Category Archives: Adopt

Adopt, Central America, Child/Youth Leadershp, COVID-19, Current World Events, Family, Foster, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests, Reflections on Life in the United States

Learning to Pray With Eyes Wide Open

March 18, 2022 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

A couple weeks ago I embarked on a very special journey with our 18-year-old foster daughter who has been a beloved member of our family since she was an awkward and insecure 11-year-old. She has now graduated high school, runs her own small business with a friend, works part-time in our ministry teaching classes to a group of preteens with learning disabilities and is waist-deep in the admission process to enter a local university.

Of all the 14 youth who have called our house “home” over the past 8+ years, my dad jokes that he does not ever worry about this particular daughter of ours. She’s got her head screwed on straight, is kind-hearted and often seems older than her years. After being tossed about by many devastating storms as a child, the Lord has miraculously given back to her the years that were lost and has granted her exceeding levels of wisdom, financial savvy, loyalty and faith.

She and I stood in line a couple Fridays ago, large hiking backpacks strapped to our backs and tickets in hand, as we waited to board the ferry that would take us out to one of Honduras’ islands for the weekend. I would be accompanying her to meet her biological father for the first time in her life. (He lives on the island and works as a fisherman.) Emotions were high, and I secretly hoped that this elusive man who had been the epitome of an absentee father would not crush our beautiful daughter’s heart to pieces. I was afraid her expectations were too high, and my husband and I had carefully (and perhaps unsuccessfully) tried to prepare her for this wild-card weekend experience.

As we were in the large commercial ferry’s waiting area, dozens of other passengers from around the world were likewise awaiting the boat that would transport them to Caribbean island paradise. We saw people of all shapes, sizes and colors, and honestly it was as much enthralling as it was overwhelming. Mind you, I have not left Honduran soil in five years’ time, and throughout this time I have been largely confined to our remote ranch in a rural part of Honduras that receives little to no international traffic. We basically see our same rural, materially poor neighbors day in and day out, and this has been my daughter’s experience not for the past five years but for the majority of her short lifetime. (In short, we are moderately sheltered from many of the “modern” plagues that are ravishing wealthier and more developed nations.)

Now, I must confess that this reflection is not in essence about our weekend spent getting to know our foster daughter’s biological father. It is rather about a spiritual discipline I’m learning to develop that is highly applicable and urgently necessary across the globe in today’s worldwhere too often what is wrong is considered right, and what is right is considered wrong.

So, I literally felt like we had been transported to another country (or perhaps another planet!) as we sat quietly waiting to board the ferry when a certain man caught my eye.

He was stocky and broad-shouldered as any man is, but he was dressed extravagantly as a woman and had long, womanly hair that was perfectly styled. He wore makeup and employed explicitly feminine gestures. I found myself subtly studying him and felt genuinely sad for him in my heart.

Throughout this past decade that I’ve lived in Honduras with very little “worldly” exposure I knew the world had changed much, and I oftentimes find myself reading up on these things online in order to remain well-informed and to know how to pray accordingly.

But this time I was not reading an article online about the transgender tidal wave or the far-reaching effects of the “sexual revolution”; I was witnessing it in person a few yards away, a real man – a real soul – who has been so deceived and swept up by this cultural phenomenon that he has tried to shed his very masculine identity (as God created him) in favor of a pseudo personality that he believes fits him better.

I glanced over at my daughter as she sat quietly, her hands in her lap and her gaze contentedly far off in some distant place in front of her, no doubt lost in her own thoughts as she considered the pending ramifications of meeting her biological father within a few hours’ time.

Heart heavy, I began to pray in silence for the transgendered man. And I mean, really pray.

A short time later, then aboard the ferry, a woman who appeared to be lesbian or transgendered was seated a few arms’ lengths from us as the boat bobbed up and down on the ocean waves. My daughter pulled the hood of her sweater down over her eyes and tried to uncomfortably curl up in a ball on the ferry’s seat near me as she fought seasickness. Seeing as I generally cannot sleep (or even let down my guard) in public spaces, I sat there wide awake and glanced again at the woman seated near us, and I began to pray silently for her with my eyes wide open.

At one point I got up during the hour-and-forty-five-minute ferry ride and went nearly sliding across the aisle in order to go buy snacks. I was not sea-sick at all; I was hungry! As I clung to a rung on the ferry’s wall, I came across the transgendered man that I had seen and prayed for in the waiting area. With a heavy heart, I returned to my seat several minutes later (snacks in hand) and resumed my silent prayer for both of these people, eyes wide open.

How often do we lose time waiting mindlessly in the doctor’s office, standing in line at the bank, sitting idly on airplanes or waiting impatiently for meetings to commence? How often has the Lord put people in our midst who need Him – who desperately need prayer – but we haven’t had the self-discipline or the faithful presence of mind to truly pray for these people?

What if we as Christians made the commitment to pray – truly pray – for these people whom we come across in our workplaces, neighborhoods and in daily newsreels? What if we as God’s people learned to pray with our eyes wide open?

Upon arriving on the island – within moments of meeting our precious girl’s biological father with all the roller coaster of emotions in tow – I saw yet another transgendered man exiting the ferry, this one with a sparkling crown in his hands.

Another earnest prayer, eyes wide open.

Over the weekend, my precious daughter and I not only met her biological father and spent many memorable moments with him in Caribbean paradise, but we also witnessed many extravagant, shameless displays of humanity’s descent into depravity. Everything that I had been reading on reputable internet sources over the past several years came alive before our very eyes all around us. My heart broke in a million pieces for these people, but I didn’t let that keep me from turning to the Lord in prayer – right there on the beach, in local restaurants, in the midst of so much human brokenness.

Pray with me. Let us learn to pray with our eyes wide open.

Adopt, Family, Foster, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests

An Update from Jennifer: “Please Pray for Us”

February 11, 2022 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Dear friends and family,

I send you our warm greetings on behalf of my husband Darwin, our motley group of foster teens and our dedicated ministry staff at the Living Waters Ranch in rural Honduras.

I humbly ask for your earnest prayers during these coming weeks and months, as our patchwork family has been immersed in a very difficult season with many lasting ramifications. In the following paragraphs I will share with you a small glimpse into some of what we’ve been going through:

In November 2021 we reached a breaking point with one of our beloved daughters (age 19, having lived 4+ years in our home), as her incessant stealing, lying and unhealthy behaviors were tearing our family to pieces. Her exit from our home came after months (and, to be honest, years) of immense levels of distrust and rebellious incidents in the home. We had taken every measure possible to correct her, encourage her, pray for her, teach her and walk with her along the “straight and narrow” path of Christ, but to no avail. Her departure from our home in November brought relief but also prolonged heartache, as she was an integral member of our household and was deeply loved despite her flaws.

Then, two months later in January 2022 two more of our beloved daughters (ages 18 and 17, having lived 4+ and 8+ years in our home, respectively) decided to leave our nest completely out of the blue, one of them giving us an hour’s notice before she packed up and disappeared from our lives. In Honduran culture, it is very common (and economically necessary) for young adults to continue living with their parents well into their twenties and/or until they get married (even as they work, go to college, etc.), so our teenage daughters’ sudden departure left in its wake many broken dreams, damaged relationships and things left unsaid, undone. We had many admirable goals and plans with both of them for 2022 (and beyond). We were knee-deep in the process of legally adopting these two when they decided to sever all significant ties with our family with little-to-no explanation, so the sting of rejection and broken family ties cuts even deeper.

In the midst of it all, my husband and I are having marital issues that oftentimes go untended-to, as our many other responsibilities and commitments oftentimes receive the largest part of our time and energy. Our marriage is left on the backburner. We are coming up on 9 years of marriage in June of this year, but we still have many areas that need urgent attention (and too little time and energy to tend to them). Please pray for our marriage.

It is not my intention to complain or to hang our family’s dirty underwear out where all can see; I simply ask for your honest prayers during this season, as our family has gone through many devastating storms over the past few months, some of which have caught us completely by surprise and left us speechless and hurt. (And, in the midst of the pain, life marches on and we still have 1 daughter and 3 sons at home, needing our attention, prayers, counsel and love in the midst of their own struggle to accept many of these painful new realities.) In many ways my husband Darwin and I are carefully and painstakingly re-evaluating our family life as we wonder silently before the Lord just where to go from here.

In August of this year I am planning a month-long trip back to the United States for the first time in five years, Lord willing, and during my stay on star-spangled soil I have a 2-week-long retreat scheduled at a Christian counseling center to help me work through much of the traumas that I’ve experienced in this decade of living and serving in the trenches of the third world. We’ve weathered many painful, dangerous storms over the past several years – my husband’s violent kidnapping by a local gang, countless robberies (more than half of which have occurred within the walls of our home by our own children), the murder of several people who were close to us, betrayal/slander, the devastating breakdown of many of our key relationships, and others.

Living in close context 24/7 with abused, abandoned children and teenagers whose biological parents taught them many destructive, anti-social behaviors in their early childhood brings about enormous levels of stress and compassion fatigue in the lives of foster- and adoptive parents like us. There is a very hazy line between what is work/service and what is personal/family time. On a normal day we arise at 4:00am and go nearly non-stop until about 7:30pm, oftentimes with little-to-no personal time or down time.

If you know a local foster family where you live or in your church congregation, I encourage you this week to reach out to them with a word of encouragement, offer to serve or help their family in some way, or simply lend them a listening ear and a prayerful heart, as foster- and adoptive families face incredible challenges that many “normal” families could not even begin to imagine.

Thank you for your honest prayers and continuing support, and please let us know how we can be praying for you as well, as the Lord has called us to bear one another’s burdens in love.

Sincerely, Jennifer (for Darwin and family/ministry)

Adopt, Bible study, Central America, Child/Youth Leadershp, Current World Events, Discipline Techniques, Family, Farm Life, Foster, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Marriage, Music, Personal Reflection, Reflections on Life in the United States, Special Needs Kids, Teaching

BOOK NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

May 20, 2021 jenniferzillycanales 3 Comments

I’m grateful and humbled to announce that my first published book is now available for sale on Amazon.com in paperback and kindle. CLICK HERE for more information.

Adopt, Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Current World Events, Family, Farm Life, Foster, Marriage, Music, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests

Late Summer Updates

August 21, 2020 jenniferzillycanales 3 Comments

We write to you from our ranch homestead in Honduras on the starting line of another Central American rainy season. We sincerely hope you and your loved ones are well and thriving despite the pandemic.

This is our groundskeeper and two of his step-sons spending quality time together playing with a kite on our ranch’s large grassy lawn.

This is one of three bougainvilleas that we planted around our school buildings a year or two ago.

Here are our foster daughters and a couple local students receiving weekly cooking classes in one of our teachers’ homes.

The Honduran post office finally opened up after having been closed the past six months, but they are only mailing letters to a short list of American cities, and for 16 times the normal price! Needless to say, our hand-written thank-you notes to those who support this mission have still been unable to be sent! : ) Via this post we would, however, like to extend our sincere thanks to all those who continue to pray for and financially support this little mission in this corner of the world. It has been and remains our intention to be a small, flickering flame to those around us for God’s glory, lighting others’ paths and encouraging those near and far in the truth of Christ. Please continue to pray for us that God might grant us persevering faith so that this purpose might be accomplished.

This is the view I enjoy in our living room each afternoon as my husband Darwin trains our five foster teens in our in-home orchestra! Under traditional circumstances, the group would be much bigger and would include over a dozen of our local students, but he’s adapted his orchestra to fit the quarantine’s limitations. Darwin has all of his Christmas music ready and this week began training our local students in a virtual choir on Monday afternoons.

To save on gas expenses, sometimes we prefer to walk or take a bike into town to run our errands!

My husband and our foster teens posing after a virtual recital they performed several weeks ago.

One of our foster daughters began taking the initiative several months ago to offer weekly violin lessons to local youth as a way of sharing her skillset and God’s love with others.

We continue to operate our small Christian school long-distance as the majority of our students are now receiving their education out of our teachers’ homes. My husband frequently does house-visits to several of our students’ homes in order to encourage them and oversee their progress, both spiritually and academically. We are waist-deep in many agricultural and maintenance projects on our ranch where we live and serve, and I have put on the hat of “stay-at-home mom” for the past six months as my days have largely revolved around the constant care of our five foster teens and the daily management of our household as I’m currently not teaching classes, directing meetings with our teachers, etc, in the traditional sense.

Teenagers sprawled out on our couch or all over our floor are a normal sight in our home! The habit of reading is not generally common in Honduran culture, but with a lot of persistence and incentives our kids have become avid readers. We recently reached the goal of 30,000 pages read as a family in quarantine and are now working towards 40,000!

This is one of our three rescue cats lounging in our kitchen windowsill.

A team of local boys/men have been working with my husband Darwin in several small-scale maintenance projects around our ranch property for the past several weeks. Here they are laying a cement foundation for the cows’ stable.

We would ask for prayer during this time for sleep issues in our household. I’ve struggled with nearly constant insomnia for about 15 years, and recently a couple of our teenage foster daughters have begun complaining about sleepless nights and ensuing fatigue during the day. My nearly constant state of sleeplessness and now that of some of our children is perhaps the most consistent and disconcerting factor in our household. We don’t know what the root cause of this is, and the remedies we’ve tried thus far have proved ineffective, so we simply ask for prayer in this respect for our family. Under such circumstances it is easy to feel discouraged and adrift as you just try to get through each day. Thank you for your prayers!

Our foster son receives classes in his teacher’s home alongside his classmates in our school’s 7th grade class.

In early August we celebrated my 30th birthday at home with homemade cards and heart-warming moments as a family.

One of our foster daughters and a local classmate give a recent school presentation in their teacher’s backyard.

Here we are with one of our beloved foster daughters who has now formed part of our family for five-and-a-half years. It is our heart’s desire to be able to legally adopt our children, but after many attempts and long seasons of waiting and frustration, we have had to temporarily give up that dream and be content with being family to them for God’s glory regardless of whether the Honduran government legally recognizes our commitment. We have local friends here who worked tirelessly to adopt a special needs teenager and, six long years later, they finally got permission from the government to change her last name!

Every morning as a family we have a devotional and pray together before commencing the day’s activities. We’d like to encourage you to join us in prayer for the worldwide pandemic and all that it implies. God bless you and your loved ones in your daily affairs, and may we each live in accordance with God’s will and with our hopes placed firmly in His promises.

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

Adopt, Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Current World Events, Family, Foster, Personal Reflection

1,140 Packets of Seasoning and 360 Servings of Baby Food: Government Dysfunction in Honduras

May 9, 2020 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Back in mid-March of this year, at the beginning of the quarantine here in Honduras, my little black cell phone rang (think one of those old-school phones with an itty bitty screen and no internet access). It’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity to advance with the times and acquire a more modern cell phone; rather, I intentionally make a stand and dare to be content with less constant access to technology and ‘connection’.

But my cell phone and its lack of bells and whistles is not the subject of this post.

I reached to answer the call, seeing on the caller ID (yes, my phone does have that ‘app’) that it was the local child protective services. Although we enjoy a positive, civil relationship with the team of lawyers and social workers at the agency, every time they call 1,000 thoughts parade through my mind:

Is there some kind of problem with one of our kids’ cases? Will they inform me of some new legal requirement that we must jump through dozens of hoops to fulfill just to keep our kids under our care? Are they calling to ask us to take in a new child?

My husband and I have fostered 12 Honduran youth in the last six years, seven of which have now moved on, grown up and/or returned to their biological families. After suffering too many changes, upheavals and losses in our household, we decided several months ago not to receive any new people into our family for the next few years. We are currently waist-deep in the delicate, sacred task of parenting the five under our care, and we want to do so well, without a constant flow of people coming and going from our intimate family life.

So, I readied myself emotionally to say “no” should the voice on the other end of the line ask me to open up our home to take in a new youth. I breathed deeply, sent up a silent prayer, and answered.

The voice that greeted me belonged to an upbeat female lawyer in her late twenties whom I have worked closely with in times past, specifically throughout 4+ frustrating years of trying unsuccessfully to adopt several of our foster children. Since then, we have had little to no regular communication with the agency.

I silently kept a wave of emotions at bay and braced myself for whatever might come next.

“Hi Jennifer! We just want to check in to see how you all are doing in the midst of the virus scare. We will be dropping food off to all the homes, and you all are on our list. Do you have enough provisions currently? How are the children?”

She caught me entirely off guard with this unexpected conversation topic, as we have never received financial or material assistance from the local child protective agency nor from any branch of the Honduran government. They were really going to bring us a food donation? It was almost too good to be true.

Trying to quickly gain my footing after having been caught by total surprise at the agency’s generosity, I answered, “Thank you so much for thinking of us. We appreciate the offer and are willing and grateful to receive anything that is within your power to give. However, if your supplies are limited, please donate to the homes that are in more desperate need.”

In an extremely perky tone, she assured me that there was enough food for all of the homes in our area and that they would gladly share with us a provision of food to help us make it through the quarantine. I thanked her again and asked when we should be expecting them, and she told me within 1-2 days’ time.

Several days passed, and that same caffeinated lawyer called me again. She asked me the specific ages and genders of our children, and I gave them to her (although she already has them on paper in her office and also via an online form I had already filled out): One male age 12; four females ages 15, 16, 16 and 17. She thanked me and hung up, assuring me that in a short time they would be bringing the donation of food and other items.

The following day she called me again and asked the exact same question about our children’s genders and ages. Again, I gave her the same information.

Yet again (I’m not kidding) the next day she called again. I glanced down at the caller ID on my cell phone’s tiny black screen, and wondered why on earth she deemed it necessary to speak to me again. I answered, hesitantly, and in her trademark perkiness she asked me to provide her with our children’s genders and ages (now for the third time in three days).

My manners getting momentarily put on the back-burner, I laughed out loud and asked with sincere confusion, “Again? Are you serious?I’ve already given that information to you twice…”

She laughed good-naturedly, spouted off some excuse that didn’t make any sense, and insisted on me telling her once more our children’s basic information that is already registered both in their office and online.

I took special time to annunciate over the phone as slow and clearly as possible, “One male…age 12…four females…ages 15, 16, 16 and 17…” I thought I would lose my mind if she called me again the next day asking for the same information.

Well, she did not call me again. A week or two passed, and a local friend of ours commented that she had seen on the news that the child protective agency announced that they had given food donations to all of the local children’s homes and foster families to support them in the midst of the Corona virus crisis. Our friend was pleased at this unexpected government gesture to help those in need and assumed that we, too, had received such a donation.

I bit my tongue. They never came to our property nor called to explain why.

A few more weeks passed, and finally that expensive government truck came plowing through our front gate and out popped that infamously perky lawyer in full face mask, gloves and full government uniform.

I stared on in disbelief, thinking:

Weeks ago they announced publicly that they had already given us food. If we had for some reason fallen on desperate need, we surely would have died of hunger by now (a full 5 weeks after her initial phone call)!

She and her assistant – a disheveled middle-aged man who wore absolutely no protective gear and didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned about possible contamination (or professional presentation) – efficiently shuttled six cardboard boxes and one large plastic bag into our kitchen.

They took a very official photo of the woman and me in front of the food donation as proof to the government that they had helped the needy, and the woman asked me to sign a document confirming the event. All of this in the name of feeding hungry children in foster families and children’s homes.

As they were headed out the door not five minutes later, I thanked them for their generosity (and opened the door for the fully-protected lawyer who was afraid to touch our door handle). She then laughed heartily and said, “Sorry it took us so long to come!” And, leaning closer to me and lowering her voice into a whisper, she said good-naturedly, “Be careful with the breakfast cereals in the bag we gave you; I think they’re expired.”

My head swirling, I walked them to the front gate and waved goodbye as their vehicle roared off our property. My husband would be teaching our kids music for the next hour, so I walked in the scorching heat across our front lawn and back into our bright-orange kitchen.

Although the government agency had taken an inordinate amount of time to fulfill their promise and had brought us expired goods, I decided to be thankful for the donation and was even excited to rummage through the boxes and see what they had brought us. This would surely help offset our grocery bills for the next couple weeks in this highly uncertain time. I thanked God in my heart for His provision through them, and cut through the plastic tape of the first box with a knife.

My heart sunk, and confusion set in. Dozens upon dozens of packets of seasoning.

Seasoning? This can’t be right. I dug deeper in that first box to see if under that sea of packets there was something more substantial – packets of rice or beans or canned goods.

There wasn’t. The only thing that first box held were crazy amounts of seasoning – 570 packets, that is. How on earth are we going to use all this, and is this really what someone needs to receive in times of global crisis? Can eating packets of seasoning keep anyone alive?

Consciously turning off the flow of very negative and bewildering thoughts, I cleared my mind and decided to give the second box a try.

I cut the tape loose and opened the box, my heart expectantly full before it crashed to the floor again.

More seasoning. They had given us not 570 packets of seasoning, but now 1,140.

I began calculating futilely. If we use even two packets per day (which is a stretch), we’ll have enough seasoning for almost two years. There’s only one problem: it expires in three months.

Pushing my growing disappointment aside, I decided to kindle my hope anew and try the next four boxes.

Baby food in all four.

Our dining room table covered in open boxes, inordinate amounts of seasoning and now 360 packets of baby food (for a household that has no residents under age 12), I stepped back in the silence of our home and just stared.

Only one thing remained that might actually be of some use to us: the bag of expired cereals the lawyer had warned me about. Numbly, I removed the three cereals in their dented boxes and placed them in a bin where we keep our breakfast foods.

The obvious thought was for our own loss: these items, intended for our benefit, would be of virtually no use to us. The underlying tragedy (and that which was of greater weight on my conscience) was that of our Honduran government’s total inefficiency and stunning lack of organization.

My mind wandered, and I couldn’t help but wonder in disbelief: Why on earth did the lawyer give us baby food after having asked me on three separate occasions the ages of our children? Surely, there are other homes that do have babies that could have benefited from this donation. What did those other homes receive? Did they give us this donation and take the professional picture just to make themselves look good?

The Honduran government’s alarmingly high levels of dysfunction can knock a person off their feet. Having lived here nearly 8 years, my head still spins in reaction to such bizarre events. Is this random nonsense due to mere ignorance on their part? Do they not know how to do their job better; did it not occur to them to review the contents of the donations before handing them over? (Surely, it would have been more effective to divide 1,140 packets of seasoning between dozens of different homes instead of dumping them in one single place, not to mention the fact that baby food needs to go to a home that has babies!)

Oftentimes, the third world (at least in my experience) is perfectly upside-down, and those who insist upon using logic only end up with increasing psychological damage. This donation, after all, was simply unhelpful, and I ended up feeling like a pawn in some political game I know next to nothing about.

After several pensive moments standing in silence around our dining room table, our kids’ music lesson came to an abrupt end and they came bounding into our kitchen.

“Hey Mom! What’s that big pile on the table? Why did the child protective agency come? Is everything okay?”

At that point I was already about ¾ of the way into organizing and bagging the baby food and seasoning into manageable portions to share with our neighbors who might benefit from it (as in, those who have babies in their home). I wearily announced, a slightly fake smile on my face, “Oh, the agency dropped this food off for us, but they aren’t really items we can use so we are going to re-donate them to our neighbors in need.”

In my heart of hearts I was grateful to God for the chance to participate in this unique re-gifting of the goods, as I knew we would be working as loving conduits to His purposes. Even so, the utter ineffectiveness of the government’s ‘aid’ still laid heavy on my mind.

Within a couple days’ time we carried the gifts on foot to bless eight households in our rural neighborhood. It was not difficult to identify who might be able to best benefit from the goods, and we enjoyed acting as deliverers of unexpected blessing. Our foster kids participated with us, dedicating the necessary care and attention to make sure the government’s food provision truly reached those who could use it.

There’s no perfect way to wrap this post up with a neat little bow. The story I’ve shared here is one little stitch among a vast national tapestry of dysfunction and inefficacy.

I simply share this with you to shed a little bit of light on the brokenness of the system down here, always with the hope that reforms and international intervention might help establish a healthier, functioning government (including a justice system that actually responds to crime) on which the people here can depend and thus thrive.

Please pray with us for these changes to occur, and that in the meantime God’s purposes might take root in Honduras in spite of the many exacerbating factors.

God bless and keep you and your loved ones.

With joy in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

Adopt, Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Bible study, Central America, Child/Youth Leadershp, Community Life, Current World Events, Family, Foster, Homeschool, Teaching

Love of God and Humanity: A Photo Tour of Organic Christian Ministry

September 17, 2019 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

We send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead (the Living Waters Ranch) in Honduras, Central America. Below I’d like to share with you a general update using photos taken in our daily life of hospitality, teaching and discipleship for God’s glory.

My husband Darwin and I continue to foster our five children/teens ages 12-17 with the hope of being able to legally adopt them if we are granted legal favor and efficacy with the local authorities. (We’ve been trying to adopt for over four years now with very little progress, but we continue to raise our children joyfully with the hope of becoming their legal, permanent family someday.)

Our small, dedicated team of local Honduran missionary-teachers is well and thriving, and we continue to work alongside of them to serve 40 youth from our local community daily through our school and concentrated evangelistic/service activities.

I pray all is well with you and that you are encouraged to plant deep roots in the truth God has revealed to humanity through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. God bless you.

This is Abigail, a 15-year-old local youth who participated in our small discipleship-based homeschool for two years as a student and this year is one of three tutors at the Living Waters Ranch. We’ve designed the “tutor” position as a work-study program for a selected group of our older, mature teens so that they can gain leadership experience in the realm of Christian service while also earning a small monthly stipend. (This is a huge blessing for them, as our rural neighborhood has very high unemployment rates — especially among teens and young adults — and a large percentage of the population lives in stark poverty.)

This is a group of teens in our school during one of my P.E. classes recently. We oftentimes design wacky, team-building exercises that leave everyone not only sweating but also laughing! (One of the main goals behind this is to break down barriers of distrust, pride, racism and bullying in order to fully live out Christ’s call to love our neighbor as ourselves.)

Great picture! Here are our four foster daughters (ages 15-17) accompanied by Sindy (in yellow), one of our local tutors in our work-study leadership program. The objective: do a quarter-mile run without letting go of their teammates!

Here are a few of our local students in our small 8th-grade homeroom class, which takes place in our multi-purpose dining room on the property where my husband and I live and serve. Many of the students in our school are behind academically and/or come from very precarious backgrounds. We receive them onto our property each day with the hope of expressing God’s love to them in many tangible ways in addition to equipping them for the future as wholly faithful followers of Christ ready for any good work.

This is Gabriela, a preteen who is new to our school this year. She lives with her dad, who is now a born-again believer after having had a very rough past, and two brothers.

In addition to art classes, we also include music, organic agriculture, Christian dance, Bible studies, swimming, evangelistic opportunities and other dynamic learning experiences into our normal weekly schedule at the Living Waters Ranch as part of our students’ integral formation.

Many of our classes involve mixed age-groups, pairing older teens with preteens. We do this mainly because we want to cultivate a family-style environment (we continue to call our school “homeschool” even though we now have 40 students enrolled), and for that reason we do not have mass numbers of students in each grade/age group. Individualized attention with each student is a priority, and much of the discipleship that goes on around here takes place in the context of one-on-one and/or small group mentoring relationships.

Happy birthday to you, Isaac! We do not celebrate all of our 40 students’ birthdays individually, but the Lord put it on our hearts to do a special celebration for Isaac, a precious young man who is new to our school this year and recently took the step to be baptized. His mom left the family for the United States several years ago, and he has been living alone with his dad ever since. We figure that a mom normally is the one in charge of making a birthday cake for their son and putting together the festivities, so we were privileged to step in and fill that role on Isaac’s special day. He was brought to tears at the surprise and told us it was the first time anyone had celebrated his birthday.

We recently celebrated Indian Day, which is an important holiday to remember Honduran heritage. (My husband Darwin on the far left always dresses up and covers himself in clay/mud for Indian Day in addition to playing tunes on his wooden flute…) The kids love it!

This is Ivania, a local 10-year-old who is one of the younger students in our school. (We generally accept children from 10 years up through 19 years of age, with most of our students being teenagers). She was decked out in the full costume for Indian Day!

Here is a group of our preteen boys participating in a reflection/discipleship activity on our front lawn. (Our foster son Jason, age 12, is included here.)

This photo is not especially dazzling, but it does go to show that our students are responsible for doing the after-school cleanup everyday. We’ve established a system of rotating clean-up groups to inculcate increased responsibility and general hygiene awareness in all of our youth as diligent disciples of Christ. This is particularly important because many people in this culture throw trash on the ground and let it accumulate in public areas (causing environmental contamination, increased risk of diseases, etc.), which is a general woe we are actively fighting.

On many occasions throughout the year we organize service trips into our rural neighborhood to do trash pick-up, which is a colossal job. As mentioned above, there is not much cultural appreciation for clean streets and green areas (creation care) in our town, but we are content to try to make a humble dent in the overall problem and — hopefully — set a good example for our neighbors to follow. (This is also great character-development for our students!)

In several sectors of our rural town there is no organized system of trash pick-up, so most people simply dump their trash out on the street in front of their home. It is not uncommon to see dirty diapers, empty Coke bottles and all sorts of trash strewn about on or near public walkways. One of our local missionary-teachers is working with the local mayor and governing authorities to see what can be done about this potentially easily-solved problem, but progress is very slow.

Sharon Washburn, veteran missionary in Honduras and founder of a well-known Christian high school several hours away, has come out several times recently to do educational expositions for our students. This greatly enriches their understanding of the world and allows them to learn from a new perspective.

As part of her presentation, she taught the world cultures material to a group of our older students first, who then were in charge of teaching the material to the younger students.

All of our students are in weekly organic agriculture classes with Erick, one of our local missionary-teachers who has truly extensive knowledge and inspiring passion for creation care. In addition to cultivating an honest work ethic in our youth, Erick also uses the class as an outlet for additional discipleship and Christian reflection.

Here are a few of our preteens working in the pineapple patch.

This is Sindy, one of our enthusiastic tutors who has been involved full-time at the Living Waters Ranch for the last four years, enjoying a rambutan fruit on an educational hike.

God bless you with peace and salvation in Christ Jesus, and please continue to remember us in your prayers. I have more photos to share, but I will save them for next time!

If you are not on our mailing list and would like to be in order to receive our bi-monthly printed newsletter with testimonies and prayer requests, you may contact me directly at: JenniferZillyCanales@yahoo.com to send me your full name and mailing address.

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and mission/family

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Photo Update and Prayer Request

July 29, 2019 jenniferzillycanales 3 Comments

We send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead in Honduras. Below is a variety of photos we’ve taken in our daily academic and discipleship activities in the family-oriented community homeschool we operate out of our home, the Living Waters Ranch.

At the end of the photos there is a brief prayer request for those who might lift us up before the Lord in prayer during this time. God bless you all, and we give our sincere thanks to those who financially support and/or pray for us and those whom we care for. To God be the glory in all.

My husband Darwin’s P.E. class with the older teen boys in our school

A couple of our students on a 2-mile jog down to the main highway and back to our rural property

Group Bible study on a creative outfit day in which all of our students were invited to come to school dressed with attire from biblical times

One of our beloved local missionary-teachers and two of our foster kids on biblical-attire day

This local student of ours surely had to cross some Arabian desert in order to get to school on biblical-attire day! (Too precious!)

A couple months ago my husband, our foster children and I planted several flowers around our rural property, and they are beginning to bloom.

A photo my husband took of his sixth-grade class on a Saturday educational outing into the city of La Ceiba

The same sixth-grade group visiting the beach

The following are photos taken in math class on silly hat day…

Book report presentation

A group of our students rehearsing in a local church before their big choir presentation in San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras which is about a 3-hour drive from our town

Official rehearsal with the choir director and several other national choir groups

My husband, who serves as the choir director at the Living Waters Ranch, congratulating the man who directed the overall event in San Pedro Sula

One of our highly dedicated local missionary-teachers with a group of our students at the choir event

My husband Darwin posing with the local woman who donated lunch for the event

Playing in the rain: one of the precious local youth in our discipleship-based community homeschool who was recently baptized and is now walking with the Lord

A group of our teens (two of our foster daughters and a handful of local students) in our front lawn after classes let out for the day

Three of our local boys playing soccer in front of our home during recess

A favorite pasttime of Honduran youth: picking mangos during mango season

A group of our students beneath one of our mango trees looking for fruit

Exam time for a group of our high school students

God’s creation right next to our front porch

Prayer Request:

Without going into too many details, I will share that our home with our 7 foster children/teens ages 12-18 is currently going through a couple very painful upheavals/trials, and there are likely to be some big changes around the corner for our family in the coming weeks. Fostering/adopting young people who come from very dysfunctional backgrounds is not easy, and our relationship with a couple of our older girls is reaching a very precarious state as they are making very poor/dangerous decisions and refuse to submit to our authority, seek the Lord on the matter, or take our advice. Please pray that the Lord might grant all of us (my husband, myself and our children) peace during this volatile time, and that the Lord would take control of any and all changes that need to take place in order to assure the safety, wellbeing and spiritual growth of those in our household for God’s glory. Thank you for praying for us.

With peace and gratitude in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Heavenly Joy Bursting Out Through My Bones: The Effects of a Radical Change of Plans

April 29, 2019 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

The government agency called twice, and I said no both times without giving it a second thought.

My husband Darwin and I had decided between the two of us that we would not be receiving any additional foster children for at least the next several years. Most of our foster children are currently teenagers whose delicate needs require our full attention, plus our little discipleship-based homeschool that we run out of our rural homestead has been growing to such an extent that directing, teaching and community discipling has become a beautiful yet very time-consuming daily venture.

A few weeks ago we reintegrated Josue, our special-needs foster son, back into a healthy family situation with his biological grandmother, and afterward things in our house actually became almost normal — calmer, more organized, fairly predictable — for the first time in almost six years.

My husband and I breathed deep and contemplated those in our household — five teenage daughters and one pre-teen son, some as long-term fosters and others in the process of being legally adopted by us.

After going through numerous ups and downs as new parents and having had up to 10 in our home at a time, 6 seemed manageable and even easy. The house even seemed tangibly cleaner than usual and I thanked God that we had survived the brutal years of unwanted poo- and pee- disasters with 2 special needs foster children. On the walls, on the rug, in the bed — you name it. But those days were over, at least for the time being…

My selfish prayer seemed like it just might come true, “Oh God, I just want a normal life. At least slightly normal, slightly calm. My husband and I have virtually no ‘personal time’ and oftentimes feel stretched thin. I don’t even know what it means to sustain a normal friendship with normal people anymore. We love our kids dearly and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that You have called us to parent them for Your glory, but sometimes it is so hard and their healing process is messy at best. Please grant us some sense of normalcy and ease in this season in Jesus’ name. I’m exhausted.”

No-more-kids and We-want-a-sane-household have been our soft battlecries over the last several months, and it almost seemed like we were achieving our desired goal.

Until the government agency called twice.

My husband and I have every right to say no when they call us about receiving a new child or teen into our family, and I absolutely exercised that right in the name of defending my own sanity. What was our motto? No-more-kids, and I was sticking to my guns.

Well, as many of us know, oftentimes our own plans are just that: our own plans, not God’s. As I said my second ‘no’ over the phone to the government social worker whom I know and get along with very well, I was ready to politely hang up the phone and carry on with my business when the Lord led me to consider the possibility of laying my own plans — my own sanity, my own control — on the altar in the name of love.

What I did next — pause long enough to ask the social worker the details about the person at hand — brought with it a God-designed tidal wave that utterly and completely wiped out all of our own plans for normalcy and familial stability.

Thirteen year-old girl. Has already lived as an adult man’s wife. Dad’s not in the picture. Mom is highly unstable. Needs a family.

As I listened in silence to all the details I probably could have imagined on my own — for the majority of cases are very similar in the aspects of familial abandonment/irresponsibility and some element of sexual abuse — the social worker actually began pleading. “We have nowhere else to put her.”

Emotionally detached as much as possible from the phone conversation (because sometimes it is easier not to feel too deeply), I thought ‘Of course. Most people are scared to death about receiving teenagers, especially those with adult sexual experiences. They came looking for us because they know we love our teen girls and have had a large measure of success with them…’

The social worker continued, “If you receive her, you would be giving her…an opportunity at life.”

An opportunity to live. To find life in Christ. To know joy. To grow up in a family like any normal 13-year-old girl.

By this point in the conversation the Lord was working mightily on my heart, and I asked more questions before telling the social worker that we would agree to meet the girl but would make no over-the-phone commitment to take her in before seeing her face-to-face and talking with her. The social worker was ecstatic.

After hanging up, I went directly to our little office building we share with our local Honduran missionaries/teachers who serve alongside of us in our community homeschool. I found one of our female teachers fairly unoccupied and asked her for prayer and counsel. She quickly accepted, and we sat down next to each other on the little purple couch in the prayer room in our office building and closed the door for more privacy.

I shared openly and extensively with her, both secretly excited about the possibility of extending “an opportunity at life” to one more person while also tense and scared about all that could go wrong.

I voiced my thoughts as she listened attentively, “I mean, we could take her in, but there are a thousand other teen girls in her same situation — dysfunctional family, history of sexual abuse/sin —“

Our beloved teacher nodded quietly, fully aware that in our area of Honduras there are numerous cases of 12- and 13-year-old girls who already live with their “boyfriends” or who daily endure unhealthy home-lives. The need is oftentimes overwhelming.

I continued, “And, it just wouldn’t be realistic to take in a thousand of them. I mean, we can’t be family to a thousand.” My argument sounded right-on, and I felt I was gaining momentum. Our teacher nodded in agreement again, quietly listening as I verbally processed the storm within me.

But in that very moment the Lord struck me deep and to such an extent that His very words came out of my own mouth, dripping with conviction as I made a 180 degree turn in my argument. I said slowly, “But He’s not asking us to take in a thousand. They called us about one. Only one.”

I felt like in that moment I had surrendered to His will in one fatal blow. ‘You won,’ I thought with great heaviness mixed with the first fruits of joy welling up in my heart. He was indeed calling us to start over again with a new lost daughter of His. Not with a thousand, but with just one. And I would obey not only willingly but with a joy that very few can understand.

My teacher friend and I sat in silence several moments as the weight of the situation — and the enormity of the decision being considered — sat heavily between us. I repeated, “He’s just asking us to take in one…”

At the end of our conversation she prayed with me for the young woman in question and that the Lord might grant my husband and I the love, strength and wisdom to accept this new challenge if He should so desire us to take it on.

Fast-forward three days.

We went into the government-run complex to meet the young woman, her psychologist and the lawyers/social worker involved in her case. We asked the key questions we needed to ask, got our kids involved in the process of meeting her and exchanging several question-answer games with her, and throughout the entire encounter we felt the undeniable peace of God as confirmation. We would soon be parents to six teenage daughters and one pre-teen son.

The adjustment would of course be difficult for all, as our home tends to be in total upheaval for the ensuing 3-6 months each time a new person arrives as new friendships are forged and the teenage hierarchy is re-shuffled as everyone tries to find out all over again where they fit on the totem pole. There are oftentimes feelings of jealously and insecurity to be carefully dealt with in our kids who’ve been with us the longest, and Mom and Dad have to engage in the dogged task of forging a close relationship with a new, possibly frightened teen all over again.

Even so, it is a small price to be paid in comparison with what our Lord did on the cross to save us all, and it is the way in which He has called my husband and I to share in His sufferings (and likewise eventually share in His glory). To love the lost; to be parents to the fatherless; to extend hospitality and grace to those who might even make us suffer greatly in the short-term for having done so.

I spoke with the social worker and her eyes grew like saucers when I said yes, and the young woman (Soad, pronounced So-add) enthusiastically said that she would like to move in the same day.

That night — about two-and-a-half weeks ago — my husband and I prepared a foam mattress on our bedroom floor for our new arrival. Instead of moving her in with our teen girls all at once, we decided to have her with us for the first week in order to help ease her transition more calmly while also forging some semblance of parent-child bond with her in a condensed amount of time.

We sat down on the cool tile floor next to her mattress and asked if we could pray for her. She said yes. After doing so we tucked her into bed — our teenage-sized new baby! — and gave her a hug and a kiss before climbing into our own bed not three feet from hers.

My husband quickly drifted off into sweet slumber as I lay staring at the ceiling in the dark, hot room. My heart raced for joy as I listened closely trying to identify if our new daughter had already fallen asleep or was still wide awake as I was. Did she feel welcome and loved here? Would we be able to form a close bond with time, or would she prove distant and guarded? Would she sleep throughout the night or wake up screaming with nightmares? What if she stopped breathing right there on her mattress?

My mind raced with a thousand thoughts as I thanked God in my heart for who He is and for leading us on this wild adventure, especially because it was never our plan to begin with. The minutes turned to hours as I periodically tried to steal glances at our new daughter’s still form in our dark room, and at some point in the wee hours of the morning I drifted off to sleep in spite of the heavenly joy that I felt might burst right out through my bones…

A photo of my husband and our seven kids taken on my husband’s birthday two days after Soad’s arrival. (She is in the pink tank top on Darwin’s right.)

We thank God for these processes He takes us through as He draws us closer to His own heart and enables us to participate in His quest to reach lost humanity. Please pray for us during this time, especially for our other kids as they adjust to having to share Mom and Dad with someone new. God bless you all, and thank you to those who pray for and financially support this little mission in rural Honduras. To God be the glory.

With peace and gratitude in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Current Prayer Request

October 19, 2018 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

This post is for those who routinely pray for us and the small mission the Lord has placed under our care in Honduras. Thank you for remembering us and for lifting up our requests to our Father, asking continually that His will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Request: Government Favor

In the past few weeks the need for government favor (and efficacy) has been pressed upon us greatly, as we must interact with the local government in the operation of our school, the adoption of our children, and in several other facets of our daily life and ministry here. There is much corruption and confusion, and it is very easy to feel oppressed and drained by the monster of a system we come up against.

Juan Orlando Hernandez, the current Honduran president around whom there are many accusations of fraud in last year’s elections. It recently came to light that he was involved in faking his sister’s death in a helicopter crash several months ago so that she could escape the country during all the election drama. She recently returned (alive), and they admitted that the whole helicopter crash was a lie.

We have been actively beating down bushes in our efforts to legally adopt three of our children (the oldest of which is now 18 years old) for the past several years. During the last 18+ months the government lawyer at the Honduran Child Protective Services office has been telling me that any day now they would be calling me to present myself in a courthouse that lies 2+ hours away from our house to take the next crucial step in the adoption process. To make a long (and excruciating) story short, the courthouse called our government lawyer two days ago at 2:00pm to notify her that I needed to present myself in the court (which is a 2+ hour drive from our home) that same day at 1:30pm (as in, half an hour before). That news reached me today, and I am absolutely devastated that we missed our court date (because they did not notify us on time) after roughly a year-and-a-half of waiting. We are now back to square one and wondering if we will ever truly be able to adopt our children (who in less than two weeks will be hitting their 5-year mark of living with us).

We also need government permission in order to open the next grade of our discipleship-based homeschool that we operate out of our rural homestead (we currently offer 1^st grade through 9^th grade), and after many confusing phone calls and vague answers we put together a detailed document seeking government permission to open 10^th grade and they flatly refused without any real reason. There are a lot of politics involved in the Honduran education system, and my husband Darwin stayed up investigating the laws and re-writing our proposal until 2:00am this morning and is going back into town to try to speak directly with the mayor and several other officials. It is very important that we are able to open 10^th grade (and then 11^th, which is the last grade in Honduran high school) in order to persevere with the good work in the lives of the teens who have already been in our program several years. We want to be able to offer the last two grades of high school under our tutelage at the Living Waters Ranch so that our kids are not forced to finish their education in the less-than-acceptable public system fraught with fraud and mediocrity.

I will spare the details of our other frustrating experiences, and will conclude this request by simply asking that you would pray with us for radical change (and wisdom) in the Honduran government, as much in its personal members as in its overall structure, and that the overall oppression in the country would be lifted as its citizens and residents might be able to go about their daily affairs without constantly coming up against a huge metaphorical brick wall painted haphazardly with the phrases, “No,” “Not today,” or “It cannot be done.” Please pray also for my attitude in the midst of all this and that the work God desires to do in His Honduran people would flourish even in the midst of such debilitating inefficacy, corruption and potential despair.

Please consider our requests and pray with us so that God might tend to our legal needs so that we not be unduly drained or distracted from our principal purpose in Honduras, which is to love, teach and disciple children and youth (and the occasional adult) in the Way of Christ.

God bless you.

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Celebrations of Life and Belonging

September 2, 2018 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

In the past four days we have celebrated two birthdays in our large, God-designed household — one of our new foster daughters turned 16, and one of our girls who’s been in our household nearly five years and is in the process of being adopted by us turned 14.

Since answering the call to Biblical parenthood to the orphaned and abandoned five years ago, my husband and I have vacillated in our response to birthdays. The first year or so each birthday was largely extravagant due to the newness of the whole affair and our desire to make our new children feel welcomed and loved, but then over the ensuing 2-3 years birthdays became routine and even boring (largely due to the fact that we’ve had up to 10 children/teens in our family at a time, which makes for a whole lot of birthdays). We stopped going the extra mile and settled for simple birthday wishes and little to no gifts.

Well, this year we are diving back into (and now with more depth, increased love and hours of dedicated thoughtfulness and planning) the act of blessing our 7 children in a unique way on their birthday as we celebrate with them all God has done in their lives and the precious gift that they are to my husband and me.

The following photos were taken in our 10′ x 20′ living room around the wooden table where we eat meals, have family meetings, do homework, pray together and enjoy art projects. We give thanks to God for allowing us to rediscover the joy of celebrating the beauty of our children and making them feel treasured on their birthday.

Thank you to all who pray for and financially support this mission. God bless you, and may you be encouraged by the sheer joy displayed on our children’s faces as they know they are loved by God and by many more.

In Christ,