Category Archives: Personal Reflection

Bible study, Child/Youth Leadershp, Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Personal Reflection, Teaching

Learning to be Effective Communicators: Lights, Cameras, Action!

September 14, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Yesterday in our 7^th-grade classroom I gave a workshop on body language, active listening skills, and conflict mediation. What started off as many points jotted down and enthusiastically explained on the whiteboard quickly turned into a riotous time of skits, partner work, and dynamic learning as we explored new territory on how to be more effective (and compassionate) communicators.

corporal11 — Stanley and Rolan, local students in our discipleship-based high school program, practicing active/respectful listening in a dynamic role-play

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We touched on the fact that body language, tone of voice and facial expression constitute the large majority of communication (whereas the actual words spoken account for a small percentage of the overall message conveyed) in addition to explaining the difference between an active and passive listener, open as opposed to closed body language, the importance of allowing the other person to speak first, how to diffuse a potentially explosive situation, conflict mediation, etc. Miss Ligia and Miss Isis, our secondary and primary teachers, even participated in the workshop in order to learn more about a topic very few Honduran schools ever touch on.

corporal17 — Miss Isis in a silly skit with Sindy, one of our local students. Both were extremely shy and hesitant to come up to the front at the beginning of the class, but soon enough they were participating with great joy!

In Honduras where the majority of people – even educated adults – don’t employ basic active listening skills and many people struggle to maintain eye contact in a conversation or group setting, the workshop proved to be not only fun but also extremely important in our students’ development as equipped instruments in God’s hands.

corporal38 — 15-year-old Sandra and 14-year-old Elalf demonstrating active listening skills in a skit

corporal4 — The students practicing active listening skills in pairs

Many youth and adults in this country suffer from a very deep sense of what they call ‘shame’, limiting them in their self-expression and initiative, and completely incapacitating them in the more difficult arenas of public speaking and conflict mediation. Many of our students have been very reluctant to read out loud, pray in front of others, voice an opinion, or have to stand in front of their peers and give any kind of presentation, so our dynamic activity yesterday – standing up to read the different points elaborated on the whiteboard, going to the front of the classroom with a partner to act out different silly skits, etc – constituted a huge step for all of our students in being able to freely and lovingly express themselves without wilting under that dark cloud of constant shame.

corporal22 — Messy, an extremely shy local student who has slowly begun expressing more joy as she learns to participate without fear.

At the beginning of our time together everyone – even the teachers! – were nervous about having to ‘put themselves out there’ in a potentially embarrassing skit, but as our time progressed everyone – even the shyest students who typically fade too easily into the background – were laughing hysterically, participating in numerous skits, trying on the different wigs and hats I had brought with me, etc.

corporal31 — Cristian and Rolan, both local students in our 7th grade program, participating in a rather silly conflict resolution. (Great wig, Rolan!)

As we have witnessed (especially in these last few months), many people in this nation problem-solve by way of violence. You said something I didn’t like, so I’ll go and kill you. You look like someone who belongs to the gang I’m against, so I’m gonna kidnap you. You stole from me, so I’ll shoot you. Learning alongside our students yesterday how to problem-solve by way of loving confrontation, humble listening, and asking/granting forgiveness rather than by resorting to violence may save lives long-term. What a privilege to be involved in this process!

corporal33 — Dayana, our eldest daughter whom we are in the process of legally adopting, in an intense role-play with Miss Ligia, our secondary teacher, as they sought to resolve a heated dispute peacefully.

We wrote across the whiteboard in large letters, each person taking their turn to stand up and read aloud: “…Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,” — James 1:19

corporal27 — Elalf and I entering a dramatic skit about conflict resolution. (To make the class even more interesting, I dressed up in a high school uniform over my normal clothes and added a fun hat and purse!)

corporal28 — He had stolen my slipper, after all!

The lighting in several of the photos came out poorly, but I hope you enjoy them and the riotous joy they contain! Praise God for this huge step of teaching young Hondurans how to be more effective, loving communicators for God’s glory!

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corporal26 — There’s a lot of information to copy down in your notebook! Try to keep up!

corporal6 — Gotta love this photo of Miss Ligia on her way to the bathroom!

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Amen! Glory to God!

Family, God At Work Among Us, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests, Special Needs Kids

Divine Communion in the Midst of the Mundane

September 12, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Early this morning I rolled over, extending a lazy arm across the edge of our small double-sized mattress, still very much enveloped in a blessed sleep. As I realized the other half of the bed was empty save my gangly arm, the lights of my mind snapped on: Did Darwin already get up? What time is it?

I wearily peeled my eyes open as I saw him not three yards away, participating in his peaceful morning ritual, unseen by the world and oftentimes unseen by his own wife: slip on those dirty black rubber boots and those old, mismatched clothes, brush his teeth and head quietly out the door to go milk the cows before the sun comes up.

An exclamation point stamped itself across my consciousness as I suddenly reached for my cellphone, alarmed that I had not heard the wake-up jingle I had set the night before. I jabbed at a button on the little black phone and the screen lit up: 4:46am. Oh no! It’s already time. He had woken up before the 4:45am alarm and had turned it off, thinking he was doing me a favor.

You see, the 4:45am get-ups have not really been my strong point. Normally he heads out the door and I stay in bed a little while longer before finally allowing my bare feet to make contact with the tile floor an hour later at 5:45am.

But not today. Today that 4:45am get-up was as much for me as it was for him. He just didn’t know it.

So I mustered whatever pinch of energy that short night of sleep had granted me and got to my feet, made the bed, and shuffled my way into our tiny bathroom, silently nudging him over so that he would share the sink with me. Brush my teeth. Hairband on to push my wild, short hair back. I would change out of my pajamas later.

Darwin looked at me with a confused smile on his face as he studied me, amused: my eyes drooped sleepily as I methodically brushed my teeth, moving about very purposefully albeit in a very low-energy fashion as I very clearly was getting ready for something. He asked with a twinkle in his eyes: “You’re not tired?”

My unenthusiastic response: “Oh, I’m very tired.” I spit in the sink and reached for the towel.

He continued to stare at me as his unspoken question still waited for an answer: Why on earth was I up so early, and where was I going?

My response: “I have a deal with God.”

He let out a single laugh, waiting for more explanation but didn’t receive any. I grabbed my keys, put on my sandals and headed out our bedroom door without another word, intent on fulfilling my promise from the day before.

As I inserted my key into our front door, prepared to head out without making much ruckus, our 9-year-old son Jason, quite the early bird, sat up suddenly in his bunkbed and peered at me through his open doorway as our door creaked. I smiled and went to greet him, shuffling over to his top bunk and giving him a kiss on the top of his head as his eyes asked the same questions as Darwin’s: Why on earth was I up so early, and where was I going?

Without answering him, I slipped out that gaping hole leading to darkest night.

Both our sleepy guard dogs stretched lazily and began their enthusiastic tail wag as they saw me unexpectedly approach. I shuffled carefully with strained eyes, hoping I wouldn’t come across a snake along the short path. I squinted in the darkness as I held my jumble of keys up close to my face, searching for the key to that little painted cinderblock building that lies right next to our family’s home. I entered only to be greeted by more darkness. Standing in the building’s main room, the search continued as I felt with tired fingers for the next key: the office.

That silent little office with its two very full bookshelves and lone round table with its team of three faithful chairs serves as a library and meeting room and is probably one of the only places where I can go and not be easily found. I flicked the lightswitch on but quickly decided to turn it off again. The strong light in the wee morning hours seemed too abrasive.

I pulled up one of the wicker chairs to an open window, hoping my clumsy feet would not come across a scorpion or other frightful creature in the dark room. Face inches from that cool morning breeze, our backyard only slightly illuminated by a dull porch light, I began to pray.

During that hour from 4:45-5:45am that I typically toss and turn, seeking out a last-minute refuge in that illusive sleep-rest, I instead sought refuge in the Giver of Life in a clumsy attempt at divine communion.

I sat by that window and gave thanks to the Unseen God, asked Him for forgiveness, guidance, liberation, new life. I confessed: “I have nothing more to give. I’m dry bones. I’m so tired, Father. Fill up this empty soul with You, with Life.”

A stream of bats came sweeping by and leafy branches swayed, rustled with unseen life. Fighting against mental and physical fatigue, I continued. After all, I had promised God that I would participate in this morning prayer routine every day during the coming months.

In many ways, the vast questions of “What now?” and “What more?” have been whispering in the recesses of our minds, and only a deepening of our communion with Yahweh can provide the answers, the joy to continue onward in the midst of the daily humdrum.

If there was ever any sparkle dust, any warm fuzzies or all-consuming adrenaline rush at ‘doing something new,’ that has worn off.

I am no longer that 21-year-old recent college graduate who moved to that third world country with nothing other than a large hiking backpack and the certainty of a call from God to be mom to those who have none.

With each of the total-of-9 children and teens who have come in and through our home in the last almost-three years, there has been a great urgency, a great push, a 9-1-1 response of sorts, the big welcome and the ensuing months of very real spiritual warfare, of freedom-seeking in Christ.

Everything has been new; in many ways these first three years have been spent in a state of constant crisis. Children who have been abandoned, orphaned, raped, beaten, thrown away — those are the ones whom Father God has so miraculously allowed call us ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa.’ Our eyes have been pried open; our hair has been whipped back and we have participated in this charged expedition for answers on this wild ride of seeking and fulfilling God’s will. They were exciting times as one by one God brought the children, taught us by way of difficulty and tears, love stretched to its limit. Newness was everywhere; everything an adventure waiting to be had.

Daily we experienced something new; everything was a teachable moment; the kids were naive; we were naive. How should we interact with and talk to this child so that he will stop hiding under furniture? How can we counsel her through the tough decisions of adolescence? Oh, we need to take them to the dentist? How on earth can we keep this kitchen clean?! She has accepted Christ! Let’s take our first family vacation together with the children! How do we form some kind of dynamic, Christ-centered homeschool program to educate our kids in a holistic way? Are we to accept local youth into our school as well? How do we balance marriage, ‘family’ with many foster children, and ministry to the local community?

Now, as we are nearing our three-year anniversary with the three kids who started it all in November 2013, it seems like nothing is new. We’ve already had the big, silly experience of taking the kids to the local movie theater for the first time. The majority of our kids have already accepted Christ and are faithfully walking with Him, growing in Him. Many of the major disciplinary battles and bad-habit-breaking brigades are well underway. Those who didn’t know how to read and write have learned. They’ve asked their sincere questions about life, about sex, about God; we’ve sought together for answers, learned together from God’s Word. We’ve prayed for healing, for freedom, and in large part we are rejoicing in answered prayers. We’ve been through big and little moments alongside them, and, now…it’s just…daily life.

Whereas there used to be constant verbal battles among the kids — kids from different (highly dysfunctional) biological families suddenly thrust together under one roof with new rules, new parents — now we can spend an entire day (maybe even two, three!) without any real discord. I have to do less and less conflict mediations. The kids are acquiring more self-control. Several are even becoming good students. Whereas they came to us malnourished, too small for their age, girls with buzzed-off hair and large bald patches, now they are healthy, growing, normal. Most of our kids even have pretty good manners now; they are learning piano, look you in the eyes when you talk to them, and generally react as a child who truly knows they’re loved.

So now, in this season where the newness of it all has worn off — alas, the 9-1-1 hotline has calmed down — a new word has been laid before us: perseverance. Now it is no longer a great, exciting question waiting to be answered of “Who will the children be? What will their names be, and how old? Oh, Lord, may we be ready when they arrive!” but rather it is a matter of looking into those same faces — those 9 whom we’ve been called to parent in addition to the 25+ in our school — day after day after month after year and faithfully fulfilling God’s will for us as His instruments in their lives, loving even when the warm fuzzies are long gone.

So, sitting quietly in that wicker chair this morning, I prayed. I asked God for new strength, for a perseverance that goes beyond feelings, that transcends novelty, that remains firm even when routine replaces adventure.

As the sun shed its first rays over our large, grassy property, I checked my cell phone: 5:45am. It was time. I returned the wicker chair to its station around our office’s table, left the building quietly and returned through that same creaky front door to a still-silent house.

And, yes, the events of this morning played out as they do just about every other morning: I squatted by beds, jostled sleepy legs and stroked tired shoulders, waking up the children one by one. I then chaperoned 8-year-old Josue to the bathroom for the umpteenth time to change his diaper as he babbled to me joyfully in his broken speech. I squirted out toothpaste for Gaby and Josue, gave Josselyn a good-morning hug, and opened the front gate for our students and teachers.

While I felt no immediate effects of my early morning spent in prayer, one thing I do know: I will go again tomorrow.

He who has called us to the great adoption as His sons and daughters is faithful, and He fervently desires that same faithfulness reciprocated in our devotion to Him. He is with us in the exciting moments of discovery along with the hidden, mundane moments of steadfast obedience. Nailed to a cross, dying for the sins of the world, having participated throughout His life in both the mundane and the miraculous — He continued onward, trusting in His Father even when the task’s attractiveness gave way to pain, when raw obedience was put to the ultimate test, when pleasing emotions or any sense of reeling adventure were long gone. May He empower us to do the same — to remain joyfully faithful until the end!

Amen!

Current World Events, Family, Farm Life, God At Work Among Us, Marriage, Personal Reflection

Worshipping Death: What Happens When We Reject the Life-Giver

September 5, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

Yesterday morning (Sunday) at 4:41am the startling, loud sing-song tone of Darwin’s cellphone rattled us both out of a very profound sleep. We bolted upward, shaking loose the cobwebs from sleepy minds as our attention snapped to that peace-shattering jingle lighting up our dark bedroom about a yard away.

Darwin reached for the phone, both of our nerves suddenly on edge. Who would call so early on a Sunday?

The night prior a dear neighbor who lives on the rural property adjacent to ours had called in the night with the disturbing news that two armed gunmen had stormed their property. Luckily, the young woman and her family had enclosed themselves in, hurriedly securing the small padlock on the inside of their front door as the aggressors forcefully passed through their gate, throwing a knife under the door and threatening to break in. Without touching our neighbor, the men had fled to the mountainside behind our property when a couple local watchmen showed up to scare them off. We called the police in an optimistic attempt to enact justice in this land ruled by anarchy and, as expected, they never came.

In this country where anything goes, we’ve been granted the grace of understanding that the only real justice is the one Creator God will enact at the end of time upon the inception of His kingdom.

So now, 24 hours after the initial phone conversation with our neighbor, both Darwin and I thought we were receiving some kind of unnerving follow-up call. After all, we had heard the gunshots the night before. Had the gunmen come back, and why? Had they raped our dear neighbor? Who were they, and what did they really want? Why storm the home of a very poor single mom and her four kids? The violence never makes sense, but, even so, we keep searching in vain for answers.

Darwin, in one swift motion throwing off any last remains of the deep sleep he had enjoyed only but a half-second prior, clicked the little button on his cell-phone, brought it up to his ear and mustered a somewhat startled but under-control greeting.

I squinted at him, not a foot away as I sat propped-up on my elbow, the small glow of his cell-phone the only light available to help my eyes see. I tried to read his expression but couldn’t.

The conversation was quick and stressful and, in retrospect, I do not remember what was said. When the conversation was finished, I looked at him expectantly and asked if it was that dreaded follow-up call to the night before.

“Who was it?” I asked, my heart now beating quickly as the rest of my body still felt drugged from having been dragged out of such a profound sleep – that precious, rare sleep that almost always eludes me.

“It was my sister.”

His sister? She had nothing to do with our neighbor from the night before. His sister lives over 30 minutes away in another rural town, and –

“My brother got murdered.”

The words register in my mind.

Murder. It’s always murder. Darwin almost got murdered after having been kidnapped by local gang lords not three months ago, but they miraculously spared his life (Read: Triumphing Against the Blows of Fear). This time death came not only to flirt but was fully consummated. Not with Darwin’s life, but with his brother’s. He’s really dead. His wife and two kids really will never get him back.

It was one of Darwin’s older brothers, one of many in his family to make his living off of cattle and livestock. He had spoken out in a public place against some local men who had been stealing his cows. They didn’t like his comments, showed up on a motorcycle on his walk home late last night, and shot him point-blank. Another one of Darwin’s brothers was walking right next to him when he got murdered.

In this world where the Great Reversal reigns – that great confusion of trust where the people of planet Earth have rejected the good, loving God, deciding rather to wholeheartedly trust and obey the lord of death and lies – a murder like this or any gross deed at all is not surprising. Terrible, yes, but not surprising.

When you turn your back on the Life-Giver, you get death. When the vast majority of the inhabitants of planet Earth shout in unison that they do not want the love, the joy, the abundant life and Truth of their own Creator – the free redemption, the extravagant invitation to participate in an eternal Kingdom, renewed with true peace and justice! – when the nations roar that they prefer their own sin, rejoice in their own darkness, desire nothing beyond their own control and understanding, perhaps they do not know that they are voluntarily choosing the exact opposite of all that God so freely offers: pain, confusion, suffering. Death. Not only physical (which comes eventually to all), but an eternal, spiritual death, cut off from the Life-Giver. The father of lies – Satan himself – has utterly blinded humanity. So many live under this great deception.

And then when there’s dreadful human suffering all across the globe – AIDS victims, riots, marital unfaithfulness, teen pregnancy, drug trafficking, terrorist threats, communism on the horizon, deep-rooted depression and self-loathing widespread – those same people who turned their backs of the Life-Giver shake an angry fist at Him, accusing Him for not having showed up, for not having forced humanity’s hand, for not having magically made everything “okay”.

Oh, but He respects our freedom – wants to win our love freely, not by compulsion. He who is faithful is waiting for us – this generation of prostitutes, for we have been utterly unfaithful with the One who bought us back at a high price. We have prostituted ourselves – our lives, our souls – to the love of money, to the great lie that there is no God (alas, we like to believe we are our own gods!). He lies in wait – broken-hearted, abandoned by His own creation as men and women across the globe spit in the face of the only One who can actually save them from their own misery, exchange their sorrow for joy.

We prefer deeds of darkness, prefer all that is lie, all that is deception. We openly defame the God who wants to share all of creation with us, who has not given up on us even though He would have every right to do so. We ignore Him, accuse Him — We kill Him! We did so 2,000 years ago and continue doing so each and every day henceforth! — and then wonder why there’s so much chaos in our world, our lives. “What is Truth?” We ask sarcastically as if there is no answer.

We have edged out the One who actually saves, who actually loves until the point of death. We want nothing to do with Him. We prefer to worship ourselves, to worship the evil one who comes masked as a beautiful lie – he who comes with great promises of fulfillment, but always deceives, leaves you empty. Just a little more money, and then you’ll be happy. Just a little more pornography, and you’ll be satisfied. Enjoy your life – Buy! Eat! Drink! Travel! – because life is short and it has no meaning. God is dead.

Lies!

This is the Great Deception, the Great Reversal. We want to throw God off His throne – throw Him into the dirt; trample Him! — putting Satan in His high place. We bow down and worship. And die.

So, no, it’s not at all surprising that something so tragic would happen. Of course it would. It does.

The phone rang again, only moments after the first call, shattering the dark silence, my many thoughts. Darwin answered. His eldest brother, weeping, shared the same news.

So another human being has now found himself standing in the presence of the just, holy God, giving an account of his life without ever having believed that he would, in fact, find himself in said position. During many of our trips out to see Darwin’s family we have boldly, lovingly shared the good news of redemption, of a caring God who longs for a worshipping people, but there has been little to no visible result thus far. And now it’s too late.

I don’t remember what was said between Darwin and I Sunday morning after those two phone calls, but there weren’t many words. No tears. Just an even deeper, shared, appreciation for God’s justice in the face of such bewildering, maddening injustice. Yes; there is a good, trustworthy God who is just and loves justice. Our world does not know His justice because we have chosen not to know Him. But here – in our little cinderblock home in this little country raped by senseless violence we, alongside of so many other little people scattered all around the globe in the most diverse of places – we choose to love and trust He who saves us, He who promises to enact a final, unbiased judgment, He who promises to end all wars and bring an everlasting peace, a new Kingdom with a benevolent King. We really believe this, and we dare to participate in His joy even when the world screams Pain.

After all, just two days prior one of our 14-year-old high school students had shared the news with us that one of his old classmates was recently found dead in a field. Our student’s sister was crossing the overgrown field on foot when she stumbled over the young teen’s corpse.

On Thursday as our community Bible study was coming to a close in our dining room and all students and Christian laborers were flowing out those swinging front doors, each prepared to return to work and study, the wife of our night watchman informed me with wide eyes that the news had just come to her that a dead body had been found in a local swimming hole that many of our students frequent. Nobody knew whose body it was and, honestly, there are probably very few who care. It’s just another dead body in a country that wreaks of death.

All this – the armed gunmen, the two local murders, now Darwin’s brother – in the last three days.

In the dead of night – in the dead silence of Honduras’ many dead – Darwin commented in an even tone, “In the United States people die from sickness or old age. Here people die by murder. If someone here actually makes it to old age, it’s – it’s…really surprising…”

We both layed there, wide awake without much further exchange of words at all. I tried to fall back into that heavenly sleep I had so violently been stripped from, but we had both reached the point of no return.

After several minutes, the sun still hiding its face, Darwin informed me, restless, “I’m gonna go milk the cows.” He got up, as he does in the wee hours of every morning, slipped on his black rubber boots along with an old pair of work clothes and headed out the door without another word.

Cows. Darwin went with the cows. Darwin’s brother had cows, and he tried to protect them from being stolen, and he was killed. Someday will they come for our cows too? Are those armed gunmen out there right now, waiting to strike?

Many years ago Darwin and I came to understand that our lives in and of themselves – our own desires, our control, our own goals and hopes – are worth nothing. United with God in His purposes, our lives become infinitely worthy, useful in His hands, rich beyond money. We lost our lives in order to find them, and – Oh! – how we have discovered such a satisfying, hidden life in Christ. But our kids? I cannot help but wonder… If someday our lives are taken, who will raise them? Did they come under our care only to one day become orphans again, abandoned to the harsh fate of parentless children in a world that knows no true justice? Lord, may You keep us alive so that we might finish the task You’ve given us…

Another hour passed and soon enough all the kids were up, everyone getting ready for our weekly Sunday trip out to spend the day with our faith community over an hour away. 8-year-old Gaby came bounding toward me as I shuffled about the house, still in my pijamas: “Ma! Mommy! I didn’t pee in my bed last night! Come! Come and see! My bed is dry!” She squealed with delight over her triumph as I let her little stubby hand grab mine, leading me through the bright teal curtain into her bedroom as she jumped up and down for joy, so proud of her own achievement. I swept my hand across the plastic mattress covering, allowing a big smile to spread across my face – it was dry!

The kids received the news of their uncle’s murder just about as we did: saddened by the devastating loss but not at all surprised. If we were to sit down with our kids and make a collective family list of all the murders that have skimmed close to our lives – all the family members, neighbors and local townspeople who have been murdered – we would need many sheets of paper.

So I wobbled over to our little cave-like bathroom, feeling the effects of the too-early wake-up call, and stared dumbly at the dark circles under my eyes as they reflected tiredly back at me in the little three-inch mirror hanging from a piece of bright yellow yarn that’s been duck-taped above our bathroom sink.

Unimpressed by the reflection of my exhausted face, I tried to prepare myself emotionally and physically to spend that day and the next by myself on combat duty as Darwin would be heading out to his parents’ home to accompany his family members during the funeral preparations.

Suddenly I heard Darwin’s easy footsteps enter our bedroom behind me. He was singing a hymn about God’s love as he began changing out of his cow-milking clothes and into the nicer attire he would be wearing out to his family’s property.

Shirt changed. Pants changed. Looking for the right pair of shoes.

He kept singing softly as he moved about our bedroom, probably oblivious that I was a couple yards behind him in the entryway of our bathroom.

About a half-hour later we all piled into our cab-and-a-half truck, a handful of the kids comfortably in the truckbed with the rest of us tucked in the cab. This time I would be driving as I would drop Darwin off at the main intersection for him to take public transportation out to his family’s home. As he left the vehicle, he gave me a quick kiss and said, “Pray for me.”

A little over an hour later we came barreling over the bumpy mountain roads and came to a screeching stop (our breaks are very touchy) in front of our mentors’ home as the kids and I unloaded. As we crossed the threshold of their small front gate, Josselyn, our 12-year-old daughter who is the only one of our kids to call us by our first names rather than ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ and who is a very successful third-grade student after having learned to read and write for the first time last year upon moving in with us in July 2015 – this same Josselyn whose uncombed short, black hair almost always resembles a rat’s nest – came up to me with wide, sincere eyes and said, “Darwin told us to pray for him.”

I smiled, patted her on the back and assured her, “Yes, I know. We’re going to.”

She seemed satisfied with my answer and darted off to help the others get the breakfast plates ready. Every Sunday we eat granola and cows’ milk at our mentors’ home before entering into the Discipleship Group.

Many breakfast dishes, spoons, cups of water and such in place on both sides of the long wooden table, I asked who would like to lead us in prayer.

That same Josselyn, who can tend to be timid when it comes to public prayer or participating in any kind of group setting, shot up her thin arm.

I smiled and nodded, we all clasped hands, eyes closed in unison and she began to pray:

“Thank you, God… For this day. And this food…We pray now for the man – who killed our uncle…. May You forgive him—“

She stopped there. We waited. It seemed she was searching for the right words, as she oftentimes does in prayer and in conversation. Her words tend to come out a bit haltingly, as if there were some loose socket in her mind caused by years of abuse and neglect, but God’s own heart has begun to shine through her in a way that surpasses the most elegant of words.

Many moments went by before she continued in that same abrupt fashion:

“We pray also for…Darwin. May you allow him – to give You thanks…even when things are difficult…Amen.”

This morning (Monday) my phone rang at 5:31am. Luckily, the majority of our household was already up and getting ready. Three of our kids were already in the kitchen eating breakfast as I ran from the living room to our bedroom nightstand (which is a plastic bucket turned over) to answer the call. I assumed it would be Darwin, because he knows we’re up early.

I answered and, sure enough, it was him. I asked how things were going out at his parents’ home with the preparations for his brother’s funeral, and he answered in an even tone: “My mom died.”

A void opened up in my chest, and all my words seemed to quickly fall into that void, disappear. What to say?

He explained: Having experienced a very emotional reaction to the death of her son the day prior, she had a heart attack and died shortly after arriving at the emergency room.

He continued: “Tomorrow morning will be the funeral, and I think you and the kids should come…”

So we made the plans via phone, and I hung up. Kids still shuffling about the house, getting ready in the wee hours of dawn. Gaby came hurdling toward me from her bedroom, ecstatic: “Ma! Mommy! I didn’t wet the bed last night! Come look! Come and smell my bed!”

I bent down to receive her love tackle with open arms, making a quick mental note that I would inform our kids of their grandmother’s passing that night over dinner. Now was not the time.

I took Josue to the bathroom, changed his diaper, brushed his teeth. Received a local single mom (the same mom whose home the gunmen had stormed a couple nights prior) at our front gate around 5:50am to show her the ropes of our kitchen and cleaning routines as she will be laboring alongside of us now two days a week. Got the clothes ready to haul out to the washing spicket, carried the bucket of cows’ milk to our kitchen. Fed the dogs, greeted our students as they come trickling through our front gate.

After assuring that everything was in place – students in their classrooms, breakfast plates put away – I began heading for our front gate. On the way, our night watchman’s wife came up to me, once again with wide eyes, and informed me that two more dead bodies have been found in our small rural town. According to what she heard, one of the bodies had a message taped to it: “16 more to go.”

I thanked her for the information, very intentionally refusing to fall prey to the fear trap, and threw my black Jansport backpack in our truck and began heading out along the bumpy gravel road toward town. I would be spending the day at a small local hideout that has internet access, because I hadn’t checked my email or done any computer work in the last 7 days.

As the car rumbled down the shady road lined with tall trees and bushy green plants on either side, I took my husband’s lead from the day prior and I began to sing. I sang alone in the car below the shadow of the tall trees about God’s justice – how I long for His justice, and the way to experience it is to live according to His will, receiving freely the redemption He’s offered us in Jesus – our escape from our own punishment, our own depravity.

My voice – pure in spirit but probably raspy and tired to the ears – filled our empty car as I allowed my heart and mind to be consumed with joy. Justice does exist, and He has a name. I know Him, and He’s my Father. With our small hands tenderly grasping that Hand that created the whole universe, we will triumph in the end. Justice is near.

Discipline Techniques, Family, Marriage, Personal Reflection

Sane Family Practices: The Sabbath Hour

August 29, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Last night a few minutes before 8:00pm Gleny, our almost-12-year-old fireball with her frizzy hair all out of place and clunking about in her rather large, black rain boots to accompany her pajamas, laughed hysterically as she came out of the bathroom. It was one of those sincere laughs that rattles your whole being, almost violent with joy as she confessed through loud, sincere bursts, “Ok! Good night, Ma and Pa — this time it’s for real…”

She clunked right past us in her big ole rubber boots, her body still convulsing joyfully, and entered the bedroom she shares with two of her older sisters. As the curtain closed silently behind her, so, too, our entire cinderblock home became enveloped in an immediate silence.

Biting my lip and holding back a similar belly laugh that Gleny herself had experienced only moments prior, I looked over at my husband as we both sat on our living room couch, each with a book in hand — reading as much as serving as our home’s watchful vigilantes.

You see, about four or five months ago we instituted the “Sabbath Hour” in our home every night. Well, every night except Fridays, that is. At 7:15pm everyone enters their bedroom — teeth already brushed, showers already completed, all conversations already had — and our entire household enters into total silence. No laughing, no idle chit-chatting, no running about.

The general rule is this: we don’t want to hear you; we don’t want to see you. If you want to stay up until the wee hours of the morning reading, drawing, praying, etc — that is fine. If you go to bed immediately upon entering the Sabbath Hour, that is fine. But at 7:15pm everyone will be tucked away in their room, and we will rest.

So many months ago we got this idea from Danny Silk’s book Loving Our Kids on Purpose. In the book the author calls this idea “Room Time,” but we have changed the name in our household because our kids didn’t like the original name. While this daily routine of silence is a healthy exercise for our kids (after having spent the entire day in constant activity playing, learning, interacting with other people, etc, they have a designated, protected time each evening to rest emotionally and spiritually, seek God in His Word, etc), it is even healthier for the parents. (Alas, perhaps we should have named it “The Sanity Hour!”)

So with dogged persistence and undeterred consistency Darwin and I have established and protected our family’s Sabbath Hour as if our life depended on it (because it does!), and those neighbors of ours who occasionally call in the evenings even know that they must do so before we enter the Sabbath Hour because after 7:15pm we don’t receive calls.

Despite the many (many) times our kids have tried to persuade us to push the hour back (or do away with it altogether — it’s so hard not to talk, laugh, and jump around noisily when you’ve got really fun roommates!), by God’s grace we have continued onward, respecting and protecting the Sabbath Hour for many months now. (Oh, how many times even during that blessed Sabbath Hour have one or two of our kids daringly opened their curtains and come out to the living room or knocked on our bedroom door to try to reel me in to their love trap, putting on cute faces and trying to get me to solve this or that problem or do any number of things that could have been done earlier that afternoon! I merely say lovingly, “Now is not the time. You should have told me that earlier. Now it’s the Sabbath Hour. I love you so much. Good night!”)

So what happens when we hear a loud shriek of laughter or some little voice is heard chit-chatting when all should be silent after 7:15pm? Darwin and I call the perpetrator(s) calmly, hand them a couple plastic grocery bags, and send them outside with a flashlight to pick up a few dog poops. And if that doesn’t do the trick, we send them out again to sweep the three rather large porches on our fenced-in rural property. Then, they re-enter their room and resume the Sabbath Hour.

Last night as we reached the blessed 7:15pm mark, warm bedtime hugs were given and everyone was herded toward their bedroom. Door curtains opened to let in their inhabitants and then dropped closed behind them. “The Sabbath Hour starts on the count of three! 1, 2, 3…”

All became quiet.

I grabbed Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and headed for our living room couch in my pajamas to read, a rare treat that can only be enjoyed during the Sabbath Hour.

The only overpowering noise heard in our entire house was the water falling from the shower in our bathroom as Darwin bathed (and in our house, you can hear everything. If someone coughs at the other end of the house, you can hear it). I contemplated my own breath peacefully entering and exiting my nostrils, such a small noise that during cacophonous hours is easily overlooked. The creaking of beds, soft footsteps across bedroom floors, the quiet rustling of books and papers, and the opening of a dresser drawer. The sound of Legos building upon one another as Josue played in his bed not five yards from where I sat. Our dogs, too, respected the Sabbath Hour as they lazily sprawled out on our porch, thankful for another day well spent.

A few moments later, Darwin came to join me on the couch, Bible in hand.

Fifteen minutes or so passed in total silence as we read, breathed. Then, unexpectedly, a few little whispers started. As any parent knows, when children are involved, a whisper can turn into a full-out hullaballoo faster than you can say “Sabbath Hour,” so Darwin and I looked at each other, eyebrows arched, and I motioned for him to go investigate the situation.

He got up from our little multi-colored couch as his even words declared for our whole little house to hear, “Ok, those who were whispering, come on out. I’ll get the plastic bags.”

A couple moments passed before Dayana, our 15-year-old daughter who quite proudly holds the title of “eldest,” suddenly appeared in our living room from the other side of her bedroom curtain, a small grin taking over her face as she knew she had been caught red-handed. She had on her pajamas with her big, curly hair going in all directions. I made eye contact with her and couldn’t help but smile.

Darwin then came out of our room with a couple plastic bags in hand as almost-12-year-old Gleny suddenly burst on the scene behind her elder sister, laughing hysterically as she slipped on her big ole rubber boots.

Darwin in monotone: “Three poops each.”

Gleny, laughing and eyeing her older sister: “Like three little droplets?”

Me (knowing she was trying to find a loophole and pick up three little droplets that were all part of the same overall poo): “No. Three whole poops. We love you guys.”

The sisters groaned good-naturedly, Dayana with flashlight in hand, and soon enough they were walking out the front door. Gleny turned around, trying to engage us in some last-minute joke or silly pre-teen commentary, but I answered, “Gleny, it’s the Sabbath Hour. See you soon.”

So about 10 or 15 minutes later we heard a knock at our front door accompanied by some giggles, and Darwin answered.

Their triumphant declaration: “We’ve got the poops!”

So they went, threw them away in our outside trash barrel, and came in, now (mostly) in silence as Gleny still wrestled with intense laughter. They washed their hands in the bathroom, and then were off to their room.

That was when Gleny confessed through a big grin and burst of giggles, “Ok! Good night, Ma and Pa — this time it’s for real…”

Amen! Glory to God for the precious Sabbath Hour!

Bible study, Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Primary School, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Marriage, Music, Personal Reflection, Special Needs Kids, Teaching

August 2016 Updates and Prayer Requests

August 22, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

High School Students Studying Ted Dekker’s Historical-Based Novel “30 A.D.” About the Life of Jesus

A couple months ago Miss Ligia (our high school teacher) and I began reading Ted Dekker’s novel “30 A.D.” with our thirteen 7^th-grade students. The majority of our students had never read an entire book before on any subject (most schools here do not assign books to read nor is reading in general a common pastime for most Hondurans), so tackling a 398-paged historical novel with teens who read on a very low reading level has been quite the task. The book itself is phenomenal, and although several of the students have struggled mightily to develop the discipline of actually reading the chapters and the mental capacity to understand the content, it has been a very rewarding experience enriched with discussions, quizzes, group work, etc, as we seek to deepen our knowledge and love of Christ with our local students. After our students finish the novel at the end of the month we have missionary biographies prepared for them to read!

Prayer Needed for Gabriela’s Intense Emotional Needs

I am very humbly asking for prayer for Gabriela (nicknamed ‘Gaby’) and for my attitude towards her. She has been living with us a little over a year, and we’ve decided to say she’s eight years old (although it’s very likely she’s 9, 10 or 11 because no one knows how old she really is), but mentally and emotionally she is on the level of a three-year-old.

She is by far the most emotionally demanding of all of our children, and I get drained very quickly in her presence as she is extremely clingy, wants to be held constantly, wets her pants and her bed nearly every day/night, struggles when I pay attention to the other kids (or when I try to do any other task), and behaves as a toddler would although physically she is a big kid and has already begun wearing a training bra. Her personality in general is very loud, repetitive and annoying, so most of our other kids do not actively spend time with her, leaving me as one of her only loving companions (besides special-needs Josue who is her best friend).

I have begun talking and praying with her extensively about the fact that only God can fill her emotional void; I love her and God utilizes me in her life to show her His love and affection, but I alone will never be enough to fill her up.

Please pray with me that this message would penetrate into her heart and that she would earnestly seek God as her eternal Father, for He is the only One who truly satisfies. Please pray for me also, as being Gaby’s mom is an extremely exhausting affair (although an incredible blessing); pray that the Lord would grant me the patience, unconditional love and energy to love her the way Jesus does. I feel hounded almost constantly by guilt because I simply do not have the superhuman strength to attend to all of her emotional needs to the extent that she wants, and I sense that she oftentimes feels rejected by me. Please pray that God would liberate me of these feelings of guilt and replace them with trust in Him.

Legal Progress Report: Documents from 2011-2015 Finally Processed, Approved (!)

After having compiled and trying to submit a rather extensive portfolio of legal documents, photos, letters, etc, to the capital’s government office in Tegucigalpa since 2014, we were notified about two weeks ago that everything finally went through and we are in good standing with the government after quite a bit of organizational confusion that occurred when the leadership of the Living Waters Ranch was transferred from Teresa Devlin (the founder) to my husband and me in 2012.

We thank and praise God for this great news (and huge relief!) that we are finally up-to-date and have been accepted/recognized by the government as a legally operated NGO (non-profit) who fulfills the national requirements. Praise God!

Prayer for Ongoing Insomnia

Several years have passed and I still struggle each night with insomnia, sleeping about 2-5 hours per night. I’m exhausted to the bone and frequently struggle with irritability toward those around me. It seems like several times per day I have to humble myself and go ask forgiveness from those who were the victims of my snappy attitude or impatience.

Please pray that God would give me the perseverance and energy to continue to fulfill His will and that I may be granted deep, restorative sleep so that I may be an increasingly useful instrument in His hands.

Miss Martha to Rest from Chronic Pains

Miss Martha, our beloved sister in Christ in her late 50s who serves alongside of us at the Living Waters Ranch as the cook, literacy teacher and nurse, notified us last week that she has made the difficult decision to stop serving at the Ranch and spend a season resting at home due to several chronic pains she has been struggling with for many months. The work at the Ranch is very physical – a lot of walking between buildings, bending over, carrying things, playing with kids, etc, and due to the intense pains in her left leg, one of her hands, and her neck/arms, she feels that she can no longer continue in the work. We love her dearly and will continue to see her every Tuesday as she plans on continuing her participation in the ‘Christian Leadership’ class.

Please pray with us for her healing and that the Lord would continue the good work that He has begun in her.

Much Time Consumed Each Week with Trips to Local Government Offices

Although we are up-to-date with the capital offices in Tegucigalpa, there are many smaller, local government branches that have different requirements that organizations like ours must fulfill, so in the last few weeks Darwin’s and my time has been largely consumed with waiting in said government offices, turning in paperwork, having meetings, etc, in addition to the many daily hands-on tasks with our kids and students. We’ve been going to the Social Security Office, Board of Education, and several others (I’m not sure how they would translate in English) in somewhat exhausting/frustrating circles as we’re trying to jump through the many required hoops to ensure that we are legally covered in every possible respect should anyone come and bring accusations or complaints (such attitudes of accusation and of wanting to see others fall is very common here and can be very dangerous). Several nights recently Darwin has not gotten home until 7:00 or 8:00pm after having been away all day jumping said hoops.

Please pray with us that all these errands, etc, would not distract from the purpose God has given us to proclaim His Word and invest in the lives of the children/youth for His glory, and that we would be able to meet all the requirements quickly and efficiently.

Coming Up On 1-Year Anniversary with Nightwatchman’s Family

Next month will mark one year of living in relationship with the family of our nightwatchman at the Living Waters Ranch. By God’s grace we have been able to develop a very healthy relationship with them as we serve one another for God’s glory. Four of their kids are in our elementary school as they are learning to read, write and do basic math along with their participation in Bible study, choir, various after-school ‘clubs’, etc, and the nightwatchman’s wife helps serve in our kitchen and cleaning a few days per week. During this almost-one-year that our watchman has been doing his rounds each night with a flashlight, we haven’t had any robberies.

Please continue to pray with us for our relationship with this family and that our Father may continue to grow us all up in love, wisdom and Truth as we serve one another as neighbors for His glory.

Bible study, Child/Youth Leadershp, Community Life, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Primary School, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Personal Reflection, Teaching

Unlikely Disciples

August 12, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

A few weeks ago we began offering an optional “Christian Leadership” class on Tuesday afternoons for those students and laborers who wish to stay a bit late after their morning academic classes and deepen their walk with Christ.

We had the handwritten sign-up flyer taped to the external wall of our Education Building during the days leading up to the first class, and I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few names scribbled on the list. There would be no credits given for the class, and, moreover, the other after-school classes being offered – sports, art, music, cooking class, and math club – honestly presented a glossier, more alluring attraction to the majority of the students than another class about Jesus. I mean, all of our students already spend several hours each week in Bible study, praise and worship, and organized prayer groups. What teen or pre-teen previously accustomed to very little spiritual direction would voluntarily sign up for more?

On the morning of the first class I glanced at the sign-up sheet again, and to my surprise many of the names had been carefully covered up with white-out! The brightest students – and honestly those whom I’m closest to and who participate most in our twice-weekly Bible studies – had erased their own names from the list! I sighed and read the names that remained: generally lazy trouble-makers – bad students! – who I have to constantly reel in during Bible study! How could this be? Why on earth would they sign up for an intensive Christian leadership course while the others backed out last-minute? Why didn’t those wily, disobedient students just sign up for cooking class and sports club? Is this some kind of joke?

I headed to our bedroom, quite disappointed and wondering why so many students backed out last-minute. I gathered my teaching materials from our wooden bookshelf and began heading over to the 7^th-grade classroom where I would hold the class. In passing I commented to my husband sarcastically: “Ha! Stanley [a 15-year-old 7^th grade student who has a long record with us of disrespect, laziness, sexist jokes and general immaturity] signed up for Christian Leadership! And he’s constantly goofing off in Bible study. Why would he sign up for the class? I think he got confused with the sign-up sheets.¨

As soon as those venomous words came spewing out of my mouth I bit my lip, already regretting having said all that I did (or rather, having thought it in the first place).

So I exited through our front door, repentant for my judgment of Stanley and determined to ask God for a better perspective – His perspective. As I took the ten or eleven steps to reach our Education Building, Charlie, a very small 13-year-old in 7^th grade (who also has a long history of clowning around, not passing his exams, etc), came running up to me and asked if it was too late to sign up for Christian Leadership.

I smiled warmly – Charlie had been in Darwin’s and my prayer group that morning – and told him we would be entering in 5 minutes and that he was welcome to join us.

I guided the 5 students who had signed up for Christian Leadership over to our kitchen to serve them rice and beans, and from there they carried their plastic bowls with them over to the classroom where we would be having our class.

Miraculously, rebellious Stanley had not slipped out our front gate unnoticed, escaping his commitment to the class. He was right there with the others, face unusually bright and open. I suppose I had still hoped that he had signed up for the wrong after-school class and would be erasing his name from the list as so many others had already done.

We entered the empty classroom, everything swept and cleaned – smelling of a strong yet pleasing cleaning liquid – after our 7^th grade students had collaborated only a few minutes earlier to clean at the end of their schoolday.

Everyone sat down as we formed a tight semi-circle out of the desks, moving aside those that remained empty so as to create a sense of greater unity and less distraction. Miss Martha, our 56-year-old nurse and cook, came in, as she had also written her name on the sign-up sheet. A few moments later 22-year-old Miss Isis and 29-year-old Miss Ligia, our elementary and secondary teachers, also entered the class, eager to learn.

As Spanish praise and worship music played softly over the CD player – at times barely audible as the rains intensified over the tin roof of our Education Building – I considered the motley crew of eager disciples Jesus had chosen for this class: a woman in the autumn years of her life, a young single mom, a lawyer who left the world behind to take a low-paying job teaching troublesome rural teens for God’s glory, four teen boys (all of which are not generally classified as ‘good students’ and who have had their share of behavioral struggles with us), our 12-year-old daughter Josselyn (who had just entered third grade this past week after passing second grade with flying colors), and myself.

My mind listed about five or six names of students who would have been perfect for this class – those who actively participate in Bible study, those who actually show some interest in knowing God and obeying Him. Where were they?!

I sort of looked around, stupefied, waiting for at least one or two of the boys to stand up and leave once they realized this was a Christian Leadership class. No fun art projects; no tasty cooking experiments; no high-energy relays or trips to the local soccer field. Just the Bible, an open heart, a large whiteboard in front of us, and a journal for each person.

No one moved, not even Stanley.

My eyes met 15-year-old Brayan’s, our beloved prodigal son who is in fifth grade for the fourth time. Brayan – Brayan!, that now-almost-as-tall-as-me man child who lived with us for eight months a couple years ago, whom I used put to sleep at night, whom I read Lion King picture books to, who has the affectionate needs of a small boy, who can’t seem to ever ´get his act together´ and get on schedule with his homework assignments, who spends his free time wandering aimlessly around our rural neighborhood, who can´t seem to maintain a respectful attitude toward his step-mother, who even recently got mixed up in some bad decision-making – who even now, almost two years after having moved out of our home, still calls me “Ma” – this Brayan! – wants to learn to be a leader for Christ.

I get it, Father. They’re all here on purpose – You’ve carefully chosen each one and placed them here for a reason – and no one is leaving.

Your plans are always better than mine, Father.

With a big, genuine smile and an ‘okay-then!’ attitude, I let out a small laugh that probably only I understood and began displaying several brightly-colored notebooks on one of the desks in the middle so that each person would come and grab one.

The Spanish worship music continued in its majesty; rain trickled overhead, then pounded, then trickled again.

The Bible verse I scribbled in large print across the whiteboard that first class was this: ¨Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.¨ (1 John 2:6)

From there, everyone participated as they called out different aspects of the way Jesus lived. Perfect obedience to God, joy in the midst of difficulties, did not love money or seek happiness/security in it, willingness to suffer, did not consider this world to be His home, etc. I listened as I wrote frantically with arrows spouting out from the large-written verse, trying to keep up with all that was being said.

Then one of the teen boys mentioned with confidence, ¨Jesus spent time with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and the ´bad´ people – drug lords and thieves. He wasn´t scared of them, nor did He judge them.¨

Another one of the boys perked up, familiar with this teaching that we had all studied together in our community Bible study several months prior and added enthusiastically: ¨He came not for the ´good´ people but for the ´bad´ — those that recognize that they are bad, that is. We are all murderers, after all. He came to heal the sick – those that recognize they need a savior – and not for those who try to justify themselves!¨

As my long arm extended toward the whiteboard, instinctively trying to keep up with their right-on proclamations of the way Jesus lived, it hit me hard and clear: that´s why God has brought together such a motley crew of disciples for this class. These are the kids who recognize they need more of God; they are the ones who perhaps best associate with the God-man who sought out the lost, the robbers, the ‘bad guys’.

These are the same kinds of young men Jesus would have probably hand-picked to walk with Him 2,000 years ago.

I’m so foolish in my quick judgments and human standards!

Now I get it, Father. Thank you for revealing Your wisdom to the most unlikely.

Oh, throughout this year we had been so consumed with looking for ‘good students’, with finding bright youth from our neighborhood – those that display some real sense of leadership capability, those who already have good habits, fairly respectable personal hygiene and some pinch of academic work ethic. But the whole time our Father has been preparing the vagabonds – the ´bad´ teens, those that are a step or two away from falling into the gangs – to take hold of His Word with faith and be trained up willingly to go out and make more disciples for His glory.

So we continued onward with an attitude of great joy, mine rooted in deep thanksgiving, as we held dynamic discussions and participated in communal prayer.

We finished the class by reading the entire book of 1 John, which I believe none of the participants had previously read. Each person grabbed a Bible as some sprawled out on the tile floor to read while others remained in their desks or stood quietly by the open windows to take God’s Word in their hands and meditate.

The peace among us was so strong; a great calm overtook the room as soft sunlight poured in, the rain still trickling overhead, each person silently absorbing the great hope we have in a God who loves us enough to not give up on us, who goes so far as to die for our redemption, liberating us from the punishment we deserve. The rest of the world carried on with its business (busyness): our kids and students passing by the front porch, Darwin giving piano classes in an adjacent room, others involved in cleaning projects or group homework assignments or pick-up soccer games on the damp front lawn as God silently, efficiently, made His will known to each of His unlikely disciples.

That was four weeks ago; every Tuesday afternoon since then we have continued to meet, to open the Word together and learn what it means to submit ourselves to God’s will to such an extent that we become useful instruments in His hands, leaders to reach the nations with the Truth. Three additional students, also very unlikely disciples, have since joined our class as we continue onward with great hope that He will transform us – we who would be the last to be chosen for any great task the World could assign! – into powerful instruments in the Living God’s hands.

Amen! Glory to God!

Family, Information About the Mission, Personal Reflection, Special Needs Kids, Teaching

Shrieking with Delight and Persevering Through Fatigue: Rowdy Tutoring with Miss Isis

July 25, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Last Friday Miss Isis, our young primary teacher who began living alongside of us at the Living Waters Ranch earlier this month as a way of deepening her walk with Christ, has begun giving tutoring classes to Gaby and Josue (our special needs ‘twins’ who are both 8 years old but are developmentally about 3 or 4 years old after having suffered severe abuse and neglect with their biological families).

Our little ones’ fine motor skills are abysmal (although astronomically better than they were 12-18 months ago when they arrived in our family!) as they struggle through basic daily activities such as washing a dish, holding a pencil, opening a door, operating a zipper, etc, and they live in the midst of speech impediments, lack of focus, diaper-wearing and untold difficulties that distance them from their peers. Thus, Miss Isis decided to focus much of the tutoring on physical movement, mimicking, strength and coordination (along with teamwork and general levels of fun!), all of which are basic building blocks on top of which finer, more focused motor skills will be added in the future as they learn to assimilate more and more into functioning society.

Last Friday was their first class together, and much to everyone’s surprise (and utter delight!) Miss Isis — who is typically very poised and quiet and has zero experience with organized sports or any kind of physical training — brought her “A” game with our quirky little ones, thrusting aside any general societal norms of ‘accepted adult behavior’ or any notion of not wanting to ‘look weird.’

After having spent the morning in the ‘academic wilderness’ with her small group of second-fifth grade primary students (who also suffer many developmental delays, severe behavioral problems, and generally low intellectual capabilities), she suited up (as in, took off her sandals) for what promised to be a high-energy time with two very special little people.

After organizing several wind-sprints across our large front lawn (and participating), doing many frog-jumps and other rapid movement activities, Miss Isis began panting, collapsed on a nearby bench and informed the kids through heavy breaths, “Okay, great! You’re doing an excellent job. Now I’m gonna give you a little break to catch your breath before we continue onward…”

I laughed (because Isis needed the break, not the kids!), and I ran to get my camera for what was quickly becoming one of the best, most high-energy tutoring classes I’ve ever seen anyone give our little ones (and which is exactly what they need).

So here, captured behind the lens, is our beloved sister in Christ, Isis, giving her all alongside of our two goofy, precious, broken little ones. 16-year-old Sandra, who in no way was obligated to join in the tutoring class, even participated because it all looked like so much fun! Go, Sandra, go!

tutorias7 — Good job, Josue! Just follow my lead — keep those legs and arms in constant motion! Pedal ’em like a bicycle! Let’s go, kids!

tutorias5 — Legs up and down, up and down! You got it!

tutorias24 — Pump it! Don’t give up, kids!

tutorias26 — Get those arms and legs movin’! Up and down! (I think Gaby got the ‘down’ motion, but not the ‘up’!)

tutorias10 — Now everybody pull your knees to your chest! Pull ’em tight!

tutorias23

tutorias8 — Let’s get that bicycle action goin’ again! Don’t give up!

tutorias6 — Okay! Legs! Bring those legs up and down, up and down! Feel the burn! (Gotta love this photo of Gaby!)

tutorias11 — Now it’s time for some stretching! Circle up! Touch your toes to your neighbors’ and try to grab their fingers!

tutorias13 — Now reach as far as you can towards the center!

tutorias14 — One hand on your head and the other one extended to touch your toes! You got it, Gaby and Josue!

tutorias15 — Okay! Grab your neighbor again! Stretch!

tutorias21

tutorias17 — Now try to put your head to the ground!

tutorias19 — Now reach behind you! Extend your arms!

tutorias40 — Okay, kids! Get showered up because now we’re heading in to art class!

tutorias41 — Gaby’s ‘silly (dragon) face’!

arte69 — What a beautiful drawing, Josue!

Amen! Glory to God!

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

Collecting Twine Together: Building Our Nest Behind Schedule

July 18, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Two Sundays ago as we came barrelling home in our old pickup truck after having spent the entire day up in the mountains with our faith community, we stopped by several homes in our rural neighborhood to drop off four of our students who had accompanied us that morning.

Everyone was joyfully exhausted from our Sunday routine of two-and-a-half hours round-trip drive to study God´s Word and worship His name with our small community of believers that meets at our mentors’ home. Miss Isis, our primary teacher and beloved sister in Christ who now lives at the Living Waters Ranch with her 1-year-old daughter, sat in the seat behind me scrunched up alongside a few of our kids while the rest bounced along in the truckbed.

Long gone are the days of Darwin and I intimately relating with our three, four or five kids at a slow, intentional pace while the rest of the world carries on with their own business. Now we have several local students, a single mom in her twenties and a precious 1-year-old who form part of our growing extended family that demands our time and love on nights and weekends in addition to the eight who sleep under our tin roof. When did things change so much, so quickly? Is it blessing or mere hassle to include everyone all the time? Are we even a family anymore? Were we ever?

These thoughts weighed me down as I sat in the passenger´s seat at Darwin’s right. With a great jolt we passed the speedbump-like threshold through our front gate and came to a stop on our large grassy lawn in front of our home. It was already past 4:00pm. I looked over at Darwin as surely both of our minds were immediately greeted with all that had to be done: unload the car, supervise the lengthy bathing process of eight kids/teens with one common shower, get dinner ready (and then serve it, then clean up), tend to the general emotional needs of the kids and help resolve any conflicts throughout the process, and prepare our living room for our traditional Sunday-night movie as a family. All in about an hour.

¨Can we call a family meeting? I have something I need to express.¨

He looked over at me as he took the key out of the ignition, ¨Sure. I´ll call the kids.¨

So about two minutes later our eight kids, Darwin and I were all seated on sofas and stools and floor in our rectangle-shaped living room to see what it was that I had to say. Family meetings are not uncommon for us, as each person has such a unique schedule between school, work and other activities that a general meeting has to be held if one hopes to communicate something to everyone at once.

So there we sat as I began to express how I felt — not necessarily how things actually are or how the others see things, just simply how I was feeling .

I sat on the floor with my back propped up against our closed front door, putting words to my heart’s heaviness: in a normal family, bonding time between parent and child is allowed from birth until the teens before the young adult then flies the coop, carrying with them their family´s investment in their lives as they enter the adult realm. In our situation, however — when our kids come to us at age 13, 11, 7 or 15 — we are granted very little time to make any kind of familial connection, to gather twigs together and form some kind of makeshift nest before they are already taking flight.

Perhaps I feel that I am that small bird, eagerly collecting twigs and pieces of twine and other useful tidbits to make a suitable nest for the ones the Lord has brought us, carefully weaving them together with all my joyful imperfection, good intentions stained by the fall of humanity. Many of our little birds, however, are already taking flight, looking anxiously to their quickly-approaching adulthood while their childhood remains an unanswered question, a gaping void.

I remain perched, cut short in my earnest dedication, a lifeless twig dangling from my beak as those around me are already flapping their wings, nest half-made.

Three of our daughters already wear the same bra size that I do, and it seems like they´re on the constant search for a boyfriend. A boyfriend? And we never even got the chance to rock them in our arms. Even 9-year-old Jason, who came to us when he was 6, is growing so quickly and doesn´t search me out for maternal warmth as he did in his first year or two with us. Our home is quickly shedding childhood and leaving it behind as more of our kids are reaching adolescence; in four years’ time our youngest kids will be twelve. The oldest, twenty.

So all eyes were trained on me as I simply expressed my own sadness at how quickly things are moving forward, growing up. We are in the process of legally adopting almost-16-year-old Dayana and her younger siblings, but it is very likely that she will be in college or married before she actually holds our last name.

Our home is the Lord’s mission base is a school for local kids is the discipleship center: everything we have is shared with others. During daytime hours, many women cook in our kitchen and many neighbors eat from it. Monday through Friday dozens of adults, teens and kids spend their lives within our front gate, within our personal space, lives. Our car is public transport for choir kids, for our Christian laborers, students. Oftentimes I feel that our days are at the mercy of others´ needs. Everyone wants to invite friends to dinner and neighbors to our Sunday worship activities. This is good; this is blessing; but have we lost all sense of cultivating this precious little patchwork quilt of lives the Lord is knitting together under this roof? What good is it to reach the multitudes, expand our school, disciple our neighbors if we lose those the Lord has placed most near to us? Did His call to raise orphaned and abandoned children — to be His family to those who have none — not come to us before that of a school or discipleship center?

Darwin and the kids listened carefully and heads began to nod slowly in agreement. I asked sincerely: ¨Does anyone else feel this way?¨

Dayana, sitting on my right and typically so wrapped up in her own adolescence, looked at me with hesitant, vulnerable eyes as she confirmed that she, too, has felt that our nest is not yet complete, that it is still not time to fly away, that roots must continue to be laid.

So our discussion opened up as thoughts were shared. Soon the question was presented: ¨What are some special things that we do as a family — and only as a family, without our Christian laborers or students or neighbors involved, although we love them all dearly?¨

12-year-old Jackeline spoke up for the first time from across the room, seated on our small couch with a pillow held closely to her chest: ¨When we go to the park on Wednesdays as a family.¨ Several others voiced their agreement.

I went next: ¨I really enjoy going into your rooms at night to pray with you or just spend time together. I know I don´t do it all the time because I´m normally exhausted at the end of the day, but I feel very close to you on the ocassions when I do go.¨

11-year-old Gleny perked up and smiled big, ¨Yeah! I really like when you put us to bed.¨

So we continued onward, naming the various activities — and, surprisingly, there were about a dozen or so — that we do on a regular basis to intentionally weave twigs into the always-evolving nest the Lord has entrusted us.

By the end of the lengthy conversation, it became evident to Darwin and I that we needed to take action to schedule some kind of family respite, some activity that would allow us to focus exclusively on our own little birds rather than on all our neighborhood´s little birds who flock through our front gate each day for school and discipleship.

So, we cancelled all our activities this past Friday and spent the day as a family at a local wildlife refuge. Together, all 10 of us wove a few more twigs into this patchwork nest, rested our busy wings and settled down together to enjoy our Father´s love that has been manifested in our midst.

cuero1 — Our eight kids as we waited to take the 30-minute trainride into the wildlife refuge

cuero2 — 9-year-old Jason and 8-year-old Josue, our two boys, investigating the animals in the park´s museum before heading out for more adventures

cuero6 — The wildlife refuge involves a series of swamp-like canals that empty into the Caribbean ocean. We took a short walk to see the beach before continuing on to explore the swamp!

cuero9 — Jason exploring the horizon with a pair of binoculars

cuero10 — 15-year-old Dayana, Jason´s older sister who arrived at our home at age 13

cuero12 — Jackeline running towards the water

cuero13 — Our six eldest kids (all but Gaby and Josue)

cuero14 — Jackeline (age 12) walking with her special-needs brother Josue (age 8). They have been living with us since January 2015.

cuero16 — Gaby and Josue love the water!

cuero19 — Jackeline´s photo of the park’s mangrove swamp

cuero23 — Everyone was very excited about the boatride because only Josselyn had ever been on a boat before!

cuero24 — Darwin helping Josue with his lifejacket

cuero29 — Josue wasn´t quite sure what to make of his first boat experience!

cuero33 — Josselyn getting a closer look at the howler monkeys

cuero34 — During the boat tour, we saw many species of birds, monkeys and fish. A manatee even burst out of the water and almost hit our little boat!

cuero38 — A green snake on the mangrove roots!

cuero44 — Gleny scanning the horizon for adventure

Amen! Glory to God!

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

One of God’s Slow Miracles: Gabriela’s One-Year Anniversary

July 11, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

This past Saturday, July ninth, was little Gabriela’s one-year anniversary since moving into our home.

Although her annual landmark was written in large print on our family calendar hung on our living room wall, the day honestly came and went without much hoopla. Get up early, everyone does their chores, eat together, wash dishes, study God’s Word in our dining room, counsel the kids through various mini-crisis throughout the day, wash more dishes, seek one another out in love and forgiveness, spend a few hours supporting the older ones in their studies, watch a movie in the evening as a family.

In years past we celebrated not every year but every month a child was with us, for everything was so new and so difficult that each day survived was an incredible triumph. I remember celebrating Dayana, Gleny and Jason’s two-month, five-month, eight-month, year- and two-year anniversary with big poster boards, tender hugs, hand-written love notes, cake, balloons, and the like.

Now, however, with a bustling household of eight live-ins and even more students and Christian laborers, all of whom have many birthdays and countless anniversaries, the celebrations are becoming less extravagant as our days are now much more full of planned activity than they were before.

So on Gaby’s one-year anniversary as she and I walked hand-in-hand out to Dingo’s pen to fill up his dog bowl together, the Lord utilized that small time-frame to open my mind beyond the daily, the immediate, and allow the memories of an entire year spent with Gaby to flood over me, receiving each one with a heavy-laden gratitude, rattled by joy.

Gaby, whom one year ago I had met for the first time, that little ANGEL IN THE WHITE DRESS with the shaved head, the dozens of bald patches that revealed peach-colored scalp all over. Gaby, that skinny little girl who had been so hammered by pain and darkness that there wasn’t much little girl left at all. Jaded prostitute in the body of a malnourished seven-year-old, a mere babe who’d undergone more than many adult women do in a lifetime.

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Screaming, profanity, undressing in public, sexual talk, running off, stealing, destroying books and toys, lying, kicking.

Gaby, who months after having moved in began to shed the first of many, many layers of pain and anger, leaving her an empty shell, a little ghost. All she had known was rape, sexual games, abuse, neglect. So you take all that away, and what’s left? She was our hollow little girl who we desperately wanted to fill with the Father’s love.

Alas, in many ways she still is.

Gaby, who even now, one year later, is still so desperately broken. Her psychologist informed me just a few days ago that Gaby has made many strides and is mentally now on the level of the average 3-year-old. And before?

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Oh, Gaby, our little girl who the world has treated as trash and who still struggles to understand, to receive, when we tell her she’s a princess of the King. Gaby who still wets the bed and struggles to put into practice appropriate sexual norms and whose fine motor skills are still so terribly far behind. Can’t draw a square, can’t hold a pencil or a fork properly. Can hardly open a door. Doesn’t know the alphabet, can’t write her name. Miraculously learned the colors, can count to 10 with help. Loves singing in Darwin’s choir, has learned to pray for others in her broken, hard-to-understand way of talking.

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So she and I walked this past Saturday, hand-in-hand, as we always do, as she eagerly offered to help me fill up Dingo’s dog bowl. She loves to help me. I’m her favorite person, after all, which is an incredibly demanding blessing. She physically looks to be eight or nine or ten years old (she has no birth certificate, no record of her existence in this country’s vast archives) but has the intense emotional needs of a toddler, you see. I hold her heavy body in my long arms, kiss her on the forehead and nose, bounce her on my knees, cradle her now-quite-large body as you would a baby.

And it’s never enough.

She wants to be in my arms all the time, under my skin, in my womb.

As we’re hugging each other or as I’m cradling her, she’ll look me in the eyes and whimper, “I miss you, Mom.” I want to cry to the heavens, “How do you miss me?! I’m right here! I cannot be any closer! Oh, Father, fill up this little one because I simply cannot! Fill her with Your love! We need You, Father!”

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Crossing our grassy front yard together on Saturday, wearily contemplating the utter fullness of this past year with her in all of our ups and downs, all our little triumphs that when marked on paper or pronounced aloud seem like nothing at all, I asked God what He thought about all this, about Gaby.

After all, I’ve asked the World and I’ve asked myself quite a few times and, honestly, the answer isn’t very encouraging. She’s got the body of a third-grader but the mind of a three-year-old. She may never fully recuperate, may end up living with us for the rest of her life as she struggles onward well into her teens and adulthood with promiscuous sexual behavior, theft and destruction. She may never learn to talk correctly, may present these incredibly intense emotional needs for many years to come without any apparent result. She´s a heavy load that no one can carry.

Gaby and I were nearing Dingo’s pen. Not a moment after having asked God what He thought of our Gaby and the work we are doing of raising her, He sliced through my whirlwind of woes with this piercing question:

“Are you loving her, and are you teaching her to love Me?”

Borne somewhere in the deepest recesses of my inner being — overcoming the daily exhaustion and general discouragement like a powerful wind — a peace blew over every corner of my being and my busy thoughts were immediately settled as I recognized the truth:

“Yes.”

We had reached Dingo’s pen in a few short steps that to me expanded into eternity. She was probably chattering on about this and that, always with her stubby little hand firmly grasped in mine, but I did’t hear her in that moment. What I heard, my inner being completely stilled, was this:

“Then all that is being done with and for Gabriela is a success. The purpose of the entire universe is to love Me with all that you are and to love one another as yourselves. If you are doing that and teaching Gaby to do the same, you are fulfilling the one and only purpose I have set for mankind to fulfill. Nothing else matters.¨

So we continue onward with great hope, a hope not placed in Gaby and her performance (or even her behavior, which in the two days since her anniversary has been utterly atrocious), but a great hope — a pure hope, one that cannot be grabbed and dirtied by this world — in the God who is love, the God who revealed Himself to mankind as a poor, humble, powerful man who gave Himself up for us, taking on the punishment we deserve. This same God who calls us simply to love — not to change the world, invent something new or reach great heights of human ‘success.’ We are simply to love — love Him with all that we have and all that we are, and love one another as we love ourselves.

And in all of our imperfect efforts of loving, failing, seeking forgiveness and returning to love again, He is pleased. If Gaby never learns to assimilate into normal, productive adult society, if she’s always a step behind but is being shown God’s love and being taught to love Him in return, her life will be a raging success. I imagine Him jumping for joy, cheering us on as perhaps the world mocks, asks for more.

So our journey with Gaby is one of God’s slow miracles, etched out over time and with the promise of great eternal rewards.

And when I am tempted to become impatient, when I tempted to give in to despair, to want to push her hard and fast toward ‘normalty,’ I ask that God might remind me of what He taught me just two days ago out at Dingo’s pen with Gaby’s hand in mine:

As long as we are wrapped up in the divine task of love, we are fulfilling the ultimate goal for the entire universe. Nothing else matters.

Community Life, Current World Events, Family, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Marriage, Personal Reflection

Triumphing Against the Blows of Fear

July 4, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Three years and one day after our wedding I almost became a widow.

I paced in the little cottage we had rented during our week-long anniversary get-away; today was our last day and we were scheduled to head home 30 minutes ago. I had eaten alone, packed up all our luggage by myself, done a basic clean of everything, and had been waiting for Darwin for several hours. He had left nearly six hours earlier to go on a walk and hadn’t taken his cell-phone with him for fear of someone robbing it (as had happened a month or two ago), so I had no way to call and ask where he was. My thoughts accused him for what seemed to me utter absent-mindedness. How could he have so lost track of time?

Restless, I sprawled out on the cottage’s bed, frustrated with what seemed to be the irresponsibility of my loves-to-go-on-long-walks-and-not-take-his-cellphone-with-him husband. I opened up my Bible to read the book of Hosea, assuming at any moment he would walk through the door all sweaty and happy after having found some remote stream or untouched mountainside by which he had spent hours praying and meditating. After all, two other days on our vacation trip he had left to go on a walk and was away several hours, returning with a renewed mind and soaring spirit. He is the man who runs from our rural home to the other side of the city for fun, some 15 or 20 miles!

Regardless, this time he really was late and we needed to return home because we had promised Miss Isis, who had stayed to take care of our kids all week, that we would be home before 1:00pm. I lay on my stomach, my mind going in circles as I focused more on Darwin’s strange absence than on the paragraphs my eyes glazed over. I prayed a quick prayer – however odd it seemed and however put-off I was with his delayed arrival – that God would protect him if he were, in fact, in some kind of trouble.

A few minutes later I thought to check his cell phone, which had been on silent in his backpack all morning not a few yards from me. Mine had not rung, but his had six missed calls, all back-to-back from the same unknown number in the last couple minutes.

I returned the call. A policeman on the other end informed me that my husband had encountered some problems.

My pulse stilled for the first time that day after having passed the majority of the morning in busy activity with unclear thoughts blaming both my husband and me for his unexplained tardiness on our last morning of vacation together.

As the policeman’s voice met my ear, the only two thoughts that laboriously presented themselves to me in that moment — as if the channels of my mind had been clogged with peanut butter — were: Darwin was in trouble, but he’s alive. I have no idea what happened, God, but I thank you that he is alive.

At my request the policeman passed the phone to Darwin who, with an unusually upbeat voice trying to overpower a subtle shakiness, informed me: “Oh, I got kidnapped! But I’m okay. How are you?”

So the police truck came a few minutes later with Darwin in the backseat. As if paralyzed, I weakly braced myself for the worst, still wading through my own peanut-butter channels as everything happened as if in a dream.

Darwin came hobbling through the gate of the small hotel complex, t-shirt drenched and ripped at the shoulder, several bloody wounds on his face, bruises on his arms, tennis shoes almost destroyed, one cheek swelled, black eye, and dark red marks around his wrists and neck. He could barely walk, but his boyish smile as he saw me remained firmly intact.

The police escorted us to the local public hospital where Darwin shuffled in to the emergency room and lay on a bare table. At once Darwin recognized the emergency room nurse – an old classmate of his from college – and they began to converse. She, as well as I and all others present, seemed to be initially thrown-off by his big smile and this-is-nothing attitude as his cheekbone and chin left a long trail of blood on his face and neck. Answering her question as to what could have caused such damage to an early-thirties foster-dad music teacher, he smiled and said, “Oh, I got kidnapped by a gang who thought I was someone else and they beat me up a bit.”

Her eyes grew in shock as she asked empathetically, “But it was only for a few minutes, right?” (Because I suppose it is common and not so bad if it only happens for a few minutes.)

In the same upbeat tone he managed, “Um, four hours.”

After he had already been on the table several minutes, I asked the nurse tentatively if there was any possibility of acquiring AIDS if other bloody patients had used the same table. There was no covering, after all. She assured me that, no, that would not happen because they spray the table down with some kind of disinfectant between each patient. I looked at the bare table with its sparse surroundings wearily and didn’t know if I should believe her.

As we sat and stood near Darwin – the two police officers and Miss Isis’ dad who had very kindly accompanied us – we constantly swatted away pesky flies that wanted to land all over his body on his wounds. Another young man with similar fight-wounds and open sores all over his face and body sat on the table next to him.

X-Rays, shots, stitches on his cheekbone and chin. Buy pills, push him around in a wheelchair to different rooms of the hospital. Take his shirt off and find his entire back marked in a dark purple. Many distinct shoe-print bruises all over his back, open gash on his leg.

Darwin’s adrenaline running out, his body began to tremble as mine continued on in a very hollowed numbness. It was as though every thought or feeling my heart birthed that day had to push its way methodically through those channels laden with peanut butter before being expressed, felt.

Through very slowed thoughts – alas, I had not slept the night before coupled with the sobering reality of all that had happened to Darwin – I confronted with a certain somberness, humility, what I’ve known since the day I married him three years and one day ago: at any moment he –or I – may get killed. A long marriage – a long life – in this land torn by sin and sickness is no guarantee. I did not cry, did not scream, did not give in to the dominating power of fear, did not question why God allowed this to happen. Merely, I understood that this always could have happened, still can happen again. Death is always close. In any country, any place.

In a sense, the thought that overwhelmed all others on that weary day was this: God has truly liberated us from all fear. When push comes to shove, when things get dirty and difficult, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we really believe all that talk about not fearing man, of only fearing God. This is actually real; it’s actually possible to live without fear even in the midst of a brutal kidnapping. These are not just words; God truly enables us to live free of fear. Thank you, Father, that even in the midst of all this neither Darwin nor I have given in to fear, have shrunk back and desperately clung to our earthly lives.

It is easy to preach a life free of fear when one has never been threatened too closely. It is easy to say, “I do not fear Man; only God!” when the evil powers of Man have never come reeling with all their fury so close to home. Only after having confronted such a situation – whatever the result may be – can we now proclaim triumphantly: “Even so, we shall only fear God! Man has no power over us!”

This we believe.

As one hour in the hospital turned to two I learned more of the story: Darwin had been walking off the beaten path – as is his terrible habit – and a group of four young men, all involved in a gang that makes its living off of extortion and murder, came upon him and found it suspicious that a man would be wandering down along a stream all alone on their ‘territory.’ Seeing it necessary to interrogate him to see who he worked for and why they had sent him, they mounted him on a motorcycle and zipped off with him to a nearby neighborhood – the neighborhood they control — where, in fact, three of our children go to school.

At one point the motorcycle crashed, Darwin tried to escape, and he was captured again as they threw him off his feet with a swift blow to the cheekbone. In the process of four hours of interrogation and torture, they tied his hands and feet with his own shoelaces and pummeled him with feet and rods as he lie in the dirt. There were many innocent passersby during the event, but the gang leaders called out, “He’s a thief! He deserves this!” and everyone else, controlled by fear, just kept walking.

The frustrating thing for the gang lords was that the rods they used broke on his back, so they had to constantly find more. Shoe-string around his neck to choke him out, punches to the ear which left him deaf for several days afterwards, a broken tooth.

They promised to cut his ears off; they promised to kill him. His response: “If it is God’s time to take me, then I’m ready.”

I think that only made them more mad; they shrieked and laughed at his responses, continuing onward, group growing to seven men as they mocked him for his ‘Christian’ claims. They howled: ¨Surely the Christians wear suits and ties, not shorts and tennis shoes! What a liar!¨ Hit him harder.

At the end of it all they spared his life without any apparent reason. Perhaps it was because he did not cling to it too tightly.

Several of our neighbors who have since become aware of what happened have begun telling us stories of fathers-in-law or nephews or this-and-that family member of theirs who have suffered very similar kidnappings and beatings over the years, each and every time ending in a brutal murder. After all, our 8-year-old special-needs son’s biological dad was murdered in the same way. They beat him brutally and then cut his ears off.

We have not heard even one story of anyone else who was granted their life back after such an intense encounter with these gang lords.

So they let him go; he did not beg, did not plead for his life. They simply let him go – he stumbled away as he took a very back-route through a mountain stream, zig-zagging across pineapple fields and then eventually arriving at the highway where he found the police station, collapsing upon arrival.

As he lay on the hospital table a few inches from me, he said something that put everything in perspective: “Just imagine, they were so scared. That’s why they did all that to me.”

Yes, scared. Fear controls you if you let it.

The normal mind says: “What? They were scared? How is that? Don’t you mean that Darwin was scared?”

No; those men, evil personified, went to the extents they did because they feared Darwin was from an opposing gang. Fear controlled them while Darwin, receiving the physical blows, received no blow to his peace, for it is not found in nor based on what happens in this world.

Now we get it. This is the peace that passes understanding. The life of Christ. Oh, we had talked so much of this peace before this incident – and how great it is to do so! – but I don’t think we had truly tasted it until now. And how sweet it is, that blessed assurance that this world is not our home, that our felicity is not to be found among the happenings in this place! Anything can happen in this world – to our lives, our bodies, our families – and our peace remains intact because God does not change.

So that evening – which was last Saturday, June 25 – after having arrived home from the hospital to be greeted by concerned kids and all the normal daily chores and activities – perhaps ten-fold because we had been away a full week and there was much to be caught up on – Darwin sat uncomfortably hunched over on a small wicker stool in our living room and told the story to our older girls, all of whom sat on the floor in front of him. I sat in their midst.

Cloaked in an utter transparency – and not in some hyper-fear or story-telling exaggeration – he told them calmly of both the physical events of the day and their spiritual implications. He truly felt close to Christ, came to understand even a little bit more the unjust sufferings of our Savior at the hands of evil men, the Evil One in our midst. Our girls sat cross-legged on the floor at his feet, tears welling up in their eyes at the thought of almost having lost the only loving (human) father they have ever known. 12-year-old Josselyn sat on the floor a few yards away on the other side of the door-curtain in her room, wanting to hear but not wanting to see.

As Darwin finished, I carefully added, fully convinced of my own words: “We should give thanks to God even for this; we are to give Him thanks in all things, both in difficulties and in times of ease.” As my heavy statement fell on young, scared ears, 12-year-old Jackeline’s eyes grew and her head shook back and forth in protest as she made eye contact across our semi-circle with 15-year-old Dayana. I could read her thoughts: “No! I will not give thanks to God for this.” I tilted my head to one side as my eyes gently met hers, and I prayed that some day she might understand.

So after a long afternoon of consoling our young daughters, cooking and serving dinner, unpacking bags and attending to the general needs of a very busy household with very needy and complex residents, late that evening I went to 11-year-old Gleny’s top bunk to kiss her good-night. With a big smile she showed me a white piece of paper taped to the wall next to her bed marked with her scribbly-scratched writing. Quite excited, she motioned for me to read that little paper she had just prepared moments earlier: ¨Goals for Gleny to fulfill.¨ My eyes passed over her sloppy cursive hand-writing as I came upon her second goal: I will give thanks to God for everything, in difficulties or trials or good things.

My heart swelled with gratitude as I read each of the four or five goals written in large print. She studied my face and told me, ¨This afternoon when you said we should give thanks to God even for what happened to my dad, I thought you were wrong. But then this evening God revealed to me that that is, in fact, what we should do. We should always give Him thanks, even when bad things happen!¨

I hugged her closely before bidding her good-night. A few minutes later I finally collapsed in bed next to Darwin, where he had spent the afternoon in an uncomfortable curled-up position. Exhausted to the bone but without the least sign of sleepiness, I took my Bible out and wedged our flashlight between my shoulder and ear to illuminate the page in the otherwise dark room.

Several moments passed before Darwin asked in a whisper, “What are you reading?” Feeling as though that simple question had just come from the mouth of a dead man, a man who very well might not have made it back to our bed that night at all, I let the flashlight travel up the wall in front of us to above our bathroom door, shedding light on the simple black sticker-letters that we placed there so many months ago that state: “He takes care of us.” Neither one of us said anything as we let our eyes trace and then re-trace the Truth. We must lay all our burdens on Him, for He cares for us.

Then, unexpectedly, a little collection of crumpled papers slid under our door, audibly heard on the tile floor in the silence of the night. I got up to retrieve them. They were from Gleny. She had prepared several love notes for her dad along with a rather long and thoughtful list of Bible verses she wanted to encourage us with. And so we sat propped up in bed with our little black flashlight and flipped through the Bible, searching for each of the verses Gleny had indicated for us to read. Psalm 86, several passages from the Gospels, some from Exodus and others from Paul’s letters.

Minutes turned to hours and Darwin had long since fallen asleep; I wandered into our little cave-like bathroom and sat. Still no tears, no fear, no questioning. As my head rest in my hands, more out of exhaustion than any overwhelming emotional burden, a new revelation – so simple, so obvious – dawned upon my heart: Life is incredibly simple. There are two opposing forces: God, Father of life and Truth, the good king of the coming kingdom, and Satan, Father of lies and death, prince of this fallen world. As this very real battle rages on in this world, we are given the simple instruction to love: to love God with all that we have and all that we are, and to love one another as we love ourselves. We run around, worried about our jobs and reputations and connections and technology and travels and our own desires, complicating — and possibly losing altogether — what is actually shockingly simple. Life can be taken at any moment; there are two opposing forces; we are to love as long as we are alive. God takes care of the rest; through Jesus we triumph with God in the end.

So now, nine days later, Darwin’s physical body is almost completely healed and I am trying desperately to cling to that revelation that God granted me alone in our bathroom during that midnight hour. In the midst of 5:00am daily get-ups, no-sleep nights, beautiful and trying situations with our teenage girls, generally demanding days and the overwhelming emotional, spiritual and behavioral needs of our 8 kids and many students, we plead God for such clarity as was granted us on the day when Darwin’s life was nearly taken. In this world we will have trouble, but we must take heart, for Christ has overcome the world!

Bible study, Child/Youth Leadershp, Family, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection, Teaching

The Great Popcorn Hunt: The Dare to Believe God

June 23, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Several Saturdays ago as the day progressed onward through joys and difficulties untold, I wearily thought about the pending “women’s meeting” I had scheduled with our five eldest daughters that same evening from 5:00-7:00pm.

My insomnia had raged the night prior, leaving me robbed of sleep, drained of all natural energy. Some pioneering women’s meeting with five precious, tender-hearted, rebellious young women would simply require more of me than what I had available to give.

The tempting thought crossed my mind to postpone the meeting indefinitely, waiting for that ever-elusive ‘perfect’ evening in which my energy and mood levels would be just right so as to pour myself with utter devotion into our precious teen and pre-teen daughters. After all, so-and-so and that other one over there had behaved terribly just a few moments ago and I was more in the mood for a thorough butt-chewing or leave-me-alone cool down than any kind of sit-cross-legged-on-the-floor-and-pour-your-heart-out meeting that I would not only be attending but leading (and without any guide materials other than the Spirit of God upon my heart).

However, I knew that there is never a ‘perfect’ evening in which to adeptly direct our women’s meeting, aglow with flawless health, soaring spirits and the wisest of pre-planned counsel. The time is now, however imperfect my efforts.

(Plus, in our household we put a very heavy emphasis on fulfilling your word. If I were to cancel the meeting that I myself had dreamed up and scheduled and revved everyone else up for during the prior week, well, that would really splash a gallon or two of hypocrisy stain across the parade from which we daily proclaim the necessity of letting your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’.)

So, leaning into whatever strength God could lend my weary soul, in an undeniably dull tone (which was ironically the peppiest I could muster), I instructed our girls to grab their pillows and head to the little office building where we would be sitting on the floor for our women’s meeting. It would, after all, be starting in three minutes and we mustn’t be late.

I had zero plan for the meeting beyond a very intense desire — which in the moment seemed to have left me entirely — to continue guiding our daughters in the realm of sexual purity, urging them — begging them, imploring them! — to believe the Truth of Christ in a very real way rather than giving in to the lies of the enemy.

So we all sort of meandered over to our office building in a lazy herd, some of us already showered and in our comfy pajamas while others decided to remain hot and sweaty after a day of chores, Saturday classes, kitchen duties, etc. As is generally the case, the girls took their unspoken cues from myself and our eldest daughter Dayana, both of which looked about as bored and discouraged as could be. Several of them somewhat skeptically asked me what we would be talking about in our meeting, and I answered very honestly behind that exhausted glaze in my eyes: “You’ll see…” (As in, I’ll-see-too-because-I-certainly-haven’t-planned-anything-because-all-the-burning-desire-and-moving-messages-I-had-previously-wanted-to-communicate-to-you-have-since-left-me. Let’s see what God does, because your bet’s as good as mine.)

So, our first women’s meeting seemed to be a dreadful bust from the get-go as my sandaled feet strode one after the other, carrying my own two or three pillows as I trusted through foggy thoughts that God would do something with my raw — although unenthusiastic — obedience.

As we entered the little living room of our office building with its light-green walls and duck-taped ceiling boards (to keep the bat poo from falling all over the floor), I put on a fake smile (as did our girls) and indicated for all of us to sit in a circle on the tiled floor to commence the meeting.

We prayed to begin — I do not remember who prayed, but it was obvious to all that it was done out of habit and a general respect for God rather than any sincere longing to include God in our gloomy reluctancy, our pointless meeting that promised to rank in ‘boring’ just behind washing the kitchen walls and just above scouring the yard with a flashlight looking for dog poop.

Well, quickly enough we sat down and all eyes were suddenly trained on me, waiting. I am the adult, after all — the mom, the married woman, their daily counselor with all of 25 years’ life experience — and I had called the meeting. What for?

Drowsily fighting back thoughts of “This is awkward” and “Oh, God, I don’t even remember what I had so earnestly wanted to convey to them in this meeting!“, I thought with a matchstick-flicker of joy in the back of my mind: “Well, here goes nothing…”

What only I knew was that I had hidden snacks in various locations all around the simple cinderblock office building in a planned attempt to start our meeting with a game that could hopefully open their eyes to a reality that’s been gnawing away at me for weeks. (Plus, in our home snacks like chips and candies are very prized and not very frequently purchased, so all of this would doubtlessly be a big deal whether or not they understood the deeper message.)

But I had to get my attitude right if this was going to work. Like a shovel thrust deep that hits rock and can go no further, I scooped out whatever remaining energy I did or didn’t have — whatever genuine joy God would allow to flow through me — and said with a new spark, however small, in my eyes as my facial expression remained intentionally flat:

“There is a bag of popcorn in Gaby and Josue’s classroom [the room attached to the living room where we sat] in the third drawer of the dresser.”

I did not say, “Go and get it,” or “Bring it on over so we can all share a snack during our meeting.” I simply put the naked truth out there with the same bored tone of voice as a dentist might comment to their new patient, “You have a 2:00pm appointment next Friday.”

I resisted the urge to laugh out loud as their unenthusiastic faces stared back at me, confused and somewhat put-off, waiting for further explanation. After all, I had not previously mentioned the fact that there would be snacks in the meeting, nor was that normal of me to have purchased junk food for any occasion. Why was I being so weird?

I paused to let my comment hang in the air. They were all waiting for more instruction and/or clarification, neither of which I would be giving them.

Then, the miracle: 11-year-old Gleny’s eyes lit up without any further cue. The youngest and — by far — most immature participant in the “women’s meeting” (alas, I had considered not inviting her due to the maturity /complexity of the themes I had hoped to discuss with our teens!) understood my comment and ‘got’ that I was inviting them to believe me. She blinked enthusiastically several times, looking at me with a wild “Can I, Mom? Can I? Can I?” look in her eyes as she glanced at her sisters on either side of her who simply rolled their eyes at her and/or gave her a you’re-weird-and-I’m-too-cool-for-this look.

I took the time to review each girl’s expression as I steadily, carefully and without emotion, repeated my announcement: “There is a bag of popcorn in Gaby and Josue’s classroom in the third drawer of their dresser.”

Upon saying the announcement for a second time, it’s as if the electric energy inside of little Gleny’s body just couldn’t take it any more — she sat up straight and got into a low crouch as her eyes continued to search mine with increasing energy. Seeing as I wasn’t going to say anything else, I suppose she, too, felt called to an charged silence in this strange activity. She was so cute; it was obvious that trouble-maker, roller-coaster Gleny didn’t want to disrespect me by jumping up even though everything within in her urged her to do so. Without putting her question to words, her entire body language screamed: “Can I, Mom? Can I go? Can I look?” It was as if the news was just too good to be true. Popcorn?!

Allowing her expectant energy to continue multiplying, I looked even-faced at the others, who seemed less than amused. 15-year-old Dayana might have even checked her watch.

Then, understanding that I wasn’t going to stop her from getting up to go look, Gleny finally leaped to her skinny, toned legs and disappeared behind the door to Gaby and Josue’s classroom in the blink of an eye.

My privilege was to see 12-year-old Jackeline throw a glance over at Dayana, both of whom rolled their eyes and scoffed at Gleny’s antics. I suppressed a huge smile welling up in my chest.

Not three seconds later Gleny came triumphantly bursting through that wooden door with the rather large bag of artificial-cheese-covered-popcorn raised high in her extended arm.

All at once, the other four who had so incredulously mocked her exchanged wide-eyed glances first with each other and then at me. It’s as if they didn’t know if they should be in total outrage (but something stopped them because, after all, I had plainly announced the popcorn’s availability to all) or if they should be kicking themselves for not having gotten up to go investigate my statement. Then, still without anyone having spoken they all seemed to settle on the feeling of despair as Gleny jumped up and down, squealing with delight at her find, her eyes ablaze with the joy of discovery, the thrill of promise fulfilled, hope satisfied.

Waiting for a few moments to pass — and without me saying anything else (not even “Good job, Gleny”), I announced in the same slow, detached tone: “Under Gaby’s backpack in the [currently unused] crib you’ll find a bag filled with cartons of milk.”

This time I couldn’t even blink before all 5 were wild on the chase. Jackeline and Dayana, our original scoffers and both of which are quite athletic, dove simultaneously at the fragile fold-up crib and nearly collapsed it as Jackeline went head-first over the side, grabbing at the dirty pink backpack that surely concealed the bag of milk cartons.

Well, Jackeline found what had been promised as pony tails went flying this way and that and nearly-grown young women stampeded about, shrieking with glee.

Then: “Behind the Spanish dictionary there is a packet of candies.”

Take cover! Five wild bodies flung themselves at our poor, wobbly bookcase, skimming dozens of titled spines in a desperate attempt to be the first to happen upon the prize. I believe this time it was Dayana who came upon the unusually thick book, reached her hand behind it, and pulled out the package of promised candies. She, as her ‘immature’ little sister had done so only moments before, raised them high in victory.

So, tall, teetering bookshelves were nearly overturned, bathroom mirrors nearly broken and chairs just about thrown over as a bewildering frenzy overtook the small enclosed space as I announced promise after promise to be sought out and discovered.

Joy was restored in the process; both mine and theirs. Theirs for treats discovered; mine for Truth uncovered.

As the search came to a close, each girl plopped down upon her pillow, but this time with a big smile on her face and with hands full of treasures as we split everything up into plastic lime-green bowls that I had brought with me for the occasion.

As everyone set about divvying up, trying this type of chip and that type of candy, I dared to enter boldly into the purpose of the search-and-find activity:

“Now, Gleny — since you were the first one to find the hidden popcorn — I have to ask how you knew to look for it.”

She swung her head toward me, her entire face — no, body — still utterly, wildly alit with an electrifying joy (perhaps pulsing with such force not for the momentary pleasure of eating popcorn but for the fact that she — she of all people, our aggressive, precious daughter who oftentimes picks fights, verbally attacks others, flees in tears! — led her older sisters, did something noteworthy, understood some juicy secret that they refused to believe), answered immediately as her eyes flickered at me:

“Because you told us it was there!”

As everyone else began munching on their snacks — our women’s meeting having fully and wonderfully commenced — the others looked at me, intrigued, but surely thinking, “Duh, Mom. Don’t you remember? Why are you asking Gleny how she knew to look for the popcorn?”

I continued, rejoicing in my Father for hiding such things from the worldly-wise and revealing them to little children:

“That’s right, Gleny. But how on earth did you know that the popcorn was actually there?”

Still ablaze, she responds:

“Because I got up and found it!”

Another resounding, “Duh, Mom” could have been deciphered by investigating the glances of the other four, but by now they knew I was onto something. I had their attention.

“Ah, yes. But how did you know that when I told you about the popcorn that it would actually be there?”

Without skipping a beat, she proclaimed as innocently and as radiantly as I have ever seen anyone speak:

“Because you never lie to me!”

I stared at her as we sat on pillows not three feet from one another, momentarily stunned at the extent of Gleny’s revelation, the purity of her child-like faith. My heart bowed low as my recognition of the Lord’s hand on her young life caused my hope to soar: Thank you, Father, for granting Gleny a faith — a trust — that is so uncommon in today’s world. May she always trust You in such an unswerving fashion.

So Gleny’s simple, trusting faith — and even simpler way of explaining it — opened the door to the following 2+ hour discussion we would enjoy that night (and we really did enjoy it).

Many things were said, understood, as we wrestled with what it means to have faith. Had the other four not heard just as clearly as Gleny about the popcorn in the third drawer in the classroom? Maybe, even, they had ‘believed’ what I was telling them, but to what end? How did Gleny harvest the blessing, discover the promised thing? These questions and many more were looked at, considered, from every possible angle and put into many different contexts as the search for discovery — the enjoyment of Truth, of hope satisfied and promise fulfilled — continued among us in a very real way for the duration of the night.

This was the topic the Lord had planned all along for us to discuss.

Soon connections were made with the real world — the world beyond popcorn hunts — and the dawn of revelation, new understanding, began lighting up our young daughters.

“In this journey together as family, it is of utmost importance that you believe me. The Spirit of God lives within your Dad and I; you have to believe — in an active sense — the promises we communicate to you daily if you are to reap God’s blessing.”

“You can hear 568 times that real blessing is found when one waits in sexual purity for their future husband, and you can look at me numbly and say, ‘Yeah, I know. You’ve told me that before; we’ve read it in the Bible too. Thanks.’ But how are you actually going to reap the blessing, discover the joy of promise fulfilled?”

They are getting it. Dayana, bowl of yummy treats nearly empty, stares at me from across our little formation of pillows and women and agrees with me with her eyes and words as she speaks slowly, aware that she is on sacred ground: “We will reap the blessing if we actually put into practice what we know of God’s Word. Like when Gleny actually got up. That’s how she got the blessing.”

“Yes, Dayana! And how many of us fail to believe God, do not act upon the instructions He leaves us, and then shake an angry fist at God when we don’t reap blessing? We blame God for our own failure to believe, to act!”

I continue, encouraged by this new outpouring of wisdom among us: “I could have told all of you six thousand times about the popcorn in the dresser drawer, but if no one had actually believed me and gotten up to go look, you would have all tricked yourselves into believing that I was crazy and that there was not, in fact, any blessing to be discovered! And it’s worth mentioning that Gleny, venturing out in faith, found the popcorn because she looked in the right drawer! She didn’t open the first or fourth drawer; following my instruction exactly, she reaped the harvest of blessing. Had she checked the second drawer, all would have been in vain.”

They are getting it and we are all encouraged in our dimly-lit little room at the base of some mountains in some forgotten country. Push farther, go deeper into my love, He urges us, leads us.

“How many times have we discussed the precious freedom that Christ has for us, is calling us to? Each of us can probably recite all the verses, nod our heads in agreement — and then what? Do we actually believe Him? Do we move to discover the blessing; do we actually react? We can numbly hear marvelous, outrageous promises from a good God while sitting by idly, nodding our heads — or possibly scoffing in disbelief! — and never actually discover the blessing. The blessing is found, harvested, when we react, obey, move, venture out. If we don’t move, we simply don’t believe.”

Our night as young women together on the path to Freedom — to Eternal Love — was truly marked by God’s presence among us that continued onward, gaining momentum and depth long after the fleeting pleasures of this world (snacks) were gone. Since that beautiful night we have referred back to sweet Gleny’s wild act of faith many, many times as we all laugh and remember her outrageous trust in her mom that never lies to her.

Oh, may we actually live this way every day of our lives, believing our Father who never lies to us! May our eyes light up, may our body become electrified with joy when we hear of His promises!

Amen!

Bible study, Community Life, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Primary School, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Special Needs Kids, Teaching

June 2016 Updates and Prayer Requests

June 17, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Outrageously Fun Learning Curve

At the Living Waters Ranch we are currently riding quite a thrilling learning curve, seeing as none of us has previously done the kind of work that the Lord has currently assigned us.

Special-needs kids, sexual abuse victims, parenting teenagers who spent their childhood in someone else’s family, teaching God’s Word weekly to dozens of people, intimately guiding the hearts and lives of wounded youth, mounds of (sometimes confusing) legal documents to be continually written and updated, designing and then operating a new high school, seeking to cultivate an intentional Christian community, financially stewarding a growing ministry, managing (and guiding, loving, investing in) a team of Christian workers, legal adoptions, a herd of milking cows?

Our hair is blown-back and our lips are flapping in the intense wind as we daily engage in the outrageous privilege of learning on the fly, utilizing every spare second of freetime to absorb new teachings, devour the Word, go and learn from those ahead of us, listen to sermons directing our steps into this unknown territory of children’s ministry, devour books on topics such as sexual abuse/spiritual warfare/leadership training, sit down to pray and seek guidance together as Christ’s body, and make 1,459 mistakes along the way.

Let us give thanks to our Father who calls the unlikely, and then — miraculously! — equips them to go out and proclaim His name! Amen!

Miss Isis, Primary Teacher and Christian Laborer, Will Move to the Living Waters Ranch in July

Miss Isis, our young primary teacher who has been roughing it with us in the ‘wilderness’ among rogue youth, hard-learned lessons and joy abounding since August of last year, will be moving into a spare bedroom in our office/special needs building with her year-and-a-half-old daughter at the beginning of July.

She is a native Honduran and has been called to leave her family’s home, sell the majority of her belongings, and take the huge step of faith to begin living on our mission base 7 days a week as a way of deepening her walk with the Lord. The step she is taking is very counter-cultural and has been difficult for her family to accept, but it is such a privilege to see that she is assured even moreso that Jesus is calling her into deeper intimacy with Himself.

She is a sponge, has grown exponentially in these 10+ months of laboring alongside of us, and is a tireless worker in proclaiming the incredible grace of a good God.

We are so proud of her and are excited about taking the step to include her into our growing family/community at the Living Waters Ranch as our Father continues to mold us into His family, a beautiful expression of His love for wounded, rebellious humanity.

Sandra’s Mom Begins Attending Bible Study

15-year-old Sandra, who moved in with us in February of this year due to a situation of sexual abuse with her step-father and about whom I have written many updates and prayer requests since then, continues to hold a very precious relationship with her mother.

Sandra´s mom, who is still trapped in a difficult relationship with Sandra´s step-dad but doesn’t have the financial means to leave him with her three younger kids, visits Sandra weekly at our home/mission and has begun to attend Bible study in our dining room with us as she continues to seek refuge in the warrior God who loves her and is constantly seeking to protect her heart from the harsh circumstances in this world. Two of Sandra’s younger sisters (who are not in danger with Sandra´s step-dad because he is their biological father and treats them well) have also become actively involved in Darwin´s youth choir, and their mom is now attending first grade at a school for illiterate adults on Saturdays as she desires to be able to read God’s Word for herself.

Please continue to pray for this precious woman as she continues to seek God’s will in the midst of an unhealthy marriage relationship and deep poverty.

Celebration of Four Years Living in Honduras, Three Years of Marriage

The 5th of this month I celebrated my four-year anniversary since moving to Honduras as a recent college graduate in 2012, and on the 24th Darwin and I will celebrate three years of marriage. Glory to God for these milestones!

Prayer for Additional Supporters

Due to the fact that this is the first year we have offered our discipleship-based 5-day-per-week high school program along with our new special-needs classroom to local youth from our (destitute, gang-riddled) rural neighborhood, we have higher monthly expenses than we have had in years past as we are now serving more people. Each month more is going out than coming in, so I am humbly expressing our need to see if anyone is called to join with us to fill it.

My husband and I currently toil joyfully alongside of four full-time Christian laborers (local Honduran missionaries serving as teachers, prayer leaders, etc) whom the Lord has brought to the Living Waters Ranch and from which they earn their living. All four full-time laborers have been added on in the last year, and thus salaries — however meager they are — are currently a heavy (but entirely necessary) financial burden in addition to the many other monthly expenses we incur (medical/dental/basic care costs for the 8 who live with us full-time, food, administration, legal fees, educational materials for our students, etc).

There are currently 18 individuals/families and 3 churches who financially support this work monthly and several others who give generously from time to time.

Please pray with us that the Lord would raise up a handful more of faithful individuals/families to partner with us in this incredible expression of God’s Kingdom among us here in Honduras. If you or anyone you know is called to participate with us in this work, you can go to http://www.CTEN.org/jenniferzilly

Bible study, Child/Youth Leadershp, Community Life, Family, God At Work Among Us, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Personal Reflection, Teaching

Trampolines, Proverbs, Beach Balls and Letters of Gratitude: God’s Grace Experienced in the Classroom

June 13, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

This past Friday our beloved high school teacher, Miss Ligia, was away from the classroom during the morning hours to attend an appointment in the nearby city of La Ceiba, so we searched long and hard to find a suitable substitute teacher…

Well, we found one, but her teaching methods were a little off-the-wall (sometimes quite literally as her inflated beach ball bounced off the walls…)

survivors16 — Where’s the ball going next?

survivors20 — 15-year-old Sandra, the newest addition to our household in February 2016, eyeing her crazy substitute teacher…

survivors21 — Heads up, kids! It’s comin’ your way!

Each student had to be ready to drop whatever they were doing to catch the roaming beach ball when their name was called, stand up, and declare the Biblical statement I had scribbled on the very, very full whiteboard.

survivors8 — Our 15-year-old daughter Dayana, one of our two live-ins who study in our new discipleship-based high school program

survivors6 — 14-year-old Messy, a local student in our program

survivors9 — 18-year-old Exson, Messy’s older brother, who is in my twice-weekly prayer group and who has begun to ask the Lord to grant him wisdom above all else. Every time we ask who has a prayer request, he always says with a smile, “Wisdom.” We give thanks to God for Exson’s participation in our program because truly a large portion of the young men in our rural neighborhood who are his age are involved in gangs or drug-trafficking or simply roam the streets and engage in utter purposelessness.

survivors7 — 12-year-old Dariela, an exceptionally bright student from our rural neighborhood who is in the beginning stages of being transformed by her knowledge of God’s Word and His love for her

survivors10 — 14-year-old Arlen, whom we’ve known consistently for two years now and who is acquiring a very precious maturity, wisdom, and love of God. He used to be extremely childish and lazy, but in the past few months he is emerging as a leader in our Bible studies and is being transformed as a son of God in a very real way.

Here’s the good news: if you’re really talented, you get called upon to come shout out the declaration with the beach ball and jump on the mini-trampoline at the same time.

survivors22

We all enjoyed an incredibly blessed morning together on Friday. I implemented a partially-Montessori-style learning environment geared toward older kids while including hands-on stations such as “architecture” (blocks/Legos), painting, and Chinese Tangram puzzles.

survivors63 — 14-year-old Rolan, a very artistic young man from our rural neighborhood who has fantastic questions about life, God, what comes after death, etc. He is very open to hearing God’s word and is one of our better students academically.

survivors52 — For the majority of our teenage students, something so simple as playing with blocks is new to them because they never did so in their early childhood. As much as we are moving forward with our students, much of our work with them is also going backward with them and providing what they didn’t receive in the beginning stages of their development.

survivors67 — Rolan, Charlie and Exson enjoying a painting project on the tile floor after having finished their desk work

The sit-in-your-chair stations were: an independent study on several chapters of Proverbs, written thank-you letters (one to Father God and one to any family member or person who supports them in their daily life), and a discussion-based study guide of questions based on chapter 13 of Ted Dekker’s novel “30 A.D.” that we are currently reading as a class.

survivors53 — 13-year-old Charlie, another student who is undergoing a very surprising transformation. He came to us in early February as a little jokester, constantly making fun of others or turning everything into a big joke, but as of late he is very active in Bible study, is becoming a much better student academically and is truly finding his niche in our hidden little discipleship center in the foothills of the mountains. Please pray with us for his continued transformation, salvation and protection as seeds of Life and Truth are being planted in his life.

survivors69 — 13-year-old Elalf and 12-year-old Sindy working on their letters of thanksgiving

survivors15

survivors4 — Reading several chapters from Proverbs and writing on index cards the verses that impacted them most

survivors27 — This is 12-year-old Cristian, one of our 7th-grade students who has had many struggles with constancy and work ethic in his first several months in our program due to the general indiscipline that reigns in our neighborhood and undoubtedly defined his education and outlook before arriving at our front gate. In these past couple days he has begun to work a bit harder after a very productive meeting we had with his mother. Please pray with us for him as he continues to be exposed to the liberating Truth of Jesus and the purposes that God wants to involved him in.

survivors56

Seeing as the 12 students had spent the first part of the morning in their socks after having been instructed to leave their shoes at the door (to protect our little mini-trampoline from dirt clods, etc), after an hour or so had passed it was time to rotate stations.

To shake things up a bit and ensure that no one fell prey to boredom or restlessness, I informed the students that on the count of 10 they would jump up from their seats, find and put on their shoes as quickly as possible and then run 2 laps as fast as they could around our little schoolhouse before returning, taking their shoes off again, and sitting down in their new stations.

survivors43 — Go, go, go! Get your shoes on!

survivors37 — Here come Sindy and Dayana! They’re on Lap 2!

survivors39 — Who knew that running laps would be so much fun?

I definitely didn’t think it would turn out as well as it did; everyone came in laughing hysterically and panting.

As each person collapsed in their seat, I informed them with a huge smile: “I liked that so much, that you’re gonna do it again. 1, 2, 3 — 10! Go!”

Eyes wide and still panting hard, everyone jumped up again and repeated the whole process!

survivors48 — Oh no! Elalf cheated! He’s carrying his shoes rather than wearing them!

survivors47 — Go, Sandra, go! She’s heading back to class after having completed her two additional laps!

Well, the lap-running had the exact effect I had hoped for: it canalized their energy enough to persevere a few more hours with our focused activities in the classroom. Worship music continued to play from our little CD player in the classroom as each student worked independently at their designated station, the entire morning marked by such tangible peace, gratitude and joy as can come only from our good Father who is beyond this world of ours that is stained by just the opposite. Truly we thank Him for granting us a morning of such grace as we continue to grow together, fervently seeking the One who holds all answers, all hope, all joy.

Amen!

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

Forgive Me for Having Killed You

June 6, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

11-year-old Gleny, whom my husband and I are in the process of legally adopting along with her older sister and younger brother, recently approached me in the midst of the afternoon hustle and bustle in our kitchen and motioned her hand to pull me aside and speak in private.

This not being uncommon, I left whatever bulk-sized snack or dinner-warming project I was so intensely dedicated to on the kitchen counter and took a few steps to accompany my wild, immature, affectionate daughter near the doorway to our storage closet. (I think she adores me almost as much as I adore her.)

Our emotional roller-coaster Gleny wore a calm yet very resolute facial expression. I crouched down in front of her as she said: “Forgive me, Ma, for having killed you.”

Although her words could not have been spoken more clearly, my mind did a couple dazed somersaults as I thought I must have surely misheard her. After searching her face a second or two, groping for any kind of meaning, I asked dumbly, “What’s that?”

She repeated, completely sane, her brown eyes trained on mine: “Forgive me for having killed you.”

Oh.

Of course.

Having seen the dawn of understanding shed its light upon my face, she sighed and added, “Earlier this afternoon. When I got mad at you.”

I smiled into her eyes, remembering all too well what had happened between us just an hour or two before. I had asked her to do such-and-such terrible thing (like study or hang up her school uniform or wash her snack Tupperware), and she had responded in a moody, delayed obedience, muttering under her breath words that could sting the ears and heart. Such instances are not uncommon for my Wild-Miss-Gleny-in-the-Process-of-Being-Transformed, but her repentance and way of seeing the situation are definitely new.

Still crouched in front of her in that little nook in our busy kitchen, I followed her lead, humbling myself: “Forgive me for the times I’ve killed you. We’re all murderers, aren’t we?”

She smiled big, but perhaps my joy was even bigger than hers.

She sees, understands.

For the past couple months in our pull-your-chair-up-and-let’s-sit-in-a-circle Bible study, we’ve been studying Jesus’ radical words:

“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

So now…the standard – the expectation – has been raised. Infinitely so.

We are no longer asked to merely abstain from physically taking another human being’s life. (I don’t know about you, but I’m doing incredibly well with that command. I mean, I can pat myself on the back and announce to the world that my behavior in regard to the no-murder command is spotless. I haven’t slipped up even once!)

But Jesus says that now anyone who becomes angry unjustly is guilty of the same crime. Guilty of murder. Who hasn’t gotten mad at least once (or thousands of times) in their lifetime?

So, then, we’re ALL…murderers.

You know those cute babies or toddlers who go on a screaming and kicking fit even though they’ve been fed, changed, and had a nap recently? Yeah, they’re murders too.

So why did Jesus have to go and make the standard so unattainably high? Why couldn’t he just leave us with the solid, respectable command not to kill (which, even if broken, is quickly justified in times of war or self-defense)? Why would he go so far as to call all of humanity murderers? Even the ‘good people’?

We chewed on these questions with our kids, students and Christian laborers for several weeks as we met every Tuesday and Thursday in our oblong rectangle in our dining room to dig deep in the Word, in the Truth. I even posted these questions all over the walls in our school building to get the kids thinking in their free time.

After much effort, no one could understand why Jesus did it, why he went and raised the bar so high that no one could reach it. It almost seemed like a bad move to do so, right? A lot of his closest followers and friends abandoned him because his teachings were so hard to accept. I mean, what was he thinking? Did he want to discourage us all, eliminate us from the great Morality Competition? Why did he command us to do what we simply can’t?

The answer:

So that we would recognize that we need a Savior.

Every single human being.

We had (have) to recognize that we simply cannot do it on our own, cannot reach the standard of perfection by our own strength. If all the commands from Heaven were easily attainable with a little moral training (and excusing), why send a Savior to die a cruel death, taking on the punishment we deserve? (And the ‘good people’ cry out: “What do you mean ‘the punishment I deserve’? I’m a ‘good person’ — I don’t kill, don’t steal and am (mostly) faithful with my spouse! I mean, I lie sometimes, but who doesn’t?“)

‘Good people’ and ‘respectable citizens,’ don’t await a punishment; murderers do. And especially serial killers, those who go around time and again taking the lives of others! (Are you starting to get the point?…How many times have I — have you — gotten mad today? In this past week? In the last 25 years?)

I praise God that my wild Gleny recognizes — as she did the other day and has done so several times since — that her temper flare-ups are the equivalent of taking a machete to someone’s throat or gunning them down with an AK-47. Because she understands this, she can very quickly and easily jump to the conclusion that she needs a savior.

So this knowledge of our status as ‘murders’ before the Just, Perfect God is infiltrating our household and rather effortlessly becoming a part of our worldview and our daily interactions as we continuously come back to the cross, remembering the punishment that we no longer have to pay.

A few days after the aforementioned incident in the kitchen with Gleny, 12-year-old Josselyn with her too-short bangs (that she cut) approached me in my bedroom doorway, her eyes wide, and informed me: “Before [learning that we are all murderers] I had never thought about it like that, but I’ve…killed a lot of people…” Her eyes and voice wandered off a bit as she processed such a strong thought.

Suddenly her eyes grew even wider as she swung up an extended finger to my face: “I’ve killed YOU!” And then, under her breath, “Several times.”

She looked up at me, both shocked and relieved at her own statement, and we began to laugh together.

“I know, Josselyn. I’ve killed you on numerous occasions too. But the good news is that Jesus already suffered our murderers’ punishment, and now we are forgiven if we believe in him. I mean, the only reason it makes sense to forgive one another is because God has forgiven us. Right?”

She sighed and nodded her head. Together we both continued to laugh out of a total relief — awe — at the goodness of God. He lets murderers off the hook, punishing his own son in order that the killers might experience freedom and mercy. What extravagant, undeserved love!

Community Life, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Primary School, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Personal Reflection

Seeking Prayer for Current Frustrations

June 3, 2016 jenniferzillycanales 3 Comments

We are currently facing many difficulties with the students in our discipleship-based school program. The general attitude in our poverty-stricken rural neighborhood is one stained with a deep sense of laziness, ingratitude, self-pity and dishonesty, all of which is brought onto our property daily as the students pass through our gates.

Weekly we face many instances of cheating, blatant disrespect and/or a total refusal to complete basic assignments, and many times when we look for healthy ways to discipline/correct such behavior the students´ parents come to their rescue, defending and justifying their children´s dishonesty and laziness. Sometimes the family members even accuse us, and in one instance a student´s family got the local educational authorities involved to come against us because we are determined to hold honest, just standards in this culture of complicity that only breeds more ignorance and evil-doing. This is very frustrating and saddening for us, and it makes for long and sometimes seemingly unfruitful days.

Just this morning my husband and I had to rearrange our plans last-minute and go make three personal house visits to talk with certain students and their parents after having confronted a severe situation of cheating/lying/scoffing. Likewise, we have other students who simply don´t come to school or their moms send notes to the teacher saying their child is sick when in fact they aren´t (that happened this morning as well.)

Please pray for us during this continued period of discernment/learning as we are still in our first 4-5 months of our first school year with these programs and students. All of our local students come from the public school system where they were accostumed to missing as many days of school as they wanted, cheating with zero consequence, and passing their grade no matter the effort given because the Honduran government has declared that all students must pass their grade whether they actually learned anything or not. (There are thousands of cases nationwide each year of students who at the end of the school year have earned a 30% or 60%, etc, but the teacher is forced to write ¨70%¨ on the report card and pass the unprepared, lazy child onto the next grade). That system produces, as we know too well, students who are 15 or 18 years old in 7th grade who still don’t know the times tables and don’t understand why it might be important to learn them.

So, please pray with and for us, that we may be granted a right view of these cultural ills and thus know how to inculcate a genuine sense of self-discipline, punctuality, responsibility, truth-telling, dogged work ethic, etc, in these students who are accostumed to the exact opposite. Furthermore, may our Father grant us the perseverance and wisdom to not become discouraged or too caught-up in certain details that, eternally viewed, do not matter as much as our daily labor of sharing God’s Word with the students, loving and guiding them according to His good will, and praying with and for them.

It is a very fine line, because if we implement the godly discipline we believe in and know to be very healthy for rebellious, lost youth, we would currently be left very likely with only one or two students (because the rest would have stormed out or been expelled). On the other hand, if we are too flexible and ¨understanding,¨ very quickly everything becomes permissible and we fall prey to the same evil that plagues the public schools.

Just this morning two of our teen boys from primary school expelled themselves after having reached their fifth strike, a very reasonable discipline system we have put in place to protect both ourselves and our students from contaminating our home/mission with an attitude of uncurbed rebellion. Prior to being expelled their general attitude was deeply marked by a defiant laziness, too many unexcused tardies, cheating during exams (and laughing when getting caught…and then yelling at us and accusing us of being unfair for not having let them cheat), and disrespectful attitudes, oftentimes proclaiming to their teacher that they wouldn’t be coming back the next day because our school is ¨too strict.¨

I share these frustrations so that you may go before the Lord with us in search of the answers.

A handful of students in both primary and secondary are truly succeeding in our program, are actively absorbing God’s Word as it is presented to them, and are in the beautiful beginning stages of being transformed by their knowledge of the Truth. Let us give thanks to God for the receptivity and work ethic of these students, and may the Lord continue to protect them against attacks from the enemy. May His will be done in and among us, and may He continue to guide us with all wisdom, justice and love as we seek to earnestly shepherd the rogue youth He has brought to us for His glory. Amen!