Category Archives: Music

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Summer Updates from Honduras

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Dear family and friends, near and far:

I send you our warm greetings from our ranch ministry homestead (the Living Waters Ranch) in a forgotten corner of tropical Honduras. We are currently in the midst of another suffocating Honduran summer, and the heat/humidity makes for some long, sweaty days!

First of all, I want to extend our sincere thanks to all of those who continue to faithfully contribute economically and in the arena of prayer support to this ministry. As in America, here in Honduras inflation, gas prices and overall costs of living have skyrocketed over the past many months (because many of our products are imported from the States, and any changes in the US political/economic sphere — for better or worse — almost always have a direct impact on us here). Your continued support of this mission — even in these globally trying times — has been an incredible support, and we continue to serve, teach, disciple and care for dozens of children and teenagers through our Christian school and music outreaches for God’s glory.

We continue to ask for prayer support in the arena of protection from government harassment. The new Honduran government seems bent on shutting us down or at least complicating our lives/ministry to a very high degree, and they have showed up numerous times recently to interrupt our daily school activities, nit-pick, threaten and throw additional requirements on us that are almost impossible to fulfill. They see our alternative school as a threat to the public education system (which is very closely linked to Honduran politics), and due to fear that we might “steal” their students or that our system of grassroots, personalized education just might work a little bit better than the status quo, they are bent on making sure we don’t succeed. This has been very taxing on us (especially for my husband Darwin, who is the one who normally takes them on and has to jump through a ton of hoops just to keep us open), so we humbly solicit your prayers and seek God’s protection in the midst of it all.

Other than that, the 50+ students in our small grassroots Christian school are thriving like never before, and this year has brought about many new experiences, moments of blessing and life-changing relationships. We hope to continue to serve, mentor, coach and raise up these children and youth for God’s glory for many years to come if God continues to grant us the strength, resources and favor to do so.

On a family level, our foster family continues to go through a season of upheavals as several of our long-term foster teenagers have left the nest ahead of schedule and others have told us they are headed that way. It has been a bittersweet season of heartbreak, of learning to let go, and of maneuvering new (and sometimes complicated) waters of knowing how (and when) to remain involved in our kids’ lives in this new season that many of them have chosen to live outside the protection of our home. The Lord has opened many doors for us to remain involved in our kids’ lives as mentors in this new season, although admittedly it is very complicated and they are oftentimes all over the map (sometimes geographically, sometimes emotionally). We solicit your prayers for our household, where we currently have 3 teenagers who remain with us for now. We are continually seeking God’s will for our family, the future of our household, etc., as many of the dreams that we had hoped to achieve with our kids have been changed drastically. We are currently asking God for new dreams and a new vision for the future.

The five members of our household (my husband, our 3 teenagers and I) have been diligently seeing a Christian psychologist/counselor in a nearby city on a weekly basis over the past couple months as we seek to navigate through the many changes/challenges we’ve faced, and likewise we have been sponsoring several other people whom we serve through our ministry to receive these edifying visits with the counselor. The Lord has called us to serve those who have suffered trauma/neglect and oftentimes have had their lives smashed to pieces, and He’s called us to help pick up the pieces in His name and help make lives whole again. It is a messy task (and in the process we ourselves can get pretty bruised and damaged), but we believe it is worth it and that what we are doing is not in vain.

Thank you for your prayers, friendship and support.

Sincerely, Jennifer (for Darwin and family/mission)

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Current Prayer and Financial Needs

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Current Prayer Needs:

For those who are interested in praying with and for us in this season, I share with you that we need prayer in the area of protection/government favor in the midst of the prolonged pandemic and a new Honduran government.

Last year we were the only school in a very wide radius who remained open and taught “face-to-face” classes without interruption the entire school year. This possibility was almost unspeakable on a national level in 2021 in Honduras, but the Lord enabled us to fly under the radar and continue to teach, disciple and serve while other institutions and ministries unfortunately had to shut down due to COVID-19.

This year under a new Honduran government we’ve been under heavy scrutiny as we’ve been subjected to many (nearly impossible) COVID-19 requirements in order to stay open, but through prayer and persistence we have been able to continue serving even under extreme pressure. Slowly other schools in our area are beginning to teach 2-3 days per week on a very limited schedule, but much of the overall pandemic progress in Honduras seems to be one step forward and two steps backwards.

Current Financial Needs:

For those who are interested in partnering with us financially in this season, I share with you two current projects that we are seeking to finance. God bless you, and we send our sincere gratitude to those who already support this ministry on a regular basis.

  1. In February of this year we constructed a simple jungle-gym structure for our students’ pleasure and play. We would like to construct 2-3 more structures of similar caliber to encourage our students to exercise, work togetherand dare to reach new heights. Each structure requires a financial investment of roughly $150.

Especially in today’s “technological age,” we consider these barebones, traditional play structures to be of utmost importance for the next generation’s integral development, social skills and overall well-being.

2. We provide lunch three days a week to more than half of our student body plus our ministry staff (40+ people). This financial investment is substantial and ongoing, and we would like to be able to continue to provide this service throughout the year to our rural students who have greatest economic need. Please consider partnering with us $50 – $100 each month to help cover the cost of ingredients, kitchenware, and our cooking staff. Our hungry, growing students thank you!!!

Donation website: www.CTEN.org/JenniferZilly.

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December 2021 Greetings

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Dear friends and family,

I send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead (the Living Waters Ranch) in Honduras. Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones! I hope this blog post finds each of you well and thriving in the Lord and that you are able to maintain hope, peace and high moral standards during these uncertain, yet promising times. Please know that we pray for you regularly and likewise thank God for your prayers, support and friendship.

In our little corner of the world, earlier this month we wrapped up our official school and ministry activities for 2021 as the Honduran academic calendar comes to a close in early December. Ever since taking over the position of fifth-grade homeroom teacher in July in our small grassroots mission school, my schedule had taken on additional weight and responsibility (not to mention untold joys). Our small, dedicated staff of Honduran professionals called to serve as Christian missionaries on their own soil have prospered greatly this year as they labored alongside us week after week for God’s glory. We are blessed to serve alongside of them again in 2022 (all will be returning). Over the years they’ve come to be a precious extended family to us and much-needed support network in this deeply personal, spiritual work that we’ve been called to. On a personal level, my involvement with our 40+ students this calendar year through teaching, discipleship and mentorship was perhaps more intense and at the same time more rewarding than ever. 

We are grateful that the pandemic and all its restrictions and inconveniences did not hinder our face-to-face ministry this year. It was, in fact, perhaps our most productive and organized year since our inception in 2013 (although not without a great share of difficulties and trials along the way). We ask for your prayers for this month of December, as we are currently dedicating more time to our marriage, patchwork family and individual walk with the Lord as we take a much-needed annual break from ministry activities to our local community. Our special-needs foster son (now age 13) is back in our home for three months while his grandma is away working during the Christmas season, so we are thus taking extra care to tend to his needs in addition to our other 5 foster teens in our home 24/7 ages 13-18. We are still overcoming the fact that our relationship of over four years with one of our beloved foster daughters disintegrated last month as we had to ask her to leave our home due to many dangerous behaviors that she was unwilling to change. Two of our other daughters graduated high school in early December, so we likewise solicit your prayers for wisdom and the Lord’s direction over their future.

We are a non-profit ministry supported by individuals, families, small businesses and churches both here in Honduras and around the world. If you would like to make a yearend tax-deductible donation to support our efforts to live out the gospel on Honduran soil and impact many lives with biblical employment, Christian education and an opportunity at living in a stable, God-fearing family, you can go to the following website to make a one-time or recurring monthly donation to partner with us in this work: www.CTEN.org/JenniferZilly

Sincerely in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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BOOK NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

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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.

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Spring 2021 Updates From Honduras

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I send you our warm greetings from the Living Waters Ranch, our home and ministry base in rural Honduras. I hope this post finds each of you well and thriving in the Lord, and I send our sincere thanks to all of those who continue to financially support and pray for this mission even in the midst of the prolonged pandemic and such global uncertainty.

As a school, foster family and ministry, in spite of the pandemic and ongoing restrictions in our area this year has surprisingly been one of our most productive and prosperous years since our inception in 2013. As a team with our dedicated staff of Honduran missionary-teachers and tutors, we have developed new, creative strategies to continue teaching, mentoring and discipling (in person, not ‘virtual’) the 40+ youth in our program while flying under the radar and not attracting unwanted attention from local government authorities. As far as we know, we are the only school in our area who has been teaching face-to-face “real” classes all year, including music, P.E., Christian discipleship, organic agriculture and other hands-on formation activities. This is a huge triumph, and we are thankful to see our students and faculty thriving in our unconventional new system of off-site and mixed classes.

My husband Darwin’s youth orchestra has been growing steadily over the last few months. He now has over 20 weekly participants in this extracurricular program, most of whom are also full-time students in our school. His youth orchestra began in 2014 with our first 4 foster children, 3 of whom still form part of the growing group of Honduran musicians.
This is a local young woman in her early 30s, a family member of one of our students. She is a dedicated Christian and had always dreamt of learning to play the violin but had never had the opportunity. She now forms part of Darwin’s orchestra every week and is learning basic hymns and classical pieces under the tutelage of one of our foster daughters.

Personally, my schedule has slowly become fuller over the past couple months as I have taken on additional responsibilities. I now teach a twice-weekly English class to several grades, lead our women’s athletic club on Tuesdays and Thursdays and have begun teaching a one-on-one piano class to one of our female students. In each of our classes, we incorporate the Bible and have a time of discipleship/prayer before commencing whatever activity is at hand. Taking on these commitments has been fun and challenging for me in addition to mothering our six foster teens at home and directing the mission/school alongside my husband.

The father of one of our local students recently took the time to give a motivational speech to our ninth-grade class and pray for them. We have enjoyed high levels of parental participation this year, which we consider to be one of our biggest triumphs. Some moms have begun participating in my women’s athletic club, and other parents join us on our weekly outings to a local park to receive a Bible lesson and engage in dynamic group activities.

Over the past couple months I have been in the grueling, yet promising final stretch of publishing my first book, titled “Hidden Treasures: Wrestling with Significance, Faith and Suffering While Serving in the Developing World.” From start to finish the process of writing and then publishing has taken a little over a year (there have been certain pandemic-related setbacks in this final stage), but the book is expected to go live shortly.

This is the image of my book’s dust jacket.

Although I have not updated this blog frequently thus far in 2021, I do post photos and regular updates on my Facebook account (Jennifer Zilly Canales) for those who are on Facebook. I am also available to communicate via email (JenniferZillyCanales@gmail.com) if anyone has questions for me to answer or would like to share a prayer request so that our family can be praying for you.

Our students who are in their last year of high school are providing year-round basic literacy courses to local youth and adults who are behind in their education as a way of blessing our local community and sharing with them some of what they’ve learned throughout their educational career.
This young man is a preteen who has grown up in the local public schools but never learned to read. Now age 12, after having been in one-on-one literacy courses with one of our foster daughters for the last couple months he can now sound out basic words and is learning to add and subtract for the first time.

We give God all the glory for each one of these achievements and extend our sincere thanks once more to all those who generously make this work possible. Thank you!

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Late Summer Updates

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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

 

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General Updates: Second Quarantine Edition

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We send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead on the northern coast of Honduras. This post will be fairly brief as there have not been many new developments here since our last post.

Today is my eighth anniversary since moving to Honduras as a recent college graduate, and I thank God for His provision, guidance and strength since. Later this month my husband and I will be celebrating seven years of marriage, which is a milestone we are grateful to reach.

We continue to operate our ministry/school long-distance as best we are able, as the Honduran government has not yet allowed schools to resume their normal daily activities. It is still unclear when the restrictions will be lifted, but we are at peace and have used the extensive quarantine time to develop many new, productive routines as a family.

In our family composed of my husband and me alongside our five foster children (ages 12-17), we are on the cusp of reaching our goal of reading 20,000 pages together. Our original goal was to read 10,000 pages as a family, and once that goal was met roughly a month ago we decided to do it again. We have enjoyed a lot of edifying Christian literature, both fiction and non-fiction, and we’ve formed several informal “book clubs” at home as we enthusiastically discuss what we’ve learned from the books we’re reading.After slowly overcoming our prolonged battle with Typhoid fever, we’ve begun running/walking 2+ miles as a family every morning after doing our morning devotions and prayer. Running as a family is a habit we had developed years ago with our kids, but we were unable to continue due to so many ongoing health problems (mainly mine). So, we thank God for renewed health and the ability to complete this daily run.

In the past several weeks we have experienced increased difficulties with the electricity, running water and internet on our rural property. We went four weeks without internet access, and the running water and electricity intermittently have gone out for several hours (and sometimes up to a day) at a time. This has been trying (especially the lack of water), but we have learned new levels of patience, flexibility and trust in the Lord.My husband Darwin (who grew up on a farm with his family in rural Honduras) has been working extensively in agriculture and maintenance on our ranch where we live and serve. The quarantine has provided him additional time to dedicate to these projects, as his schedule is normally tied up with academic and administrative commitments when school is in full-swing. Our foster kids have been ’employed’ in many of these projects, and as a result of the increased production of our small herd of milking cows we’ve begun producing a few different kinds of cheese in addition to having fresh, organic milk to drink each day.

In regards to our musical pursuits, my husband trains our foster children two hours every day in own in-home orchestra, and I am currently composing my second original piece on the piano after having finished my first about a month ago.  I am also waist-deep in the process of writing my first book, which I dedicate 1-2 hours to each day as our children work independently on school assignments.

Additional updates: About a week ago we rescued a little baby owl who had fallen out of a tree on our property, and I continue to teach our kids typing/computer skills daily (something they had not had access to in previous years). We try to make ourselves available to serve our neighbors as the Lord leads, and in general we are learning to live contentedly with a more simple lifestyle. My husband and I are also being individually mentored/discipled each week (by phone) by two people whom we highly respect and who have generously made themselves available to us.

We sincerely hope you and your loved ones are safe and well during this time and that you are able to take full advantage of the opportunities given to you, whether in quarantine or back to ‘normal’ life. God bless and keep you, and we send our sincere thanks to those who continue to support this mission even in the midst of much global economic instability.

Sincerely in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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First Update of the New Year (2020)

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Greetings to all from our ministry homestead in rural Honduras! We send you our photo updates from these past couple months of life and service. To God be all the glory!

Over the December-January traditional Honduran school vacation, my husband Darwin put in a lot of agricultural work hours alongside our foster children to improve/take care of our 17-acre property.

Right near our front door, we’ve got quite the line-up of rubber boots for agricultural work days! What a blessing to have so many precious lives entrusted to us!

Over the Christmas holidays, some of our foster children had visits with biological siblings and other blood family members. (Here one of our daughters is enjoying a trip to the park with her two biological brothers who live a couple hours away.)

A couple days after Christmas my husband, several of our foster children/students and I were invited to sing, play music and share our faith in Christ on a local television station. There’s a first time for everything!

For two weeks over the Christmas holidays, all of our foster children went to stay with trusted family friends of ours in order to further expose them to new experiences in addition to granting my husband and I a much-needed respite!

Here we are at a local bus station a few days before New Years  ready to say our temporary good-byes as our kids were off to their various homestays!

This is our pit bull Thor, one of our trusty guard dogs! He is playful with our family but very aggressive towards outsiders. He has a very important job here in Honduras where there tend to be high crime rates!

This was a short nature hike around our rural ministry property during one of our family orientation days in January.

Here are more fun family bonding activities during one of our family orientation days. Participation in one of these events was a new prerequisite for all the local youth who aspired to enroll at the Living Waters Ranch school this year, and we thank God for experiencing great success in this endeavor. (It gave us a chance to get more hands-on contact with the parents and be able to involve the entire family unit.)

Here is my husband Darwin teaching a group of parents and future students how to sing in choir class at a family orientation day.

Here are more fun competitions during a family orientation day in January.

More silly competitions and teamwork activities as we get to know our new students and their families!

This is Reina, one of our local Honduran missionary-teachers who shared her testimony of faith in Christ to all those in attendance at family orientation.

Everyone loves pulling up weeds in the hot Honduran sun on family orientation day! (I’m the one bent over in the pink tennis shoes.) It’s important to give the parents and family members a taste of what our students do here in organic agriculture class on a weekly basis!

More of the same! Talk about character development for the parents!

In January we invested in the upkeep of the four little cinderblock buildings on our property by re-painting them bright, joyful colors and doing a few general repairs. This is Yeri (pronounced “Jerry”), one of our students who is currently in his fourth year of full-time involvement at the Living Waters Ranch. He is highly gifted artistically, and we hired him to help with a good portion of the painting, thus providing him with the financial means to purchase his school uniform and materials to begin school in early February.

Gleny, one of our foster daughters who has lived in our home over six years now, is also a passionate painter and volunteered her painting expertise for nearly two weeks of her school vacation time in order to help see the project through.

Here I am with Paola, one of our precious foster daughters who has been with us now for several years. I have lately begun spending more personal time training musically (something I didn’t begin until age 22), and several of our daughters have enjoyed practicing with me and learning new pieces together as we develop our talents for God’s glory.

This is our family’s cozy  living room in our cinderblock home on ministry property. During my Dad’s recent visit from Texas, he helped us paint the room bright purple! In Honduras we love to paint our homes bright colors, inside and out!

These are a few of the cows from our small herd that we maintain on our rural ministry property. The milking females provide fresh milk daily for our watchman’s family and ours, and the males are eventually sold for beef. This provides a small periodic income for the ministry and serves as our emergency fund.

One of our teenage foster daughters found these beautiful little flowers growing spontaneously in our front lawn.

Each year we create a lot of fond memories through our intensive P.E. classes with our staff and foster kids during our January school prep. We want to keep our bodies in good shape and our minds sharp in order to serve God with excellence this year!

This is my husband Darwin during a hilarious round of blindfolded tag with our staff and foster kids during one of our riotous P.E. classes.

In rural Honduras there are always many weeds to be pulled up! In January after P.E. class one day we dedicated time as a team with our staff to tidy up our ministry grounds’ front lawn. Our foster kids were there to help too! 

Last week classes began as we undertake a new year of Christian discipleship, academic pursuits and integral development! This is one of our local teenage tutors who has been faithfully involved under our tutelage for five years teaching our small group of fifth graders on one of our porches.

This is Erick, one of our local missionary-teachers, with a local young man who is entering his second year of full-time involvement at the Living Waters Ranch. Last year his involvement as a student here allowed him to be mentored and discipled beyond the traditional classroom walls. He came to put his faith in Christ and was baptized several months ago, and this year he has returned to continue his integral education and Christian formation under our tutelage. Praise God!

 

I want to send our sincere thanks to all who responded to my last blog post in early December about our tight financial situation. I am relieved to inform you that we are now back on track financially thanks to God’s provision through all those who responded and donated. Thank you!

Sincerely in Christ, Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Last Photo Update of the Year 2019

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We send you our warm greetings from the Living Waters Ranch, our rural ministry homestead in Honduras. Below is quite an extensive album of photos displaying our daily life and ministry in our hidden corner of the world. To God be all the glory, and we sincerely thank those who pray for and financially support this ongoing mission to teach, parent and disciple Honduran youth in Jesus’ name.

This is Erick, one of our highly dedicated local missionary-teachers posing with one of our students in a recent boys’ retreat/campout on a local beach. These extracurricular events are organized several times a year as a way of further deepening our investment in our students’ lives as we guide them in the way of Christ.

Here is a group of 5 of our local students, all 7th-graders, at a late-night get-together on someone’s front lawn to do homework together. (Many families in our neighborhood do not have very spacious homes, so they’ll move a plastic table and chairs on the front lawn in order to do homework or entertain guests.) Two of these young men were baptized by us this year.

Here is my husband Darwin’s little orchestra in one of their twice-weekly practices. (In our area of Honduras there are little to no orchestras and/or musical training, so the ongoing discipline and passion it takes to organize such a group is a big achievement here.)

This is one of our older teen students in a recent community service project in our local community. A big part of what we do is serve our students/youth, but from there we train them to humbly serve others as Christ taught (so that the blessing does not stop with them but rather multiplies and blesses others).

This is my husband Darwin in a recent choir performance in a local mall. He trains our more mature/disciplined students and foster children to sing Christian and classical songs in several different languages, and they oftentimes get invited to sing in public venues.

This is Fernando, another one of our local missionary-teachers who works alongside of Darwin to teach guitar and choir to a group of our students. He is also an agricultural engineer and has many years of experience teaching at the university level here in Honduras.

This is Jessica (far left), another one of our local missionary-teachers, at a road race with the family of one of our students. We as a ministry strive to be involved in the local community and connect with our students and their families not only in the classroom but also in their daily lives for God’s glory.

This is a group choir practice in which Lawny, one of our very high-energy local missionary-teachers is teaching our students fun hand-movements to go with each song.

More trash pick-up! As you might have seen in some of our previous posts, we as a ministry are periodically involved in local trash pick-up, as the culture here does not typically reflect much discipline/order as far as trash collection goes. Many people throw their trash alongside public walkways, and we have taken it upon ourselves to begin setting a good example and serving where/when we can.

This is Aracely, one of our beloved local missionary-teachers on her 30th birthday. We surprised her by celebrating alongside of our entire team in our little office building.

My husband Darwin, who is our tiny school’s 6th-grade teacher, did a  fundraiser with his students throughout several months in order to earn enough money to help them buy part of their school uniforms/supplies for next school year (which here starts in February). This is a big deal here, as many students’ families struggle to purchase their kids’ school materials each year.

These are the butter cookies my husband and his students baked and sold during months in order to raise money to buy their school supplies. Talk about hands-on training in microenterprise and perseverance!

This is Brayan, one of our foster children who lived with us on-and-off for several years before eventually leaving home last year. He has since entered the Honduran military and recently completed his basic training, which is an honorable achievement for him. He even came to stay with us recently on his 10-day leave, and we were able to pray with/for him and continue investing in him in this new stage of his life.

Kyshia, a Christian missionary who has served in Honduras nearly 40 years, has become a close friend and mentor for my husband and me. Recently, she came out to our ministry property to do a hands-on workshop with our entire staff on the topic of sexual abuse and what our response should be as Christians.

My husband Darwin is a talented swimmer (self-taught) and now leads several weekly swimming classes for our students in a local river a short walk from our ministry property. This photo shows his group of older teen boys enjoying flexing their muscles.

This is the coast of La Ceiba, the nearest local city to our ministry property and a site where we oftentimes organize school field trips.

Here is Darwin’s group of younger teen boys toying with the idea of jumping off the ledge into the river to begin class…

This is our foster daughter Paola “studying” for one of her final exams a few weeks ago in our living room. I caught her sleeping on the job and couldn’t resist snapping this shot!

The visual quality of this photo is not great, but it sure does provide a good laugh! This is Josue, our special-needs foster son who is back living with us for a few months doing his “cool” pose with my sunglasses.

Here is my husband Darwin with three of our teenage foster daughters in our recent year-end school event. (The traditional school calendar in Honduras ends in late November.)

This is a recent dinner I served in our home with our foster children. Most meals include some combination of beans and/or rice with eggs, cheese, etc.

Here is one of our local students in organic agriculture class on our rural ministry homestead. All of our students are involved in agricultural training as a means of character/spiritual development under the faithful tutelage of one of our local missionary-teachers.

This is one of our foster daughters with her biological nephew. Several of our foster children are in monthly contact with their biological family members and we enjoy cultivating a healthy relationship with them.

This is our staff of missionary-teachers and tutors  who serve at the Living Waters Ranch. (My husband Darwin was on the mike and for that reason cannot be seen in the photo.)

Here is my husband Darwin on a recent field trip with some of his 6th-grade students.

Darwin also teaches swimming with our female students and foster daughters. Several of them have lost their fear of water through this class and have learned to swim various strokes for the first time in their lives.

God bless you! Thank you for allowing us to share!

 

 

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May 2019: Photos and a Prayer Request

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I write to you from the Living Waters Ranch, our rural ministry homestead on the northern strip of Honduras.

Please enjoy the following collection of photos taken from our daily life of love and Christian discipleship among the youth whom we serve through our little discipleship school. (We have many newer photos we’ve taken in the last several days, but first I want to share this batch before revealing the others.)

Farther down I have also included a new prayer request in addition to follow-up regarding our previous prayer request shared several weeks ago.

Twice-weekly Bible study with our younger students (ages 12 and under)

After-school dance class with all of our female students and foster daughters

A devotional during an after-school Christian dance class

Math tutoring

My husband Darwin teaching an introductory choir class

Boys’ organic agriculture class on the Living Waters Ranch property (where we live, teach and serve for God’s glory)

Two local students working in the pineapple patch

Learning a good work ethic in organic agriculture class

One of our local Honduran missionary-teachers who has been serving alongside of us in discipleship/education for the last three years

The entryway of our rural ministry homestead

My husband Darwin leading our teen boys’ weekly P.E. class

One of our local students doing a presentation on the book he read in Spanish class

One of our foster daughters presenting publicly as a character from the novel she read

My high school Spanish class the day of their book presentations (they had to come dressed as a character from the book they read)

English class competition

One of our local missionary-teachers leading a couple teen disciples in a community service project (leveling out a very rocky road)

Our newest missionary-teacher leading our pre-teen boys after a Christian dance presentation

 

Thank you to all those who had prayed for our previous request in regards to our relationship with the local educational authorities – my husband has had a few unforeseen breakthroughs in our communication with them and we are currently enjoying a more peaceful season under their supervision although still with great paperwork demands and certain external pressures. Please keep this ongoing petition for peace with government authorities in prayer (and that their ever-changing regulations might not become a stumbling block or distraction to the calling the Lord has given us to form young people in Christ), but let us also give thanks to God for having acted on our behalf in the last few weeks! Thank you for praying.

NEW PRAYER REQUEST

I now will ask for prayer in regard to my sleeping patterns, as the arrival of our newest teen foster daughter (named Soad) roughly five weeks ago has triggered my insomnia and I have had great difficulty sleeping each night since. 

Her arrival was accepted out of obedience to God as He called us to offer our family to her, and we are fully convinced that we made the right decision. Nonetheless, some of her behaviors in these first several weeks have been very taxing on me personally and on our family as a whole, and we are looking to God for continued healing for her and wisdom for us in how to best parent her for God’s glory. 

Also, our other 6 foster children are all going through their own emotional ups and downs and insecurities with having a new “instant sibling” in our house. Last night we had a very long and productive family meeting in which many laid their feelings bare in a very honest and loving way and at the end we all prayed together, but there is still a long way to go to establish a “new normal” for all and assure God’s best for everyone in our household.

Please pray with us for Soad, that her transition into our family might bring with it peace and joy to her heart (and the hearts of our other 6), and for me, that the Lord might grant me total peace and trust — especially at night — as I rest in Him and don’t try to take things on in my own strength. Thank you, and God bless.

Sincerely in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Music Concert Adventure

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Last week Darwin loaded up five of our foster children and over a dozen of his local choir youth onto a rented bus along with a few adult chaperones and made the 3-hour drive to San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second-largest city to participate in their biggest concert yet. An internationally-trained director conducted one of Honduras’ largest orchestras and led approximately 200 children and teenagers from around the country as they sang classical masterpieces they had been practicing for months for this specific event.

Darwin’s group from our rural town of El Pino plus several of his students whom he teaches in the nearby city of La Ceiba on Saturdays. They had never sung in (or stepped foot in) a building so fancy!

Before going out to sing on stage, Darwin always rounds everyone up to make a massage train so that everyone relaxes!

I can see some familiar faces in that big choir!

Our boys are the ones without ties!

This is Aracely, one of our beloved teachers/missionaries who serves alongside of us at the Living Waters Ranch, with our son Jason (left) and his best friend Francisco who spends about 8 hours in our home each day for Christian discipleship, academics and extracurricular classes alongside of our other students.

Here’s Darwin (teal shirt) with a group of our older teen boys, several of which we’ve been closely involved with over four years for God’s glory. 16-year-old Cristian (far right) arrived at our front gate in 2014 malnourished and illiterate as he and his little brother were simply seeking out friendship and a snack. He and four of his siblings have now all been in school with us during these last four years, and both of his parents are employed with us and actually live on our property in the watchman’s house.

Here is a video taken of one of the songs our kids sang:

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God bless you!

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Friday Spy: My Undercover Photo Shoot of Marimba Players, Pig Pits and More

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Several hours after our group Bible study this morning, I grabbed our old-fashioned digital camera and headed undercover (well, not quite) to each of our intensive classes that we hold every Friday for our more mature students. Most of our teens tried to run away or hide their faces when they realized I was taking pictures, but even so I got a few shots that are worth sharing.

The following are photos taken of the following intensive 3-hour classes: Music/Orchestra (piano, violin, recorder, marimba and guitar), English as a second language, and organic agriculture/discipleship. Normally during this early afternoon time-slot there is also a group in community evangelism, but this week that class was cancelled because the local pastor who directs the group is in surgery. Thank you to all of you who support this redemptive work and/or pray for God’s continued guidance and protection over us.

This is Ariel, one of our older local teen boys who comes from a very chaotic, undisciplined home life learning to play the marimba.

These are two of our daughters whom we are in the process of adopting. Musical training – paired with ongoing relational Christian discipleship – is one of our techniques to redeem broken teens and heal them through healthy, dynamic activities for God’s glory.

Paola (left), one of our new foster daughters who moved in with us about six months ago, with a local teen as they learn to play the recorder.

The builders are making great progress on the dining room annex! (For the last couple weeks our community kitchen with its fridge, stove, pantry, etc  has been moved to our front porch! Thank goodness we’ve got a big porch!)

The classes imparted at the Living Waters Ranch are not confined to normal classroom walls: we oftentimes teach outdoors, go on prayer walks with our students, and interact with the beautiful Honduran habitat around our buildings as part of the youth’s integral learning experience.

This is Miss Ligia’s English as a second language class. Everyone got the giggles and tried to hide their faces when I entered with the camera!

Nobody wanted to show their face!

When I got close to her with the camera, she got the giggles! What a beautiful smile!

Now back outside with the beginners’ recorder class on the porch!

This is our new Christian psychologist who is multi-talented! In addition to helping greatly in the integral psychological/spiritual healing of our youth in Christ, she has also been instrumental teaching in the classroom, leading a group of teen girls in twice-weekly prayer time and freely sharing her God-given talents through various outlets.

One of our local Honduran missionaries has a great passion to pair organic agriculture with small-group Christian discipleship, so several of these agriculture/discipleship classes are given throughout the week to the 60 youth in our program who desire to participate. In these photos our 16-year-old foster son Brayan is working with a local teen to dig a 12-foot-deep hole to receive the waste from the pig pen we are building. These activities cultivate work ethic, perseverance and strength of character in our teens in addition to a deepened love of God’s Word.

They’ve been working on this pit for weeks — one rock at a time!

Two of our local teachers/missionaries work alongside of our students to cultivate the land organically as they learn more about their Creator and how to care for His creation.

This is the little plot our kids have been working so hard on. They’ve planted plantains and banana trees here.

After my escapade out in the pasture, I passed back through our front gate and found one of our musicians hard at work in his song notebook.

My last stop: a posed photo with three of our beloved recorder players (our foster daughter Jackeline, far left, and two local teens who have been in our program full-time over two years). Lookin’ good!

Who knew that teenagers could be this cute?

This is our foster daughter Jackeline. She is a talented mathematician, an avid cow-farmer and a great big sister to special-needs Josue. The Lord has done great things to transform her since she first moved in with us over three years ago, and we love her dearly.

 

Nobody else was willing to participate in an impromptu photo shoot, so I headed back across our front lawn to our cinderblock home to finish up my admin duties for the day! God bless you!

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2017 Yearend Photos

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Here are photos that were taken at our yearend celebratory event with our students, teachers/missionaries and local community a few weeks ago at the Living Waters Ranch where we live and serve as Christ’s body.

(I have not updated the blog recently due to the fact that our 10 foster kids/teens are on vacation from our community homeschool program, and I’ve been dedicating more ‘momma’ time to them as they’ve needed me to be more present in the home and put the majority of my administrative/communication duties on hold for now). God bless you, and please continue praying for the unstable political scene in Honduras, as the chaos has calmed down for now but is rumored to heat up again after the holidays.

My husband Darwin directing his youth choir in songs of the hope we have in Christ

Our 16-year-old son Brayan and me sitting in the audience as we awaited the arrival of our neighbors

Darwin directing our 10-year-old son Jason with a piano piece

Darwin and our 13-year-old daughter Gleny accompanied by Annie, a precious teen who I taught and discipled in the Episcopal School in the nearby city of La Ceiba for several years after moving to Honduras in 2012. She and her two sisters are now homeschooled by their parents and are involved part-time at the Living Waters Ranch in music, agriculture, community service, and Christian discipleship to complement the academic education they are already receiving at home. Annie and her two sisters are very special to Darwin and me as we’ve known them closely for several years, and it was a very pleasant surprise to talk with their parents a couple months ago and see a door opened to have them come study and grow in Christ alongside of us part-time at our home. Their parents drive them about 30 minutes from their home in the city out to our rural property in order for them to participate! Praise God!

 

Three of our local teen boys who study with us in our discipleship-based community homeschool program. 15-year-old Cristian (the one in the middle), came into our lives about three years ago as a very malnourished and completely uneducated boy who had never gone to school before, and now he has a heart for the Lord and he’s on his way to high school after successfully completing our accelerated program for older students! He and four of his siblings study full-time in our home, and both of his parents are now employed with us.

Geraldina, Sandra’s mom, getting ready for the preparations. (She even put on a pair of borrowed shorts and competed in the 2-mile roadrace after the musical activities finished!)

During several of the choir’s songs, the older kids and mature teens were all afraid to stand near the microphone! Our 10-year-old developmentally-challenged foster daughter Gabriela (blue dress), who LOVES to sing, unashamedly took up the front and center spot right in front of the microphone when all others were afraid to do so! I laughed when I saw her — knowing that her voice would resonate above all else’s due to her position so close to the microphone — and I whispered to the person next to me, “I sure hope she knows the lyrics!” She frequently mispronounces words and has many difficulties in daily living, but she truly shined during the choir performance — and she did a great job with the lyrics! It was a beautiful moment and one of the first times I’ve really felt proud of our quirky little one. Praise God!

Two of our daughters (Jackeline, left, and Dayana, right)

 

Amen! Glory to God!

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2017 Yearend Update

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Friday we finished up our last day of regular classes, Bible study and dynamic group activities as the Honduran school year is coming to a close. In the ensuing days there has been much cleaning out of classrooms and office spaces, great administrative effort to close up the year well, and the moving of furniture from one little building to another to convert our primary schoolhouse into a quaint (and rather bare) guesthouse/multi-purpose building for our vacation time.

On Monday we had our last official meeting with our small but extremely devoted team of Honduran teachers/missionaries to pray together and wrap everything up logistically. But, rather than it just being the 7 of us sitting in a circle in one of our classrooms to direct the usual meeting, we had a special guest. One of our male students who has just completed his first full year of classes and discipleship with us at the Living Waters Ranch had asked permission to come to the all-adult meeting in order to share his testimony and thank us for leading him to the Lord. We’ve known him on and off for nearly four years, and he’s always been extremely timid and seemingly on the verge of joining a gang or escaping illegally to the United States. (Alas, he was one of the local vagabonds last year who mocked our students who got baptized in the river near his home! Look at all the Lord has done in him since!)

This particular young man is on the cusp of turning 18 years old and is just now finishing 7th grade. He sat in our midst in his skinny jeans with a soccer shirt and metal chain hanging casually from around his neck. On the outside, he looked like any other male teen in our area, but his eyes were aglow with life, with joy, and you could sense he was at total peace. As we each greeted him warmly at the beginning of the meeting, asking him how he felt, he kept shaking his head back and forth with a huge smile on his face (not typical of any male teen around these parts), and said more than once, “I’m just so happy about all the changes that are going on inside of me…”

All eyes trained on him – alas, this was the first time any of our students had asked permission to come to one of our planning meetings in order to share their testimony! – he began speaking, full of confidence and wisdom, as he ended up pouring his heart out for nearly an hour about how his relationship with Christ has completely changed his entire perspective. We knew this to be true as we had seen a dramatic transformation in him after many, many seeds of truth were sown in him through our Bible studies, prayer groups, individual counsel and encouragement with Darwin and Erick, and his 7th grade teacher’s spiritual investment in his life everyday in the classroom. His heart had gone from cold and disinterested to burning hot for God, and just a few weeks ago he made the decision to give his life to the Lord. He spoke with great joy and accuracy about how he used to be a vagabond; used to live totally immersed in sexual sin; used to not love his brothers and parents (and much less his enemies); used to fear the many dangerous men who roam about our neighborhood (without fearing the Lord). Now, knowing Christ and fully experiencing God’s love for him, his whole life is changing. Now he expresses love and gratitude to his family members; he asks forgiveness when he’s sinned; he listens to praise music rather than worldly music; he longs for his life to bear good fruit for God’s glory; and he loves to be close to God’s Word. If I were to write everything he said, it would take pages. In short, God radically changed the course of this young man’s life, and He is now using him as a Godly influence to reach other teens in our neighborhood with the message of Christ (not to mention his immediate family who is directly impacted by the life of God now in him).

That definitely makes every ounce of effort worth it (and leads us to give thanks to God for making all those little seeds – however imperfectly they were sown – take root and grow)!

And so today is our official celebration day as each of our students and their families will come over for an entire afternoon of year-end presentations and activities, including choir performances, a 2-mile road race involving the local community, a PowerPoint presentation of all the photos we’ve taken this year, and several other musical and dance performances by our students. At the end of the event, our students will receive their official report cards, and then we won’t see the majority of them again until January (if, in fact, they decide to continue studying with us next year).

This is a sentimental and slightly delicate time of year emotionally, as we know that a handful of the students whom we love will not be returning next year. For some, they never caught the vision or aren’t willing to persevere long enough for God to begin to work in their lives; for others, they prefer to attend the local public high school where corruption abounds and it is much easier to slip under the radar without having done much work at all. Despite our earnest, repeated efforts to seek out and encourage the lost sheep, there were over a dozen local youth who dropped out throughout the course of the year. We see them now roaming our rural neighborhood largely as vagabonds without any direction, and we always greet them warmly and remind them that they have an open door here if they should ever decide to return.

We understand that just about everything that is taught and lived here at the Living Waters Ranch is very counter-cultural (and goes against the general worldly stream as a whole), so on the one hand we are really surprised and grateful that so many of our students have been granted the divine wisdom and dogged willingness to want to participate at all! (Now that’s a good perspective to have! Praise God!)

We are officially ending our second school year of discipleship-based community homeschool with 35 full-time students, 5 part-time students and our special-needs foster son Josue, who serves as everyone’s ‘assistant’ and best friend. Several of our more faithful students have communicated enthusiastically to Darwin and me that no matter what, they’ll be back next year to continue growing in Christ with us and acquiring a vast array of academic and life skills. That makes our heart grow in joy and gratitude, as we earnestly desire to walk long-term with each of the youth under our care, not only the 10 who live with us as sons and daughters but also those from our local neighborhood who spend the majority of their daytime hours in our home and classrooms.

And so, today we will say goodbye and enter a new (albeit very short) season of vacation from the typical community hospitality and teaching we participate in 10-11 months of the year. Our local teachers/missionaries and students will have free time to spend with their families and continue to grow in God’s will as Darwin and I will work privately at the ongoing task of taming our 10 foster kids/teens with God’s love.

In these next few days Darwin has many choir events back-to-back as he will be shuttling his young singers all over the place to spread joy and sing hymns. Erick, one of the local missionaries who labors alongside of us, has great plans to take the teenagers who participate in the youth group he hosts in his home (several of which are our foster children) to a local prison to minister to the prisoners and – on another occasion – to downtown La Ceiba to pray for the homeless and drug-addicts. Several of our older teens also have plans to visit the poor and sick in our neighborhood during their vacation time as they seek to bless Christ in disguise.

Sandra, the local teen who lived with us for a season before returning to live with her mother, will be coming up to our home almost daily to give one-on-one literacy classes to her mom, who due to extreme poverty and social disadvantage never learned to read and write. Our daughter Jackeline will likewise be giving intensive math tutoring classes to our two new daughters (Carolina, 15 and Paola, 14) in the hope of getting them up to speed for next school year. Several of our foster teens, two of our teachers and I will be heading out of town to attend a Christian youth conference this weekend, and on Monday we’ll be receiving a visit from a very special friend and missionary who has been serving in Honduras over 25 years. Then my dad comes down for several days (which our kids are especially stoked about).

During these vacation times we will continue to wash our clothes by hand; between all 12 of us we’ll take turns cooking family meals 2-3 times a day; and we’ll continue to ask for God’s grace as we learn to love Him and one another.

Although I feel that I have more to write now than ever, I will most likely take a break from maintaining the blog in December as I devote myself more fully to the cultivation of our children and our relationship with Christ, especially because our kids will not be in classes and will need me to be more fully present.

Thank you to all of you who read this blog and keep us in your prayers before the Lord. For those who are wondering about my ongoing healing from chronic insomnia, it is still a daily battle. In addition to my natural supplements, I have begun taking a strong prescription sleeping aid that does help me get a full night’s sleep, but it leaves me feeling drugged and dizzy all the next day. If I don’t take it, I don’t sleep. If I do, then I feel really weird the whole next day. (So I’m left to choose the lesser of two evils).

Please continue to pray for my integral health, sincere love and joy in our marriage (amidst many daily commitments which sometimes put great pressure on our relationship), and God’s protection over our lives and property. There is much to be thankful for. He has done mighty things this year. Praise God!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. God bless you.

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November 2017 Triumphs and Prayer Requests

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Four-Year Anniversary of Being Family to the Fatherless and Serving in Our Local Community

On November first we celebrated four years of parenting Dayana (17), Gleny (13) and Jason (10), the first sibling group we began parenting in 2013. We praise and thank God for the transformative, restorative work He’s done in the children’s lives and in our own during these four years, and we stand in awe at how He has made grow deep roots of love and commitment among us for His glory. From those initial three kids God has sprung out the ensuing discipleship-based community homeschool in our rural homestead where we currently educate roughly 40 children and teenagers according to the Way of Christ, not to mention the group of incredibly dedicated teachers and local Honduran missionaries whom the Lord has brought one by one to serve alongside of us in this beautiful life of service and continual growing. We celebrate these first four years with great joy and are expectant for what He will do in the coming years!

Update on the Two Orphaned Calves Left After the Slaughter

Our two orphaned calves left behind after their moms were unexpectedly slaughtered by cattle thieves a couple weeks ago are now happily being bottle-fed every day as they are still in the initial stages of their growth. We thank God for His grace in allowing the calves (one male, one female) to be born before their mothers were killed, thus leaving behind new life in the wake of tragic death. The rest of our cows have been left in peace since the devastating event, and we’ve been granted increasing measures on peace during these times. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord!

A teamwork-building exercise among six of our students (including our son Jason, second from the right)

Three Weeks of Intensive/Creative Classes to Finish the School Year

As we near the end of the Honduran school calendar, this week we began offering different, intensive classes to finish off the semester with a ‘bang.’ Having already finished the traditional math, science and language classes, etc, we are now offering an entirely new schedule that includes the following: carpentry, evangelism, community service, cooking class, penal law, orchestra, agriculture, world history and various levels of swimming, among others. During these three weeks I am teaching karate, bootcamp (hard physical exercise military-style) and leading our hour-long group Bible study time, which we are now enjoying every morning rather than only twice per week. Our students and teachers are all excited, as we incorporate and respect personal choice in the daily rhythm of our life of service at the Living Waters Ranch (the students enjoy great freedom to choose the classes they want to specialize in according to their interests/giftings, which is highly uncommon in Honduran culture where most things are decided for children/teens without their input). We thank God for this school year that is coming to a close and for all the seeds that have been sewn for His glory. It is literally so much fun to serve, teach, love, disciple and parents these kids (and make them sweat and heave in bootcamp)! What a privilege!

Cooking Club


Local Pastors Pray For and Prophesy Over Our 10 Foster Kids/Teens

A couple days ago a local pastoral couple came to talk with and counsel Darwin and I for several hours, and then they gathered all 10 of our foster kids/teens ages 9-17 in a tight circle in our living room to pray individually for each one. Many of our teens had been seeking spiritual breakthrough in their walk with Christ, and by their reactions and later comments they received it that night. The pastor even had prophetic words for several of our teenagers that deeply encouraged them. The entire experienced extended so long that the pastors entirely missed the church commitment they were supposed to attend at 6:30pm! (They finally left our home around 7:30pm.) We are grateful for this encounter (the first of its kind) with this local pastoral couple, and we thank God for touching our children’s lives through them. The pastor helped many of our teens to forgive those who had abused and abandoned them in their childhood. One of our new daughters (Carolina, age 15) who moved in only a few weeks ago, received the Lord for the first time, and our other new daughter (Paola, age 14) received many prophetic words and encouragement about the ways in which God desires to pour out His wisdom over her life and use her in mighty ways for His kingdom. She later expressed to our eldest daughter that she had always wanted to be a Christian but wasn’t sure how until she was praying with the pastor and felt God begin to move in her life. God is immeasurably mysterious in the ways in which He touches the lives of His sons and daughters, and we are excited to continue drawing nearer!

Christian Psychologist Found for Gabriela’s Healing Process

Not by coincidence, those same pastors who prayed over our children have an adult daughter in her early 20s who recently graduated from a local university with a degree in psychology. We had long been searching for (or, more accurately, waiting for) God to present the right Christlike psychologist for our kids, especially for our developmentally-challenged 10-year-old daughter Gabriela (Gaby) who suffered sexual abuse and many other traumas before arriving at our home. Thus, God has now provided Nataly, the pastors’ daughter, who is working one-on-one with Gaby every Saturday and will very likely join our team full-time as of January 2018. We are very excited about our developing friendship with Nataly and her parents as God is placing more and more people in our lives to encourage, teach and labor alongside of us in this great redemptive work. Praise God!

Darwin’s choir practices always start off with a massage chain to get everyone’s shoulders loosened up! (This particular day was girls’ choir.)

Experienced Catholic Lawyer Found for Adoption Process; Prayers Sought for Financial Provision and Government Favor

After my trip to the capital city of Tegucigalpa several weeks ago to interview 3 potential adoption lawyers, the Lord made it very clear to us who the best person for the job would be. We are now working with a female lawyer named Martha who has roughly 30 years of experience as a lawyer in Honduras, and she has dedicated the majority of her practice to domestic and international adoptions. She is a Catholic Christian and deeply believes that every child deserves a family (and not just a temporary solution/orphanage), and she has a record of doing just that for hundreds of Honduran children (which is extremely uncommon because most Hondurans are not prone to adopt children). She has already begun working on our adoption of four of our ten children. (Our desire is to be real family to all of our kids and to legally adopt them if they are able to be adopted. Some of our kids cannot be adopted because their biological families are still in the picture and may potentially receive them anew in their homes, so in the meantime we are joyfully family to all of our kids, whether they are legally adopted or not). The lawyer is extremely up-front, passionate and professional, and she’s giving us more than a 50% discount from what she normally charges, but even so we don’t yet have the funds to complete the adoption. We humbly ask for prayer in this regard, as we wait upon the Lord for provision/direction in order to complete the adoption process of Dayana, Gleny, Jason and Brayan in the most efficient manner possible. Thank you!

Gaby taking a “shower” in our outdoor washing station fully dressed…Oh gosh!

Two New Teen Girls Find Permanency in Our Home; Possible Adoption in the Future

Our two newest arrivals (Paola and Carolina), both of whom had bounced around among dysfunctional biological family members’ households and orphanages/foster homes for several years before arriving at our front gate, have both confirmed that they desire to become permanent members of our family. Darwin and I have felt incredible peace (and passion) about this and have pushed hard (in a good sense) to make them feel welcomed and loved as they were expecting to be rejected by yet another household when they arrived at our home. They had known great suffering and bad behavior (both that which they received from others and that which they learned to inflict upon others), so God has literally been breaking chains of wrong thinking, establishing new behavioral norms based on love, and infiltrating their souls with His truth. Our 8 kids/teens who have been with us several years have been used mightily by God in this process to model Christlike behavior, counsel our two new girls in the context of friendship/sisterhood, and express to them God’s unconditional love. We are already seeing great changes in their attitude and outlook and, as I mentioned above, they both had encounters with Christ via the pastors’ visit. We daily affirm to them that they are no longer rejected; that we want to be in their weddings and be their kids’ grandparents (in essence, be what a normal family is to their children for the whole of their life). They have been surprised by much (or perhaps all) of this as they had never before received such intense welcome, and they’ve responded to the hugs and physical affection we’ve shown them (as they had not previously received hugs in their other foster homes/orphanages). They had literally gone the extent of their childhoods without knowing they were loved by anyone until about three weeks ago. We have even talked to them about our desire to adopt them (once our adoption of the first four is complete), and they are very open to and excited about the idea of finally having a real family. There is so much I could write, but suffice it to say that we’re all ecstatic and that God is doing what only He can do. Please continue to pray that all chains of abuse, sexual sin, rejection, lies, stealing, etc would be completely broken off in Jesus’ name and that they would truly pass from death unto life. Praise God!

Amen! Glory to God!