety, who arrived in circumstances no child should face, are not the ones the world tends to notice. They do not trend. They do not make headlines.
But God noticed them before the world had a chance to look away.
That is the heartbeat of The Radiant Collection. Not to tell the private stories of the children in our care, those stories belong to them, held in confidence and in prayer. But to testify, loudly and beautifully, that God is here. That He was here before they arrived. That His faithfulness over the vulnerable is not a theological idea. It is something you can see, if you know how to look.
Esté knows how to look. And now, through her paintings, so will you.
Promise
The first painting in The Radiant Collection is called Promise.
It was painted in honour of a little one we call Lippie, a nickname that came naturally the moment anyone saw her, because this child has the most beautiful lips you have ever seen on a baby. Lippie represents so many of the children who have come through Daybreak House. Children who arrived when there was nowhere else to go. Children whose mothers could not access the medical help they needed. Children who slipped through the cracks of a system that was never quite big enough to hold them.
And yet here she is. In a pink tutu. Holding flowers almost as big as she is. Barefoot on the paving. Utterly unaware that she is, in every possible sense, a miracle.
These are the words we declare over her life, and we want to share them because they say everything:
“Before you took your first breath, God knew you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, created by His hands and loved by His heart. You are not forgotten. You are not unseen. You are a precious child, chosen and held by the Father.”
“You are a reminder that every child is a gift, every life has value, and every story is held by the hands of a faithful God.”
“May your life be a testimony of His goodness. May you grow in His love, walk in His purpose, and shine as a reflection of His grace.”
Promise means exactly that. A living declaration that God sees, God loves, God restores, and God is faithful.
The painting is on the easel right now. Este is still working on it, and we will be sharing the progress with you over the coming weeks. Each update brings you a little closer to the finished work, and to the story God is still writing over this little life.
The auction for Promise is open now and runs until 31 July 2026. You can view the painting, follow its progress, and place your bid on The Radiant Collection page on our website.
This is how The Radiant Collection will work every month. A new painting. A new story. A new auction running for thirty days. Each month Este will release a fresh original work inspired by one of the children in our care, and we will share the journey with you from the very first brushstroke to the moment the painting finds its new home.
Every rand raised goes directly to the care of the babies and toddlers at Daybreak House for Vulnerable Babies.
To bid on Promise or to learn more about The Radiant Collection, visit: daybreakhouse.co.za/the-radiant-collection/
“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”
2 Corinthians 1:20
