Catheve (Cathy) Strokosch
Educator, Artist,
Office Manager
Reliable Management Realty, Inc.

While other people may have trouble "thinking outside the box," Cathy Strokosch lives there. She has never followed a traditional path. She’s been everything from an almond farmer to a school principal, and the impact of her life leaves ripples wherever she goes.

Nowhere is this more evident than in how she uses her creative gifts and design talents. Recently, Strokosch undertook a major design and decorating project for New Moms, Inc., a ministry to at-risk homeless adolescent moms and their children. New Moms had purchased an apartment building where their teen clients could live while they learn parenting skills, finish school and train for jobs that eventually will make them self-sufficient. But the building needed work.

LifeChasers: How did you happen to get involved in this project?

Strokosch: Decorating has always been a high interest. I was the first person to ever paint my dorm room in college. About three years ago our church acquired a condo that was to be converted into our church offices. I got all the subcontractors together and did all the planning and decorating for it. New Moms saw how that project turned out and asked if I would help them. That’s often how God works. One piece leads to another piece.

LifeChasers: Given your creative talents, why didn’t you pursue a more artistic career?

Strokosch: I really believe I’m supposed to present myself every day to God, as the Bible says, as a living sacrifice. I’m in a constant conversation with God, asking, "How do you want to use me today?" I don’t need a certain job title to do that. It’s about how I live my whole life.

I have a passion for beauty. If you put all my skills together and put them together in one ball, it would be the ability to go into a room, a situation or a life and be able to look at it, accept any "ugliness" that’s there, and look for a way to make it beautiful. I don’t "box in" where and how that has to happen.

LifeChasers: On a practical level, what were some of the challenges of the New Moms living space?

Strokosch: The large community areas were dark and depressing with odd-shaped rooms. And we had to block out windows because the building butted up to another apartment building. The challenge was how to make it an inviting place. They had a limited budget and a deadline looming.

LifeChasers: So what did you do?

Strokosch: Well, take the long narrow dining room. I painted a trompe l’oeil mural on one wall to expand the look. It was a picture of a doorway opening out onto a beautiful bright courtyard. It totally changed the environment.

LifeChasers: What did you learn from this project?

Strokosch: I learned that what happens when you show up to do the original assignment may not be the most important part of the project after all. In the course of the decorating work, I had several deep, important conversations with the housemother and some of the girls who live there. I was also able to share with them simple tips for how to decorate inexpensively, so they won’t be so heavily influenced by what advertisers tell them they "have" to have in order to create a beautiful home.

LifeChasers: Were there other personal payoffs?

Strokosch: Look at the splendor of the world around us! God is the author of beauty and creativity. People need to know that about God—especially these girls who have grown up in blighted neighborhoods where beauty is in short supply. Since I’m made in His image, whenever I create I get to reflect who He is. I’m showing people what He "looks" like and that beauty is even more important to Him than it is to them. It’s deeply satisfying.