All posts by jenniferzillycanales

Community Life, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection, Teaching

The Purpose of Things (Part 2)

November 9, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

So all of us, sitting there in our dining room in the foothills of the Honduran mountains, continued the search for the human purpose. How surprising (and tragic!) it is that we can quickly and accurately name the purpose of a pencil or a seed but have no clue as to what our very own life might be good for.

“If I don’t know the purpose of a pencil, I could very easily pitch it into the bonfire as if it were firewood, thus completely sacrificing its actual purpose as a writing utensil, and then I’m left wondering where on earth I could find such a tool that might be used to make visible my thoughts on paper. If I don’t know that my clothes’ purpose is to cover up my body for decency and protection from the elements, I could wad them up and use them as rags to clean the floor and then wonder why I’m naked and cold. Nobody butchers their Rottweiler for dinner or fills their shoes with potting soil because we know their purpose, and that knowledge guides us in how we see these things and how we utilize them.”

Some people began laughing nervously, as if the examples given might just be a little too absurd. What’s absurd? The fact that almost no one understands – and much less fulfills – their purpose as human beings.

I continue, excited to be able to shed a tremendous amount of light on a search that many are confused by their entire lives. “Taking Jesus Christ as our example – literally God made man – let’s see what His purpose was. Maybe that will give us a clue as to our own.”

So about a half dozen people with Bibles started looking up the verses written on the dry-erase board propped up against the wall, and we started reading the verses one after another, young and old, married and single, many of which would hear these words of Jesus’ for the very first time.

(Jesus in John 5:19, 30): “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does…I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.”

“So Jesus – who is all-powerful, has all wisdom, who had been with God Himself since before the creation of the world – did not say, “I’m here to eat and drink and be merry! Let’s enjoy the good life, folks!” or “My purpose is to acquire weapons and lands and armies and become the most powerful man on the face of the earth!” But rather, he said, “I am here to…?”

(Jesus in John 6:38-39):“For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.”

Someone from across the oblong rectangle of chairs, stools and benches said in a quiet voice, “…fulfill God’s will.”

“Yes! Jesus’ purpose – which he states time and again – is to fulfill not his own will but that of His Father’s. And we’re talking about Jesus – the man who worked miracles, who was given the power to be raised from the dead! If His purpose was not to glorify Himself, accumulate goods, lands, and earthly power, or have as many wives as possible, or maybe cheat the system to get ahead, who are we to do so?”

Many people’s faces display a look of shock, as if it is offensive to think that God might be greater than man, that even though Jesus emptied Himself so as to be filled with His Father, I-ought-to-have-the-right-to-do-as-I-want-because-I’m-me.

(Jesus in John 7:16-18): “My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own. Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.”

“And this is not meant to make us feel bad, but rather to liberate us from ourselves! Praise God! The Savior of the world did not come to make Himself great but rather to serve God’s purposes – He is our example of the ultimate human life, our laid-bare purpose as human beings.”

(Jesus in John 8:28-29):“When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.”

“Many people go off to the university or spend their entire lives ‘finding themselves’ or searching futilely for some ‘purpose’. I know because I’ve tried, and I know a lot of people who are still stuck without their answer either because they haven’t found it or refuse to acknowledge it! It’s like owning a pair of shoes and spending your entire life scratching your head wondering what they might be good for while you walk around barefoot, accumulating blisters and cuts on your exposed feet.”

(Jesus in John 8:49-51): “No, I have no demon in me. For I honor my Father—and you dishonor me. And though I have no wish to glorify myself, God is going to glorify me. He is the true judge. I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!”

“What’s the good news in all this? With God’s help, anyone can do this. Anyone can fulfill God’s will, living for His glory rather than their own. Men, women, children, someone in a wheelchair – whether you live in a palace or on the streets in England or India or wherever – even if you’re a slave in chains! – the ultimate human purpose is within your reach. You don’t have to have a certain amount of money or education – and neither are you excluded if you have too much of either.”

People are listening, and I’m praying that they ‘get it,’ that we all ‘get it.’

(Jesus in John 17:3-5): “And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.”

“Jesus came as a poor man – his human dad was a carpenter, and he basically spent his days walking from village to village teaching the Truth, no strings attached. He didn’t eat exquisite food all the time, never got married, and we know He didn’t have a college degree. If His purpose was to fulfill not His own will but God’s, seeking to bear good fruit for God’s glory, then that’s an extremely strong indicator that we are to live the same way.”

(Jesus in Matthew 26:39): “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

“We can lay aside all our own invented ‘purposes’ – “My purpose is to be as comfortable as I can be at all times!” or “My purpose is just to have a good ole time, to have some good laughs before I die!” or “My purpose is to be gay or to be ‘me’ or to be ‘different’ because no one can tell me what to do!” or “My purpose is to be the best at everything (or at least think that I’m the best) so that I feel good about myself and don’t damage my self-esteem!” It’s like a Rottweiler rebelling against its owner, saying in defiance: “My purpose is not to be a faithful watchdog! My purpose is to be a world-class ballerina!” or a helicopter deciding that it prefers to function as a submarine boat. What if the sun preferred to function as a light bulb in your living room? Everything in the known world functions according to its purpose; we know this well, and our daily lives depend upon this truth. Now that we have heard our own purpose, we may choose to walk in it to God’s glory, taking Jesus as our ultimate teacher and guide in doing so, or we may continue inventing other ‘purposes’ for our lives that in the end prove to be equally dangerous and ridiculous, like using a machete to brush your teeth.”

(Jesus in John 15:1-17): “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.”

Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection

The Purpose of Things (Part 1)

October 30, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

A few Wednesdays ago we found ourselves once again sitting in an oblong rectangle of chairs, benches and stools in our concrete-floored dining room as about 30 of us – Darwin, our 7 kids, several middle-aged neighbors, Miss Martha and our schoolteacher, and about a dozen or so children and youth from our neighborhood – had come together to understand the Truth and study God’s Word.

The Wednesday prior Josselyn, our new 10-year-old daughter who hides her face when she gets nervous and is learning the alphabet for the first time in her life, decided to receive the invitation to peace with God through Jesus Christ after having heard in the Bible Study what exactly the ‘Good News’ is that is so frequently talked about throughout the Bible.

This week, however, we would be talking about the purpose of things. As always, everyone present is invited to participate (although some choose not to), and so I began naming different common items so that we could begin naming their purposes.

One of the first items I threw out there in this game of name-the-purpose was a machete, an extremely common item in Honduras, and even moreso out in the countryside where we live. Almost every male above the age of about 10 or 12 has one and uses it almost daily to ‘chop’ the yard, cut firewood, etc, so when I asked the group, “What is the purpose of a machete?”, they looked at me as if it was finally made plain to them that I’m a foreigner. You mean she doesn’t know the purpose of a machete? Is she serious?

After a short pause, one of the youth dared to state the obvious: “It’s for chopping the yard.” Everyone else looked at me as if to say, “…Duh…”

“Yes!” I affirmed. “And what else?”

“For cutting things…like firewood.” Someone else chimed in, answering perhaps the easiest question we had ever ventured to answer in this timeslot on Wednesdays when we dare to find answers to some of life’s hardest (and most pertinent) questions. No longer was I asking: “What is justice?” or “How does the World treat the orphans, the widows and the poor?” or “What are some of the lies the World tells us?” or “What is the Kingdom of God?” Rather, I’m asking the use of a large, simple knife that everyone is already familiar with.

“For killing.” Someone else said.

I clarified – “For killing – animals! Can we say ‘hunting’?”

After we exhausted the rather short list of purposes for a machete – and once everyone began realizing that this game of name-the-purpose was not so hard after all – we proceeded with a list of about two dozen things, naming the common, known purpose of each.

“What is the purpose of a bus?” (Another extremely common thing here, seeing as most people do not have their own cars and thus have to travel on big, retired American yellow school buses that have been converted into Honduran public buses to go on errands, visit other cities, etc).

“To carry people!” Someone shouted.

“Yes! And what else?”

“To…carry things!”

“Yes! Basically the purpose of a bus is to transport or move people and things from one place to another, right?” Everyone looked at me in utter agreement, excited even. “Ok, so if the bus doesn’t have any wheels or gas, it can still fulfill its purpose, right?”

For a split second I caught them off guard as they looked at me, then everyone started to laugh and say, “No! It wouldn’t fulfill its purpose without wheels or gas!”

So there we went, naming the purpose of food, a watchdog, shoes, the sun, a school, a backpack, and a host of other things. As we were nearing the end of the little list scribbled on the index card in my lap, I smiled and posed the actual question of the day, only to be met with blank, confused stares:

“What’s the purpose of a human being?”

One 13-year-old young man who participates in Darwin’s choir and has proved himself to be very respectful, humble and hard-working, was the only one who seemed able to compose an answer after a few seconds of shock. His opinion: “The purpose of a human being is to serve God…or…serve the Devil. You choose.”

Almost everyone seemed surprised by the mere fact that he was able to put an answer together to such an impossible question, and some laughed nervously.

I think I literally saw lightbulbs go off in several people’s heads as I begin explaining, “How interesting that quickly and accurately we can name off the purpose of a machete or a pair of shoes, but when asked to name our own purpose, we literally don’t know how to answer! If a machete is used to chop the grass but not to brush my teeth or comb my hair – and we all know that – then we can use it according to its purpose and thus fulfill its purpose, making it a useful machete. If we know that a watchdog does not fulfill its purpose of protecting the property if it has lost all its teeth, is deathly ill and can no longer stand or bark, we can accurately discern between a watchdog that is fulfilling its purpose and one that is not. But a human being? How on earth can we go about fulfilling our purpose if we don’t even know what it is? How could we use a pair of shoes properly if we did not know they were meant to protect our feet, that that is their purpose?”

To be continued in a subsequent post…

Information About the Mission

Time-Sensitive Prayer Request

October 24, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

There are certain legal procedures that each Honduran NGO must do each year in accordance with the government’s laws in order to remain in operation.

Teresa Devlin, who founded the Living Waters Ranch, was very ill during her last few years in Honduras before passing away in October 2012, and when I arrived in June 2012 no one (not even the board of directors) informed me of all the legal processes that I would henceforth be in charge of orchestrating, much less the intricacies, time involved, etc, of such.

For that reason our annual taxes and other reports were not filed in 2011, 2012 or 2013, until last August we finally came into the know about the process and began a great rally with lawyers, accountants, old board members, etc, to compile all the necessary paperwork (which turned into a huge project and ended up being a thick binder-like report).

Well, we sent off our completed 4-year report (including 2014) to a supposedly trusted lawyer in the nearby city of La Ceiba in November 2014, and he sat on the paperwork over 11 months without doing anything. We called, stopped by his office, and even jumped through several hoops of getting different people’s signatures that he asked for, etc, and only about two weeks ago when Darwin called him for the umpteenth time to see how the case is coming along did the lawyer’s assistant admit that they had not made even the slightest move in over 11 months and that it would be better for us to come pick up all our documents and find another lawyer because they had no plans of ever addressing our case.

That is exactly what we did, and now the same female lawyer who is working on my residency case from the capital city of Tegucigalpa is moving and shaking with all our government documents that are now almost five years behind. In less than two weeks she has made more progress than the other lawyer did in 11 months, and just yesterday afternoon she called to let us know that our Honduran legal status (which is extremely difficult and expensive to get in the first place and is necessary in order to be in operation) is on the brink of being cancelled, seeing as our documents, receipts, etc, have not been presented to the government since 2010. The good news is that our legal status is not already canceled, but we now have to hustle, paying a roughly $3,000 fine that only last year would have been roughly $1,500 if our first lawyer had done his job, plus we have to now submit new documents, get new stamps and signatures, etc, to prove that we are in operation and that there has been no foul play. Basically there will be a lot of hoops to jump through in these coming weeks along with the huge fine if the Lord’s purposes are to continue at the Living Waters Ranch.

Please pray for us during this time of potential stress, and let us give thanks for our new lawyer (Tania Ruiz) who has taken great initiative to begin fixing up what has turned into a big mess. Please pray for efficiency, transparency and mercy among the lawyer(s) and government officials who will be dealing with our case, and pray that the $3,000 fine (plus the lawyer’s fees, which will end up about $1,000) does not derail us among the other operating expenses that we already incur. Thank you!

Family, Farm Life, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Personal Reflection

Learning About Consequences in the Real World: Jackeline’s Day in the Chicken Run

October 21, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

I believe 12-year-old Jackeline learned a lesson last week, or at least I hope so. Our dear fifth grader has been struggling mightily to find a good work ethic in school, and quite frankly Darwin and I had not found a technique that has made any difference other than that of growing the dark circles under our eyes. We had tried the well-intentioned lectures and advice, sincere moments of prayer, hugs of encouragement and warmth, washing her mouth out with soap, taking away movies/art class/choir practice/other privileges in response to bad behavior, adding boring chores such as washing the walls of different buildings on our property, and even having special celebrations and awards for those who are making the effort in school, but all to no avail. No attitude change, no repentance, no newfound work ethic or desire in school.

So, as I’m knee-deep in reading a fantastic parenting book (Loving Our Kids on Purpose by Danny Silk), I found new inspiration with our pre-teen who is headed for a rough course in life if she doesn’t get her act together. I devised a plan and invited my husband Darwin to execute it with me. We passed by our school building around 10:30am, knocking on the door of the room that holds 7 students (3 of our own kids and 4 from our local community) and 1 teacher, hoping to catch Jackeline in her own trap. I informed the teacher with a big smile that we were merely stopping by to see how Jackeline was doing, and when the teacher hesitated in her response, I knew we had her! With dread in her voice, the teacher informed us that, again, Jackeline had refused to do her classwork, had hit her desk in defiance, and wouldn’t stop complaining the whole morning.

As if the teacher had told me, “Stop by my office at noon and I’ll give you a bag of chocolates,” I said cheerfully, “Ok great! Let’s go, Jackeline.”

Jackeline looked at me suspiciously as her thoughts read ‘Let’s go?’ Where to? It’s freaking me out how you’re smiling at me like that. Why don’t you look disappointed in me? Aren’t you supposed to be mad that I don’t make even the smallest effort is school ever? I mean, it’s disgraceful that I don’t even care about my own future! Another lecture would do me good, or at least take away all my privileges. That always seems to work.

I motioned excitedly with my arm that she follow us, so she got up from her desk, leaving behind her school materials that had already been out of use virtually the whole morning, and she began trailing sluggishly behind Darwin and I as we crossed our large front yard, went through the gate, and headed up the path to the large open-air structure that used to serve as our chicken run but now is used as a stable for Darwin’s cows.

As we arrived – me with a visible spring in my step, grateful and excited for this wonderful opportunity to try something new in the pioneer journey of teaching a vital lesson to this young woman we love – I kindly explained (again, with the tone of voice that a mother would use with her daughter to say, “Auntie Carol just dropped off a $50 check for your birthday and said that she’s going to invite you to vacation at the beach with her and your cousins next weekend!”) that since she obviously doesn’t want to be in school, then we’ll respect her freedom of choice and allow her to work.

Oh, if looks could kill! (And I’m not talking about ours!)

As we stood in the middle of the structure’s small enclosed yard with various fenceposts leaning over or having fallen down altogether, we explained how she would be working with a machete to remove the chicken wire of the entire perimeter (a job that’s needed to get done for months, but we haven’t had time to do it), putting all the wire together in a big pile and then organizing the various pieces of wood, old tires, etc that were lying about. More than a couple times as we walked around the enclosed area, I had to warn, “Watch your step, Jackeline! There’s a heap of cow poo right there.”

Her face and body language radiated mad, which only further confirmed that we had finally found a consequence that just might get under her skin. (And, hey, no fake tears for once!) We handed the machete to her after Darwin gave her a quick demo of how to whack away at the posts, removing the chicken wire, and we allowed her to change into work clothes and fill a water bottle before returning to spend the time necessary until the job was finished.

We cheerfully reminded her that we loved her and wished her well on her new work project, leaving promptly.

As Darwin and I returned to the office to finish the preparations for that day’s Bible study, I peeked out the window several times to see how our young worker was progressing. The poor girl was very confused – she was sitting down!

A couple hours later as we were serving lunch to about 30 or so people who had come to Bible study, I served up a bowl of lukewarm beans for our fence-repairer and walked with that same bounce in my step out to the chicken run for the second time that morning. As she saw me approaching, she quickly stood up and pretended to be working on a fence post, looking at me as if I was about to chew her butt for her laziness. My response: a peppy, loving, “Hey! There you are! Enjoy your lunch! Let me know if you need to fill up your water bottle again.”

I handed off the plastic bowl of beans, turned around, and left.

I think at that point she realized that going on strike wasn’t going to get her anywhere (or reel me in and trap me in some power struggle or futile discussion of morals and work ethics).

An hour or so later, a young neighbor of ours who had been at our home for lunch and the Bible study, looked at me and said in a concerned tone of voice, “Uh, Jennifer? Jackeline’s sure been out in the chicken run for quite a while…”

I smiled and said, “Yup! Sure has! You want to play soccer?”

Well, at some point that afternoon our young worker got up off her rear and started taking down fenceposts, and she did a pretty darn good job. About four-and-a-half hours after we first dropped her off there, she finished the job like a champ and came clogging in through the front gate with a bit less energy and a bit more accomplishment than she had had that morning.

Nothing is a cure-all, but since that day we have had a bit more success with the general attitude of our beloved fifth-grader, and the teacher even had a positive report about her general work ethic in school the next day.

Thank you, author Danny Silk, for your wonderful (and fun!) parenting advice! Glory to God!

Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Information About the Mission, Personal Reflection

Reconnaissance Mission with the King of Kings: Break and Enter…and Bless

October 19, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

A new stream of God’s abundant provision has recently been discovered through a large supermarket chain in the nearby city of La Ceiba – after several months of writing letters and waiting for responses, we now have an agreement with one of the locations to receive any surplus/damaged goods that for various reasons they are unable to sell. In the first few months of enjoying this agreement, we got a call every 3-6 weeks to come pick up a box or two of flour and toilet paper, but for some reason in this past week they have called us twice, and so two times in three days we brought home quite literally a truckbed full of goods for free.

Every time we receive a box, I exclaim to my husband Darwin, “It’s like Christmas!” because you never know what the boxes will hold. Just last week our truckbed held two-and-a-half boxes full of chocolate cookies, a couple boxes of flour and spaghetti noodles, quite a bit of canned food, a couple bars of soap, several containers of butter, some frozen French fries, and even a brand-new frying pan!

So last Thursday as I arrived home in our truck at 3:00pm after having picked up Gleny and Jason from their elementary school, I contemplated the still-closed boxes in the truckbed with weary excitement, wanting to rip into them to see what blessing they held but struggling through an already-too-long day that started around 5:00am after another night of not having slept a wink. I felt like all my nerves stood on end and that my head weighed more than the rest of my body.

Thankfully, several people who were just about the leave and head home came to help haul the boxes up the concrete steps into our dining room, and I followed behind, scheming through foggy thoughts exactly how I could manage with the least energy exertion possible the five hooligans who would be under my care until Darwin and our two eldest girls would get home that night around 7:30pm.

On days like I had last Thursday I often wish that my children had an “off” button or that they could be easily folded up and stored away in a dresser drawer for a few hours until I need them again. Unfortunately for weary parents, this is, of course, not the case, and thus I suddenly had five eager helpers who were just as excited to see what was in the mysterious boxes as I was (and had 684.92 questions, comments, and stories for me in the process), although in the back of my mind I contemplated starting the somewhat-intimidating task of sorting, lifting, storing, etc, the next day once I had hopefully slept a few hours.

But the Lord had other plans, and I’m so glad He did.

For some reason that is still unknown to me, I did, in fact, begin the gargantuan task of inspecting the blessed cargo and, not only that, but graciously solicited the help of Jason (8), Josselyn (10) and Gleny (11), while Josue (7) and Gabriela (6) played with brooms in the front yard. We spent the next couple hours making guesses about what would be in each box, carrying certain items to the pantry, storing others in bins, etc. There was so much food that it was quickly made clear to us that it was meant to be shared, thus we began classifying the food items according to what could be most useful to which neighbor of ours. My three assistants flitted around the kitchen literally aglow with joy – how sweet it is to discover (and then share!) God’s blessing alongside of your children! We made boxes for several neighbors, my assistants constantly eager to help think out which goods should go to which families and place (and then re-place and re-organize) the goods in the boxes so that they fit just right. We talked giddily about how God never leaves the giver without something to give, and that if we have in abundance (or in scarcity!), what we have is meant to be shared. It was never ours to begin with; we are but the little administrators of God’s provision, allowing goods to flow through our hands and lives like crystalline spring water!

It was one of those blessed afternoons where everything seems to ‘click;’ all our gears are moving in synchrony and we all ‘get it.’ God’s presence among us was palpable and His joy undeniable. Gleny made a comment about how she has noticed that our town of El Pino is growing in the Lord’s favor, and Josselyn talked through a big smile of how thankful she is that God has enabled us to continue blessing others.

Well, we couldn’t stop there! I went to write “God’s blessing for Mr. Mejia” in big bold permanent marker on the outside of one of the boxes, but Gleny interrupted the simple process and informed me that she wanted to do it. Although that involved helping her spell it out correctly (and then turning the box around and starting over when she messed up), it was worth it.

The next step was handing the boxes over – delivering the blessing that was never ours to keep! We laughed and worked in teams of two to hold the boxes as we shuffled across our large front yard, out the gate, and over to the small house on our property that is now home to four of our students (all siblings) and their parents, the father of which fills the role of night watchman.

Once we finished handing the two boxes over to our watchman’s family (the father looked somewhat betwixt as to why anyone would be so giddy about giving food away), we returned home feeling light and joyful, although we were a bit sad the process of giving seemed to be temporarily over. The other boxes would stay in our kitchen because they were for people who would be coming to our home the next morning, except…Mr. Mejia! It seemed utterly ridiculous due to my off-the-charts exhaustion after the lunacy of sleeping 2-3 hours one night and none the next, and so on, but it seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Our neighbor Mr. Mejia, a man in his 70s who is a pillar of faith in our community and frequents our Wednesday-afternoon Bible study, lives alone in what looks to be an abandoned half-constructed building about a 10-15 minute walk away, so I raised my eyebrows and asked my eager collaborators what they thought of an early evening walk through hungry mosquitos and possibly falling rain to drop off Mr. Mejia’s box of blessing.

They all squealed with excitement and asked if we could invite our neighbors (the watchman’s four children who are students in our school and are at our house so often that they have come to form part of our extended family) for the big event. I said yes, and so off we went – 9 kids and I quite literally skipping off down the overgrown, isolated trail in The Middle of Nowhere, Central America from our property to Mr. Mejia’s. The kids reached his house by doing various foot races while two or three people took turns hauling the box on the top of their heads. When we finally got to his house, his two thin dogs started barking like crazy at the end of their chains as we called out from just beyond his front gate to see if he was home.

It had not really occurred to me that he might not be home to receive the box, but that was, in fact, the exact situation we were facing. We shrugged disappointedly and looked at one another as I posed the honest question: “What do we do? Does anyone have any ideas?” At first our four young neighbors looked slightly shocked that an adult was actually asking for their opinion, but quickly enough various people threw out different options, each of which got vetoed by the group. Leave the box outside of his gate? No, because the food would get wet in the rain or someone would walk by and steal it. Come back tomorrow? No, because we are impatient and want to deliver it today.

Then Marina, our 15-year-old neighbor who is in 3^rd grade in our school, shrugged innocently, pointed to the little twig-and-twine waist-high front gate that was already falling over and struck us all with her (evil? benevolent?) genius, “…We could just walk in and leave the box in his kitchen [which is an outdoor table under a roof made of palm leaves].”

I looked at the young faces all around me, pondering the absurdity of breaking and entering…and blessing. I said, “Well, um, uh…go quickly! Just Marina. Drop it off and come right back.”

So she opened the simple latch on the gate, carried the box through, took a couple dozen steps, dropped off the box, exited and closed the gate, and we were gone from the scene in less than a minute.

From there the foot races joyously continued as barefoot children — who, whether they understand it or not, just participated in the holy act of administering God’s provision to the poorest of the poor — darted off along the lonely rocky trail toward our property in what, to many, seems like a cursed corner of the earth where nothing good can happen.

My heart – and by all visible accounts, those of the children – overflowed, bubbled even, with a heavenly lightness, a joy that cannot be purchased or chased down. I laughed at the wisdom of God: in a neighborhood literally moaning from so many robberies, murders, broken families, and general confusion and chaos, the King of Kings utilized the unlikely, absurd, ridiculous: a young woman who 10 years ago didn’t have the slightest idea of who Jesus Christ was along with a band of young hooligans, many of which are illiterate and all of which are barefoot, traipsing through the jungle bathed in a heavenly glow to fulfill God’s will in perhaps the most unlikely of contexts. That is our God: light in the darkness, giving in a land of taking, a Kingdom destined for those who become like little children.

May Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it in in heaven…

Family, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection

I Have a Dream

October 15, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

I have a dream…of living in a remote cabin all alone in some wintery wonderland, far away from the heaps of trash and mosquitos, far away from the extreme poverty of our neighbors, from situations that require more wisdom than I myself possess, far away from the sin and confusion of the world (except for my own, that is.)

That is precisely what I told our 15-year-old daughter a few days ago after a long and rather emotional discussion between myself, her, and our 12-year-old daughter. Tense, potentially stressful conversations like the one we had facilitated are a common occurrence in our household — nine people from two different countries and five different families of origin, one of which has special needs, another of which has severe insomnia and several of which have suffered extreme abuse and/or abandonment all between the ages of 6-32 living in a small house in a humid, rainy climate without air-conditioning or hot water that also shares its roof with mosquitos, scorpions, geckos, ticks, bats, rats and other visitors. All of which, including the spouses, 3-and-a-half years ago had never met, much less dreamed they would be living together someday as family.

After about an hour of mediating the aforementioned potentially explosive conversation between our two eldest daughters regarding respect, personal space, identity, etc, I sensed that our eldest and I needed to keep the conversation going a bit, so I dismissed 12-year-old Jackeline. I kept listening as Dayana, our eldest, opened up more and more about her general frustrations of being raised in a large, mixed family — younger siblings who enter her room without permission, confusion in the laundry pile of whose underwear is whose, younger sisters who want to wear her clothes, etc. Most of this is as foreign to me as the Spanish language was 6 years ago because I grew up an only child with both of my biological parents in the Texas suburbs, but, daily, God is stretching us all and teaching us His grace and compassion in the context of a complicated family that promises to test and try us.

After I had asked several times, “Is there anything else?”, and she wound down, having shared all she had to share, I sensed it was my turn. (My turn always comes last!)

What I did not say was: “Now, now, calm down. You know you love your siblings. Just be patient with them.” or “Why on earth are you so selfish? Can’t you see that we’re all doing the best we can?”

What I did say, by some pinch of divine wisdom, was: “It is hard. I know it is. You know what?” (At this point she’s staring at the table between us rather than looking me in the eyes.) “I would love to live alone just like you.” (Now she suddenly looks up at me, probably thinking, Then why on earth did you invite all these kids to live with you?!) My voice quickens with excitement as I beginning sharing with her my ‘dream’ of living in some simple, comfortable cabin up in the mountains in a place like Montana or Southern Canada, earning a living with some kind of job that I could do on the computer right there in my little cabin, drinking hot tea and not having a single child or teenager around to bother me, lie to me, steal from me, or make things more complicated than they need to be. I would not even have to think about child prostitution or generational bondage to sin or foolish, uneducated youth. I would not have to see lives unnecessarily destroyed by sin while my heart gets broken in the mix. Everything would be calm, and everything would be under control. My control.

While I am sharing all of this, Dayana is visibly caught off guard by my sincerity and my genuine excitement as I continue telling her all about my far-off dream. (And it is, in fact, some far-off little dream that I have, and the temptation of entertaining it comes on my longest days, when our second-grader’s teacher sends a note home saying he is using four-letter words on his classmates or our preteens start biting each other during prayer or members of our own household are heard slandering my husband and I.)

As if her eyes were windows to her mind, I read her thoughts: “Great! That sounds like what I want, too — no noisy children, more personal space. Let’s go cabin-shopping! We’ll find one for you up on a little mountaintop, and on a neighboring mountaintop that’s a good day’s-hike away, we’ll build one for me. What are we waiting for?!”

As if reminding myself once more why that dream is not a reality, I said: “But you know what? If I were to live like that, I would be useless to God’s purposes. If I isolate myself and live comfortably, fine. But where are you? Who’s raising you? Who is guiding Josselyn? Josue? If I close myself off and live according to how I want to live, I become useless in God’s hands. Your Dad and I share our home with all 7 of you not because it is the most comfortable thing to do or because we just enjoy having disobedient children around, but because the Lord is using us in your lives for His glory.” She gets it. She’s listening. “Living in our home is not about living for our own pleasure and comfort. If I live all alone in my perfect little cabin, I could very easily believe Everything’s fine in the world. I’m a really patient, composed person. I don’t even need a Savior. But it’s when Gleny has pushed my buttons one too many times and I’m at the end of myself and I have to cry out to God ‘Grant me patience because I don’t have any more!’ that God’s power manifests itself. When I’ve given all that I have to give and then am asked to give more, that’s when we see God’s provision. It is easy to think you are a grace-filled person when you aren’t required to show grace to annoying, perhaps disrespecting younger siblings. But when you reach the end of yourself, that’s when you turn to God and see His aid, His power. If I were to live all by myself, I would miss all of this, and God would have to find someone else to do His work.”

In the end, it’s not about my dreams; it’s about His.

Family, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Information About the Mission, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Special Needs Kids

Life and Ministry Updates: October 2015

October 12, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

Dayana’s Quinceanera (15^th Birthday)

The eldest of the 7 children the Lord has placed in our home, Dayana, turned 15 this month, which is a big milestone for young women in Latin American culture. We worked hard during several weeks leading up to the event on invitations, preparations, etc, and the actual event was a joyous occasion with about 60 people in attendance – several who travelled over an hour to attend – who have formed part of her extended family in these past several years. We are so proud of her — please continue to pray with us for her continued wisdom, protection and joy as she draws nearer to adulthood each day. May she be a beacon of light in the midst of this dark world, and may she be useful in the Lord’s hands for His work.

21911330208_50fc363b86_z — Darwin and Dayana making the big appearance on the day of her quinceañera (fifteenth birthday)

22109231081_982440c8af_z — The table my mom and I prepared for the party, displaying photos of Dayana in the last two years that she has been with us along with three of her paintings

22073810886_cf99e81351_z — Lighting the birthday cake that Jenae made for her

Jackeline Turns 12, We Face Big Decisions With Her

Jackeline, who moved into our home in January of this year with her younger special needs brother Josue, also had a birthday this month and is now 12 years old. We are currently in a period of discernment regarding the crucial decision of whether she will stay with us long-term as our daughter, growing up in our household until she is an adult and maintaining the parent-child bond with us afterward or if she can/should return to live with her biological family, most likely her grandmother. The other children under our care do not have this decision to make because their biological family members are not in the picture, but Jackeline has both her biological mother (who is extremely manipulative and possibly mentally ill and does not currently have a stable job) and grandmother (who is a wonderful Christian woman but does not have much in terms of economic means) who visit her once a month. When Jackeline and Josue initially moved in with us roughly 8 months ago, the mother said she would only need us to care for them for 3-4 months until she got back on her feet, but recently she told us she is only truly interested in taking Josue back, although even that is uncertain because her emotional and economic state are not stable enough to do so. Jackeline’s attitude during these past several months has mirrored that of a roller coaster, and on many occasions she has refused to do her school work, has disrespected both her teacher and our nurse/cook Miss Martha, and has had an I-don’t-care approach to many things between moments of light, joy and revelation. After entering into a very serious period of discernment with her several weeks ago and praying alongside of her every night about her future, about a week ago she announced that after many weeks of private prayer the Lord granted her peace about staying with us rather than return with her family. Darwin and I continue praying and are waiting on a word from the Lord before making any decisions. Please continue to pray with us regarding these decisions about her future and that the Lord’s will for her life be made known to us, her, and her biological family so that it may be fulfilled in the right timing. Please pray against stress, confusion, and attacks from the Enemy in this time.

21478782903_93fa4d9942_z — Jackeline all dolled up for Dayana’s birthday party

21911659699_c6201ac460_z — Our kids love to play chess!

Josselyn (10) Accepts the Lord

Josselyn, who moved into our home with her younger sister Gabriela less than three months ago, recently made the decision to accept Christ during a Bible study in our dining room in the presence of about 30 neighbors, friends, and family. Several of us prayed with her, and immediately afterward she came to me with several confessions, bringing to light what she had previously hid under lies, and desiring to ask forgiveness from her biological mom, who, according to Josselyn, she had mistreated and robbed when she used to live with her. In this short time after her conversion we have rejoiced with her as we see visible changes in her behavior and habits. The morning after receiving the Lord, she took the initiative to go behind our home to kneel in God’s presence, pray, and sing His praises. Please pray for her continued walk with the Lord, her daily protection from the Enemy, and her overall development and joy. She is currently in our homeschool program on the kindergarten level and is eagerly learning the alphabet and the sounds of the letters for the first time in her life. She has interestingly learned to play chess before learning to read!

22086648762_4298d79d8d_z — Josselyn (in pink) posing for photos with Jackeline (12) and Dayana (15) during my mom’s recent visit

21475752614_3b853371d3_z — Josselyn enjoying her stuffed animals and dolls!

Updates on My Health

Since the inception of this blog I have asked for prayer regarding my health, as I have struggled with severe insomnia for several years now and typically sleep only 2-5 nights per week in addition to having had Dengue Fever, Typhoid Fever, and several other blood infections, fevers, etc since moving to Honduras. I praise God for my currently good health (I do not currently have any fevers or viruses), although I still only sleep a few nights per week at best. Please continue to pray that the Lord would grant me a deep rest every night, and that in a very practical way I can lay all my burdens on Him.

22098566175_9d9b866d53_z — Working on homework with our kids in our dining room. Many times I feel like I myself am back in school with all the time we spend doing homework each week!

21475715274_2e779e1335_z — Darwin and I are nearing 2-and-a-half years of marriage!

Gabriela (6) Begins Attending the Same School as Josue (7)

Gabriela, who entered our home in July of this year with her older sister Josselyn after having suffered severe abuse, has entered the same small, focused school that Josue attends, and now both are in classes together every morning five days a week. Together with two other classmates and two teachers/psychologists to guide them, they are learning basic manners, the colors, and other basic pre-school behaviors to prepare them eventually for a normal school. Josue still does not talk more than the few basic syllables he has always used and still has to use diapers, but we do have hope that Gabriela will be able to fully recover from the trauma of her past and become a fully-participating member of society one day. Please pray with us for her salvation and transformation, as the other day we received a note from her teacher saying she had kicked the teacher, lied, eaten the other kids’ food, and announced that she would not obey anybody. That was not a good day!

21476184864_f47882c9c0_z — Our dear sister Miss Martha (who fills the roles of nurse/cook at the Living Waters Ranch) with Gabriela (6) and Josue (7) in our front yard

22108680951_87edd6c3e0_z — Darwin and I with our two smallest wild Indians, Josue and Gabriela

21912021639_799deda433_z — Gabriela and Josue, best friends and playmates

22072745446_b25df0e0d9_z — Lookin’ good, Gabriela! Playing dress-up and putting on a show for my mom during her visit

Community Life, Family, Personal Reflection

Not Just Any Piñata…

October 6, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

This past week we celebrated the 12^th birthday of Jackeline, the young woman who has been living with us as a daughter since January of this year. A couple dozen friends and neighbors were in attendance for the party along with Jackeline’s biological grandmother who came out to support her.

There was, however, a twist to the traditional hit-the-piñata birthday game: rather than holding candy, the piñata held hygiene products. So adults and children alike dove for deodorants, bath loofas, bars of soap, hair gel, and little packets of shampoo. Rather than give these kids candy, which rots their teeth, we’ll go ahead and give ‘em a toothbrush and some paste to go along with it!

It was a big hit, and, seeing as I’ve already pulled this fill-the-piñata-with-something-other-than-candy trick three times now, the neighborhood kids eyed the piñata at the beginning of the festivities and asked, “Jennifer, what’s in the piñata?” Although sanitary pads, hairbands and notebooks might have fallen out of my 25^th birthday piñata in August, you never know just what you’ll find if you come to our house for a birthday celebration…

jack37 — Jackeline covered in flour as her biological grandmother looks on joyfully. This has nothing to do with the piñata, but rather is the product of the party guests’ after-lunch prank on the birthday girl…

jack36 — Dayana, our 15-year-old daughter, who was the mastermind behind the flour prank on Jackeline…

jack18 — Our 11-year-old neighbor Yexon during the birthday madness

jack10 — Jackeline surrounded by several youth from our rural neighborhood who frequent our home for Bible study, choir, school, and other activities

jack11 — Jackeline with her biological grandmother

jack1 — My mom travelled from Texas to stay in our home this week, and she helped get the birthday girl ready for the party

jack67 — Piñata time in the foothills of the mountains

jack40 — Josue, Jackeline’s special-needs brother, was the first to take a whack at the piñata

jack48 — Alberto and Isis, siblings, who both labor alongside of us at the Living Waters Ranch, Alberto as the kids’ driver and tutor and Isis as our homeschool teacher

jack43 — My husband Darwin preparing the blindfold on a young neighbor of ours

jack78 — Miss Martha, our nurse and cook, watching the festivities with her granddaughter Isabela in her arms

jack77 — Our 10-year-old daughter Josselyn’s turn!

jack86 — Carminda, the neighbor of ours who now lives on our property with her husband and children, looking on.

jack81 — Our 6-year-old popcorn kernel Gabriela and I watch on

jack75 — Jackeline’s grandma takes her turn! Go, Grandma, go!

jack87 — Alberto grabbed the remains of the piñata and began running — everyone wanted the soaps and toothbrushes that hadn’t yet fallen out!

jack89 — Even the adults were chasing him!

jack90 — “Cool! I got two jars of hair gel!”

jack94 — Carminda, our neighbor, inspecting the hygiene products her kids grabbed from the piñata. Score!

jack92 — Liliana, a young friend of ours, got deodorant, several packets of shampoo, and some hair gel! So much better than candy!

Community Life, Family, Marriage

Road Race in Las Mangas [Photos]

September 28, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

This past Saturday we went as a family to our mentors’ and dear friends’ home up in the mountains for their annual 2-mile road race that they host in their local community. In Honduras, the schools generally do not have track teams nor are there a lot of sporting events (or sports) or really any opportunities to train physically beyond a pick-up game of soccer on a dirt field, so an organized 2-mile road race really is a big event.

Our mentor/pastor/friend Larry came in first place with a time of 11:23, and Darwin came in fourth place with a time of 12:55. Our 11-year-old daughter Gleny surprised us by deciding to participate, and she came in third place among the women who ran!

maraton55 — Sharing God’s Word with the racers before the competition

maraton12 — When I told Darwin to “strike a pose” before the event, he certainly did!

maraton11 — Our dear friend/mentor/pastor Allison taking the official film of the event with her and Larry’s daughter Eliya strapped on her back

maraton15 — Our 7-year-old special needs son Josue running his own race as he accompanied me to one end of the “track” to wait for the runners to arrive

maraton16 — Our mentor/pastor/friend Larry coming in first place among men who are 20-30 years younger than him!

maraton20 — Darwin coming in fourth place before guys who are 10-15 years younger than him! Go, Darwin, go!

maraton23 — Bayron (age 21) and Erick (26), members of our faith community, finishing in 7th and 8th place

maraton27 — Gleny ran the whole 2-mile race without stopping and finished after 21 minutes!

maraton31 — The kids’ 7-and-under 100m race

maraton32 — 15-year-old Danny and 32-year-old Darwin, who stuck neck-and-neck throughout the race until Darwin pulled ahead at the end and beat him by 8 seconds!

maraton30 — Darwin and Gleny, the two racers from our family!

maraton34 — Gleny with the other female competitors

maraton43 — Darwin and Larry after the race

maraton50 — Larry with the young man who came in second place

maraton57 — Gleny receiving her third-place medal

maraton51 — Larry and Allison with two of their three daughters

Community Life, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Personal Reflection, Teaching

The Great Sex Education Round-Up

September 25, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Last Thursday I bumped and jumbled along the rocky roads of our little town with one goal in mind: finding young women whom I would convince to attend our first sex education class.

Sure, I had posted flyers all over town during the several weeks leading up to the event – in the local grocery store, at the bus stop, outside of several little corner stores, at the local nurse’s clinic, etc — and even went walking house to house, visiting roughly 40 houses personally to make the invitation to the event, but, in Honduras, very few people will take the initiative to attend unless they are cornered and cajoled into doing so at the last minute possible, even if attending might save them from a lifetime of ignorance, suffering, and unwanted pregnancies.

So, playing by Honduran rules, at 9:00am, exactly one hour before the event was scheduled to start, I mounted our 2001 cab-and-a-half truck, rolled the windows down, and went to search the streets for the same young women who had probably seen my flyers everywhere and had even received a face-to-face invitation but for whatever reason would not make the effort to come on their own.

My husband Darwin accompanied me and, literally, when I spotted a group of three teenage girls whom I had never seen before in my life standing idly along the main road of our town, I shouted excitedly to no one in particular, “Teenage girls!”, convinced God had put them there for me to find them, put the car in park in the middle of the gravel road, and ran over to invite them to the event that was about to start in less than 45 minutes. Of course they were surprised, but their mom – who happened to be sitting nearby — urged them to go, so they ran in their house, combed their hair and put on skirts, and hopped in our truckbed as I promised the mother to return them to her in roughly three hours.

That was basically how the round-up went, and by the time we drove in through our front gate at 9:55am, there were 16 young women between the ages of 10-32 who were sitting around me in chairs, on a sofa, and on a couple wooden benches under the shade of our porch. Three of them had received a house-visit invitation the day prior and took the initiative to walk up the long, solitary road to our home while the rest were found and brought via my Toyota street-search during the hour before the class was to begin.

Although I was nervous at first, my voice and dry erase marker shaky as all 16 pairs of eyes were on me to explain what most parents here shy away from teaching their own daughters (or simply don’t have the knowledge to do so even if they wanted to), we ended up persevering through a wonderfully rich teaching-discussion of two hours as we discussed both the scientific and emotional/relational/spiritual aspects of sex, menstruation (most women here literally do not know what menstruation is or what it signals even if they have been menstruating their whole adult life), masturbation, men, birth control, pregnancy, virginity and the loss thereof, menopause, and the different stages of life and what they imply.

Towards the end of the discussion, a beautiful 15-year-old asked innocently, laughing self-consciously, “This might be a silly question, but…men can’t get pregnant, then, right?” Pointing toward my drawings of the male and female reproductive systems on the white board in front of us that we had discussed in detail, she said, “I mean, they don’t have the parts…”

Another young woman, at the beginning of the class as I was preparing to draw the illustrations on the board, asked innocently what a vagina is and where it is found. When I explained it to her, her eyes grew wide.

Luckily, these young women are still in school and have not gotten pregnant yet, but many more like them who are only 12- and 13-years old in our neighborhood are already sexually active, and some have already given birth to a child they never were prepared to take care of. In attendance were two single moms: a 21-year-old and a 32-year-old, both of which admitted to having their eyes opened during our two-hour class to many basic details about their body, men, etc, that had previously been mysteries to them even after having travelled the hard road of experience.

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. — Romans 7:2-3

At the end of the meeting we all stood, hand-in-hand, and prayed both for men in general – for strength in their temptations, for their purity, and for our wise and supportive interactions with them – and for us women. Before I drove everyone home, many of the women suggested doing a brainstorm on the white board of future teachings they would like us to organize, including dating, the good/bad uses of technology, and forgiveness/healing, among others.

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised. — Proverbs 31:30

After about a year-and-a-half or two of sensing that Biblically-based sexual education was something the Lord wanted us to become involved in (rather than merely rescuing unwanted children — the products — of sexual sin and ignorance), we finally took the big first step, which tends to make the steps that follow more forthcoming. Please pray for us in this new initiative, both for the young women who attended the first meeting and for those in our neighborhood who we hope to reach in the coming months and years.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. — 1 Corinthians 6:15-20

Family, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Marriage, Personal Reflection

Sanitary Pads, Flirting and Ballet Flats: The Fear-Inspiring Task of Parenting a Teenager

September 12, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

The eldest of the seven children the Lord has put in our household to care for as sons and daughters will turn 15 years old in less than three weeks and, honestly, I’m scared to death.

I sit here, reading and re-reading parenting books — entirely skipping over the baby and toddler sections and heading straight for the chapters on adolescence, on how to love and guide someone who is no longer a child — looking to glean bits of wisdom for a journey that instills fear in the hearts of even those parents who have been raising their own child since the day of its birth.

She moved into our home with her two younger siblings exactly 4 months and 8 days after my husband and I were married. I was 23 and she was 13, although I very well might have felt like I was 13 while she may have felt 23. I will never forget the day we met her at the Honduras government’s Child Services office among dozens of other children — as Darwin and I walked up, not knowing the exact ages or genders of the sibling group of three that we would be meeting and possibly inviting to move in with us, I made eye contact with her and the Lord spoke to my heart, “She will be your daughter.” When I asked her age and she innocently answered, “13,” I literally almost passed out.

That raw fear, that trembling sense of awe I felt upon meeting her for the first time has accompanied me every single day since. Many young Honduran women — especially those in rural areas or those affected by poverty — get ‘married’ and/or pregnant by 11 or 12 years old, so to take in a 13-year-old girl who comes from a tragic childhood is to commit oneself to what promises to be a grueling uphill battle with possibly devastating results despite your best efforts.

A gripping sense of being unprepared, of even being the wrong person for the job, often threatens to spook me out of the gargantuan task before Darwin and me. I do puzzles with the younger ones, give piggy-back rides and console those who scrape their knees — but her? What do I do with a young woman who now wears the same bra size I do and who lends me a sanitary pad when I forget to go to the store to buy more?

She calls Darwin and me “Pa” and “Ma,” and we have plans to begin the legal adoption process with her and her siblings in June of next year once we hit our 3-year wedding anniversary and become legally capable of adoption, although she very well might be 17 or 18 by the time all the paperwork gets processed.

So I applied calamine lotion to her spots when she had chicken pox and help with fun hairdos for her different outings. We have long talks with her about decision-making, pray with her for her sexual purity, confront her on her sin as she does on ours, and we resolutely move on after asking for forgiveness and forgiving, trusting in God to work out the great redemption. She flirts with boys and thinks we don’t notice, and Darwin and I stay up late praying for her, discussing her growth, and grabbing at any scrap of wisdom the Lord tosses us on how to raise this young woman according to His will. She oftentimes asks me to put her to sleep at night, and there we have long conversations tinged with a maturity and openness that the younger ones don’t yet have. From there I sing lullabies and songs of praise and give a foot massage, stroking her hair as she drifts off to sleep, sending desperate prayers up to God that our imperfect, late-in-the-game efforts will be enough and that He’ll do the rest.

A couple weeks after she moved into our home in 2013 I was reading the Bible passage to her and her little sister at bedtime about when Jesus says that familial blood ties are not as important as those who, by obeying God, are united in one eternal family. She sat up in her top bunk and said that she wanted to join that family. We talked further, prayed together, and although we have never shared blood ties here on earth, she and I are now united by the blood of Christ and obedience to our Father.

So she plays on the girls’ basketball team I coach and is our faithful, enthusiastic participant in the various Bible studies and classes we teach. She fills the role of Darwin’s teaching assistant in the choirs and music lessons he directs and is even studying at a local university on Saturdays to learn English. She struggles to tell the truth in a culture of lies, fights with ego as I do, tries to make sense of her past, and accepts many changes around her as new siblings arrive and others go. She feels that Darwin and I don’t always understand her, and we put up with her frustrated glances and mood-swings. At times we have wild, joyful tickle fights as she chases us or we chase her around our front yard while on other occasions we endure her chilly silence, not knowing exactly how she is or what she’s struggling with. I desire to be her confidant, to share stories and feelings for hours on end as we both sit cross-legged on her bed, but in reality I don’t have the time to do so nor is that the role the Lord has given me to fill. Sometimes she and I are both in and out so much that a couple days pass before we really sit down and have a good conversation, but what she doesn’t know is that she’s always on my heart, never far from my thoughts and prayers.

On the airplane this June after having attended the wedding of a dear friend of mine who maintained sexually pure until the day of her wedding, I wrote through tears a letter to Dayana, recounting the beautiful details of the wedding and reminding her that I want to be able to rejoice with her, too, someday, as she walks in all white down the aisle to be wed to a man of God. Upon giving her the letter (bundled up with several others I had written her during the time I was away from home), she later told me that she, too, cried upon reading it and hopes by God’s grace that she may be able to walk in such a way.

So she faces adolescent temptations but still enjoys a wild go-around of hide-and-go-seek every once in a while, likes to wear ballet flats even though we live in the country, gets fed up on occasion with her younger siblings, and is in the beginning stages of searching out her identity in the adult realm, the specific purpose and path the Lord would have for her to take. We pay for her art classes, spend evenings hacking through her math homework assignments together, and invite her friends over for movies and popcorn. We laugh that we will be old women together one day, and Darwin and I remind her again of our expectations and hopes for her as God’s child. So I hug her goodnight and she says, “Thanks, Ma, for everything,” and in the depth of my heart I wonder if she means it or if she really resents us and is on the verge of self-destruction. I call my own mom asking desperately for parenting advice, and then, because the electricity has gone out once again, I talk with Dayana by flashlight about my own inadequacies, struggles and faith.

From my limited experience, parenting a teenager seems almost like learning how to cultivate a mentoring relationship with someone who is suddenly joining you and your husband as the third adult in the household. Strict bedtimes no longer seem realistic or necessary, and discipline that works for the younger ones just isn’t appropriate with her anymore. It is a season of learning all over again what it means to trust in God’s grace, to release our grip on control and, rather than turn our knuckles blue with worry or seek to control every move she makes for fear of her failure or humiliation (or ours), we entrust her to the Lord anew, recognizing that she was His all along.

Dayana (age 13) in December 2013, roughly a month after moving in with us

agua9 — Dayana in August 2015, nearing her 15th birthday and her two-year anniversary with us

A compelling excerpt from Mike Mason’s book The Mystery of Children in a chapter on adolescence:

Every once in a while in the midst of this darkness [the author’s teenage daughter’s struggles with adolescence], a dim light would flash and I’d hear the words, “This is a spiritual battle. Pray for her.” But prayer is the last thing anyone wants to do in a crisis. Sure, you pray, but it’s not where your main energy goes. Your main energy goes into worrying, fearing, plotting, strategizing. Your imagination paints lurid scenarios and your brain works overtime, spewing out plan after plan to stave off encroaching doom…Meanwhile there’s this gnat buzzing around your head, whispering, “Pray for her. She needs your prayers. I’m her Father. Give her up to Me. Trust Me and pray.” How hard this is! We don’t mind praying so long as we can keep on worrying too. We Christian parents would not be caught bowing down before a pagan shrine, but night after night we kneel and worry beside our children’s beds. We think we are praying, but we are not. There is nothing godly, virtuous, or even practical about worry. Worry is not prayer to God, it is prayer to the person we are worried about…We’re looking to our children to bestow grace upon us. Our peace of mind depends upon their every move…Finally, as a last resort, I let go of my guilt and shame long enough to pray for Heather. That New Year’s Eve I breathed a prayer I knew was right: a clean, clear, humble, bold prayer for the darkness around my daughter to be driven back and for God’s light to fill her heart.

Community Life, Homeschool, Information About the Mission, Personal Reflection

The Ax is at the Root of the Trees

September 11, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

In the past year we have welcomed 10 illiterate children and teens from our rural neighborhood into our free 3-day-per-week ‘homeschool’ program, and thus far 5 (exactly half) have voluntarily walked out not only on the only education they had ever received, but likely on their very future.

One struggle that often leaves me (and my husband, who himself is Honduran) scratching my head, perplexed, is the utter foolishness of many people here. We are not up against a community of people who steal, lie, and roam the streets aimlessly because no one has ever come to lend them a hand, to lovingly show them the Way, but rather many are in the condition they’re in because they foolishly rejected the love, the opportunities, the Truth presented to them in favor of their own misery, their own destruction.

Just yesterday my husband Darwin and I stood on the porch of our Education Building, a small cinderblock structure painted in a melon-like color where Darwin gives his music lessons and where three mornings a week we impart a government-approved elementary-level education to the children in our little school. Emotionally exhausted, we looked out across our large grassy property as our cows mixed and grazed with the herds of two of our neighbors.

“That’s…suicide,” I said as he finished telling me the sad news that the mother of a promising 8-year-old girl in first grade in our school just that morning informed Darwin that she would no longer be sending her daughter to school (…ever) because her daughter reported to her that our 6-year-old daughter Gabriela hit her on the hand during recess.

Previously, the mother had had her daughter in the local public school system, but due to extreme poverty was not able to pay the school fees or uniform costs, so for the last couple years her daughter had just stayed at home with her everyday, doing nothing (a too-common practice here). For the past six weeks or so we had been driving over 10 minutes from our home to theirs to pick her up at her front doorstep and take her up to our property every day to learn to read, write, do basic math, sing in Darwin’s choir, attend Bible study, and participate in agriculture, and every afternoon we did the 20+ minute round-trip drive to drop her back off at home. For free. To serve Jesus and love this little girl. And now, due to the mom’s (and possibly child’s) ignorance and/or blatant foolishness, she has withdrawn her daughter from the only educational opportunity available to her, and has condemned her to a life of illiteracy, idleness and probably teen pregnancy because her daughter complained to her that a little girl two years younger than herself hit her on the hand during recess, leaving no blood and no mark.

Possibly speaking out of ignorance myself, I asked my husband, “Do you think it’s like that in Africa?” He laughed. I continued: “I’ve heard and read of different people in Africa who open up a little school or mission, and like 100 children walk miles barefoot just to show up and learn, grateful for the opportunity. They study hard and become doctors and engineers, desiring to provide for their families and honor God.”

Here, on the contrary, 13-year-old Little Darwin, who several months ago was in second grade in our school, stormed out one morning never to return because he showed up late for the free breakfast before classes and was thus told he would have to wait two hours for recess in order to eat. He condemned himself to illiteracy, roaming the streets and stealing from us over his unwillingness to accept the (extremely small) consequence of his own tardiness.

Fool.

We currently have a 15-year-old girl in third grade in our school program who last week walked out in the middle of class, climbed a tree behind the school, and began yelling at our nurse/cook Miss Martha, saying that she wouldn’t come down until the teacher herself climbed the tree to get her. After another similar incident only two days ago, this young woman herself is on the verge of becoming Number Six to permanently walk out on the only education she’s ever been offered. And her family doesn’t even have enough food to feed her, yet it doesn’t occur to her to stay in school if only to receive the free breakfast and lunch several days a week.

Jackeline, one of the young women the Lord has placed in our lives to love and care for as a daughter and who has been living under our guidance roughly 7 months, recently failed 5th grade in our homeschool program after a very poor effort. Weeks later, upon beginning the 5th grade school year a second time, she refused to do her homework and told the teacher: “It doesn’t matter if I fail again; I’m young enough that I can repeat without getting too behind.” We respond with prayer, long one-on-one talks, the taking-away of privileges and freedoms, written consequences, etc, and she continues onward in a sluggish ungratefulness that makes us want to pull our hair out and scream.

So I write all of this basically to ask for prayer. Darwin and I have jumped through many hoops trying to love and serve the children and youth the Lord has placed around us, and in the end it seems as though with many of them (even some of which live under our roof) we strangely enough end up begging them to care about their own futures or, possibly worse, I become jaded with all their foolishness, with all the long one-on-one- talks that never seem to produce any fruit, with the utter ungratefulness these children/youth display toward God for His favor, and my heart becomes discouraged and hardened. Please pray with and for us, that our labors may not be in vain, and that it may be revealed to us in whom we should invest our energies and resources so as to produce a harvest of good fruit for God’s Kingdom.

The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

— Matthew 3:10

Family

Where’s Goliath?

September 7, 2015 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Last week we brought home two adult dogs to help guard our rather large out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere property after two of the three puppies we were raising were very sickly and did not make it.

On Day Two of our new adventure with Goliath (a year-and-half old Rottweiler) and his buddy Dingo (an 8-month-old German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix), we suddenly lost track of Goliath and began looking for him all around our fenced-in property. We peered under our parked car, walked around each building, looked in and around the shrubs, and even recruited our 8-year-old son Jason to help us find a dog that is rather difficult to lose due to his size. We ended up scratching our heads, perplexed, wondering where on earth he was hiding when 10-year-old Josselyn came running out of our house and announced: “He’s in my room!”

Culturally here in Honduras, it is not appropriate to have a dog indoors, but even more than that we personally cannot have a 100+ pound Rottweiler in our tiny house that barely holds the 9 people who live there and that has to be cleaned from top to bottom just about every day due to dust, ants and other critters that waltz on in, dirt-caked barefoot children who run all around the place, and the general chaos that a busy household enjoys.

So my husband Darwin and I laughed and went to try to coax Goliath out of the girls’ bedroom. After several failed attempts, we laughed, shrugged, and decided to leave him there until he decided he was ready to leave.

goliath4 — Goliath in the girls’ bedroom

About an hour or two later, I walked back in to see if this time he was ready to return to the yard, and I was surprised to find the girls’ room vacant. I began walking around the house somewhat tentatively, and as I turned the corner into the kids’ bathroom, this is what I found:

goliath3 — Goliath resting in the kids’ shower

Once again, I tried to coax him out of his spot and into the yard, but he wouldn’t have any of it. So, I left him there. A couple hours later when Dayana, our eldest daughter, got home from her English class, we greeted her at the gate and walked with her as she entered our home to drop off her materials. We had warned her that Goliath had been in our house the whole morning, but we all thought that he was still resting in the shower. She opened the curtain to her bedroom, walked in care-freely to drop off her materials, but before taking two full steps into her room she screamed at the top of her lungs and ran out into the living room: Goliath had changed locations!

goliath5 — Goliath waiting to surprise Dayana in her bedroom!

A couple hours later, Jackeline, our almost-12-year-old, began singing to Goliath and, according to her, he finally got up, followed her voice, and went to her in the living room before finally exiting the front door a while later. Mission accomplished!

Community Life, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Personal Reflection

For They are All the Work of His Hands

September 3, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

2:39pm Wednesday, September 2, 2015: Less than an hour ago we finished studying God’s Word with our neighbors as we all sat around in an oblong rectangle of chairs, stools and wooden benches in our dining room. It is now what we do every Wednesday afternoon, and many of the same people are coming week after week.

As the time was nearing for the Bible study to start earlier this afternoon, one of our young dogs vomited for the fourth or fifth time today as he lay nearly motionless, skin and bones after struggling with a devastating virus during these last three weeks even while receiving veterinary treatment. As I entered the kitchen, frazzled, the music coming from the little CD player seemed way too loud, and everyone seemed to want to tell me something or ask for help all at once. Large drops of sweat began rolling down my temples as my fever broke. Again. I had not slept last night and therefore felt like everything got on my nerves, and I snapped as kids and teens came strolling in too late to eat after having sacrificed the hour that is designated for eating in order to play soccer in our front yard. No one had moved the tables and benches, and as I began to somewhat frantically (although I tried to appear calm) sweep out all the dust, dropped bits of sticky rice and other mysterious particles from our large concrete dining room floor, I think everyone was very purposefully (and wisely) trying to stay out of my way. And the bad news: I, the Big Grump, would be leading the Bible study in less than five minutes!

As we sat down to begin the study, I sensed that several of the kids/teens whose food I took away for having arrived late had become bitter toward me and that everyone was probably wondering why I looked so stressed. So, with gritted teeth, I asked for forgiveness for my bad attitude in front of everyone and quickly blamed my insomnia before proceeding on with the teaching.

The marvelous part about all of this is not that I did not particularly want to be present and, much less, be the one designated to impart God’s Word to the 25 people all looking at me, but that even in the midst of my terrible attitude, near nervous breakdown, and general exhaustion, God’s Word came through without folly.

This week’s discussion centered around the question: How does the World treat the poor, the widows and the orphans? And, once everyone’s faces and general morale dropped as person after person shared how they themselves or people they know have suffered mistreatment, been taken advantage of, and generally been overlooked in society, we turned to God’s Word to answer the question: How does God treat the poor, the widows and the orphans?

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

Each week thus far we have taken a theme – be it injustice-Justice, lies-Truth, or change-Constant to compare how the World is with how God is.

Many of our neighbors have no concept of who God is, and if they don’t understand who He is – compassionate, just, good, true, loving – they will not even have the first notion of wanting to hear His Word or know Him.

My whole being will exclaim,
“Who is like you, Lord?
You rescue the poor from those too strong for them,
the poor and needy from those who rob them.” Psalm 35:10

Our mentor Larry has taught many times that Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s first command in the garden of Eden because they doubted His goodness. God gave the command out of love: “Do not eat from said tree.” Then the serpent came, calling God a liar and proposing to the humans that they do exactly what their Creator God warned them against. In believing the serpent (the liar), they evidently felt him to be more trustworthy than God, somewhere deep down feeling that God didn’t have their best intentions at heart, and therefore disobeyed.

[He] who shows no partiality to princes
and does not favor the rich over the poor,
for they are all the work of his hands… Job 34:19

If I think (wrongly) that God just wants to control me, is content with all the pain and suffering in the world, takes the side of the bad guys or better yet just ignores humanity, and doesn’t want me to enjoy life, why would I even have the slimmest desire to know and, much less, serve Him?

The poor will see and be glad—
you who seek God, may your hearts live!
The Lord hears the needy
and does not despise his captive people. Psalm 69:32-33

So we are, with the little pinches of wisdom that God grants us, trying to disarm the Garden-of-Eden mentality. We ask: What are some of the lies or instances of trickery or unfilled promises in our world? Everyone, obviously, has a lot to say, from false advertising in the marketplace to corrupt government leaders to infidelity among spouses and so on. We then assert: It is impossible for God to lie, and He always fulfills His promises.

On the topic of ‘change,’ we brainstorm: everything – our own bodies, time itself, buildings, relationships, plants – changes in our world. On the contrary: God does not change; He is the only constant that exists.

What are some of the injustices that we see or experience in our world, our neighborhood, our own lives? Another long, long list is shared as everyone in the oblong rectangle of chairs, stools and benches pipes in. But God? He is absolutely just and loves justice.

Who is like the Lord our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes,
with the princes of his people.
Psalm 113:5-9

So today we discussed how the World treats the poor, widows and orphans. And, with many of the people present themselves being poor and/or orphans, it almost seemed like too-touchy of a subject. Literally their faces fell as person after person spoke the truth: in general, the World does not place a high value on the marginalized. I assume many thought the discussion would end there; a sad summary of the suffering and shame they already know too well.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3

But as we remembered that each week we a take a contrast (how the world is versus how God is), the despair painted on their faces was literally turned to a visible joy-surprise as we read Bible verse after Bible verse about God’s heart for the poor, the widow and the orphan and his desire for justice for them. As several people took turns reading the verses out loud, person after person read words of truth about God’s prophetic promises to bring justice to the wronged, to comfort and protect the widow, to be the father to the fatherless. Jesus Christ’s own personal statement about his purpose in the world includes pronouncing good news to the poor, declaring freedom to the captives and giving sight to the blind!

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

As we finished the study, it occurred to me to ask if anyone was hearing this – God’s heart for the poor and outcast – for the first time. To my surprise, almost half of the people present shared through smiles of joy-struck awe that this was, in fact, the first time they had ever heard that God truly loves the poor and desires justice for them.

You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat… Isaiah 25:4

I was astonished as one person after another — several of whom were middle-aged adults — shook their heads in awe and confessed that they literally never knew that God desires to be their refuge, that He commands His people to treat them well for love of Him. One older neighbor of ours, a man in his early sixties who has probably lived his entire life as a poor man, was the first to admit that today was the first time he had ever heard such outlandish Truth.

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21

So I am encouraged anew to share the good news of the merciful, loving God — the Creator of the universe who favors all equally and offers the same promises to all who choose to repent and follow, the justice-desiring King who cries out to defend those on the margins and who Himself became one on the margins to save many. There are people who have literally never heard!

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:12-14

Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Information About the Mission

Life and Ministry Updates: August 2015

August 31, 2015 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Two New Students Enter Our School

In the past month two new students from our little town have become students in the one-room schoolhouse where we educate several of our children and a handful of our neighbors. Michelle, age 8, and Selbin, age 11, have entered the program at the first-grade level and are participating weekly in agriculture, music, and Bible study along with academic classes. We currently have 6 children/youth from the community in our school along with several of the 7 kids under our full-time care.

[Explanation of the need for our school program]: There are a couple public elementary schools in our area, but the education the students receive is very poor due to lazy and/or absent teachers, sexual abuse that occurs on the playground, and a ridiculous number of ‘holidays’. Many students who are in sixth grade, which is the last year of elementary school according to the Honduran system, cannot even read or write. Even so, many poor families cannot pay the fees for their kids to attend these corrupted government-run schools nor can they purchase the uniform or buy basic school supplies. Thus illiteracy, unemployment and idleness run rampant in our little town, and as more mothers approach us asking if their kids can become students in our school, we sense that this program may grow with time.

Miss Martha’s Daughter Joins Our Team as the Teacher of the Living Waters Ranch School

Miss Martha, our nurse and cook who labors alongside of us Monday-Friday, has a 22-year-old daughter named Isis who this past month began working three days a week with us as the teacher of our school program. She is a fantastic teacher and assigns quite a bit of homework each night! Having her in the school has liberated Darwin and I to plan, work in the office on administration, run errands, and have one morning per week when we can rest together.

Gabriela and Josselyn’s Progress

Gabriela (age 6) and Josselyn (age 10), biological sisters, moved into our home in July of this year and are adjusting very well to life in our family. Gabriela has received her medical exams and psychological evaluation and is all set to enter into a small school geared toward children with traumatic pasts and/or special needs for roughly 5 months to prepare her with basic vocabulary, social skills, and kindergarten-level academic knowledge (the colors, how to hold a pencil, etc) so that she will hopefully be ready in February to enter first grade at the private Christian school where Gleny and Jason attend. Emotionally and behaviorally she has improved leaps and bounds in just seven weeks of living with us, and we are thrilled to see her grow into a young women in conformity with God’s own heart. Josselyn has entered first grade in our homeschool program and is doing very well in all respects.

A New Initiative: Wednesday Bible Study with our Neighbors

Several weeks ago Darwin and I started a Bible study in our dining room for our neighbors and the children/youth in our school program and choir, and we have had between 14-22 people attend each week, not including Darwin, our seven kids, and Miss Martha. Anyone from our neighborhood is invited, and we serve lunch from 12:00-1:00pm, study God’s word together from 1:00-2:00pm, and then have some kind of soccer game with the kids in our front lawn from 2:00-3:00pm. We are excited to see how the Lord will use this time to touch the lives of many of our neighbors with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Local Family Moves to Our Property to Work in Agriculture and Security

A local family who has four of their kids in our school program moved this past week to the little watchman’s house on our property to begin working the land and helping with basic security. We are looking to develop a good relationship with them as we discern how the Lord would have us to love and serve one another for His glory.

(Jesus in John 6:38-39):“For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.”

(Jesus in John 8:28-29):“When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.”

(Jesus in John 8:49-51): “No, I have no demon in me. For I honor my Father—and you dishonor me. And though I have no wish to glorify myself, God is going to glorify me. He is the true judge. I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!”

(Jesus in John 17:3-5): “And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.”

(Jesus in Matthew 26:39): “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

“What’s the purpose of a human being?”

Dayana’s Quinceanera (15th Birthday)

Jackeline Turns 12, We Face Big Decisions With Her

Josselyn (10) Accepts the Lord

Updates on My Health

Gabriela (6) Begins Attending the Same School as Josue (7)

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.” Psalm 35:10

[He] who shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands… Job 34:19

The poor will see and be glad— you who seek God, may your hearts live! The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Psalm 69:32-33

Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people. Psalm 113:5-9

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat… Isaiah 25:4