On a hilltop in France, Richie Carter found divine inspiration and the perfect gift for his beloved sister.

Richie, 24, has always had a close relationship with his sister Cristy Ghekiere, who is 15 years older than him.

“Fifteen years is a big gap, but we’ve always been very close,” he said. “She’s been more of a motherly figure.”

Cristy, too, said she always felt like a mother to Carter.

“I feel like I raised him,” she said. “He’s the youngest, I’m the oldest [of four siblings]. He’s always been caring and compassionate.”

Their parents, Sandy and Larry Carter of Kalispell, raised the family in the Catholic church, and it was Richie and Cristy’s Christian faith that was the springboard for a painting of the Virgin Mary that became an extraordinary gift for Cristy.

Richie, an artist with a degree in fine arts from the University of Montana, headed to the south of France in fall 2011 to work at an organic winery called the Domaine de Gressac.

“The story of this painting begins with my sister and her journey in becoming a mother,” Richie said.

Cristy and her husband, John, struggled for some time to start a family.

“There’s no stronger desire” than for a woman to bear a child, Cristy said, “but some things are out of our control.”

When she came to the realization that the ultimate goal has not merely to have a child “but to bring children to God,” she said she surrendered to God’s will.

“Just by surrendering my will, he’s blessed me so much,” she said. “He knows better than I do.”

After that, Cristy and John had their first child, and were blessed with two more children, but not without suffering through two devastating miscarriages.

“It was shortly after her second miscarriage that I was off to France,” Richie recalled.

As he helped harvest the grapes, he looked for opportunities to do some plein air painting in the picturesque area of France that has been a backdrop through the ages for other artists.

The vineyard owners suggested he hike to the top of the highest hill on the property and there he would find a statue of the Virgin Mary called the Miracle de la Madonne. As they told him the story of the Sartre family, which erected the statue more than 400 years ago, Richie immediately drew parallels with his own sister’s saga.

The wife of the Sartre family was unable to bear children, and after a long time of frustration and near despair the couple had a statue of Mary placed on the highest hill.

It was a place of pilgrimage where the couple would go each evening to ask that, by the intercession of the mother of God, she, too, would be able to bear children. As the story goes, soon after that the wife became pregnant and through the years had seven children. Descendants of the Sartre family still journey to the hilltop to visit the Madonna statue, the vineyard owners told Richie.

“I took a whole afternoon making a painting of the statue,” he said. “The blue of her eyes and robe were still as bright and pure as the day she was made. The fact that not a single fleck of paint was missing was a miracle in and of itself.”

When Richie returned to Kalispell he was compelled to give the painting of a pregnant Virgin Mary to his sister. It was a belated birthday gift, but there was more to it than that.

“She has always played a Mary-like role in my life,” he said. “After recently going through the miscarriage, her hopes of having another child were severely diminished.”

A miracle was in the making, though.

Exactly nine months after receiving the treasured painting, Cristy gave birth to Jola Elizabeth Ghekiere on July 17, 2012.

“She is a little Miracle de la Madonne,” Richie said.

Jola joined Lucia, 7, Kidde, 5, and Kilbe, 3.

Richie said he wants to share his faith through his art and even while he was still in college felt a calling to focus on classic religious art. At a liberal university whose art program is quite contemporary, it was a challenge for him to concentrate on traditional, historic art.

“He had to swim upstream a lot,” Cristy said. “It seems like the Holy Spirit is leading him to help the message of the value of the unborn child, in light of what goes on in our culture.”

As St. Matthew’s Catholic Church’s annual auction was shaping up earlier this year, Cristy encouraged Richie to submit a painting, so he painted a much larger and more colorful version of the original brown-tone oil he’d given to her.

“She wanted me to share the story, and I wanted to share my faith and passion through art,” he said.

The person who bought the 30-by-42 inch painting donated it back to St. Matthew’s and it now hangs in the school office.

Richie will intern this summer with Bigfork potter Wendy Anderson and plans to work part time at Colter Coffee. In between jobs he will hone his painting skills.

He would like to continue studying art in Italy and is looking at academies that offer intensive training in classical realism in Florence. He’s leaving it up to God to fill in the blanks in the big picture of his future.

“My travels never cease to amaze me with the profound revelation of God in the most unexpected ways,” he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.