Tag Archives: Discipleship Center

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The Sound of Music: Darwin’s Recorder Class Under the Mango Tree

June 4, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

My husband Darwin recently took the following photos of his small group of students in the Living Waters Ranch’s beginners’ recorder class. This first semester (February-May 2017) he gave several music classes to different groups of students, including piano, advanced music theory/recorder and the beginners’ recorder class pictured below.

Last week as we entered into a new weekly schedule, Darwin began his group choir lessons for the first time this year, which a lot of our returning students are excited about because the choir was their initial connection to us as we began forming relationships with youth from our neighborhood from 2014 onward.

Darwin is a very passionate music teacher, and he firmly believes that God can utilize music to restore and renew the souls of broken children for His glory. He oftentimes takes the students outdoors to play in the shade of some large tree on our rural property, and he tends to incorporate prayer and Scripture-reading into the class. The photos shown below were taken on one such occasion.

This is “Little Ever,” our youngest student. He just turned 7 years old, and he is our daughter Gabriela’s classmate in our small first grade class. He is our night watchman’s youngest child.

Here are three beloved teen hooligans in Darwin’s recorder class. Roy (far left) is one of our eldest students this year, a local 17-year-old who came to us through unlikely circumstances and whom has really taken hold of all that has been offered to him through the Living Waters Ranch. His aunt recently told us that she is thrilled that God has used those of us who serve as Roy’s teachers to be ‘channels of blessing’ in his life. Roy is very consistent in showing a grateful and positive attitude, something that is highly uncommon in this culture. He is a follower of Christ and is one of the youth leaders in his church after having passed through a very difficult and dark childhood.

This is 12-year-old Cesar, part of a sibling group of three brothers who entered in our discipleship-based community homeschool program in January of this year. He had dropped out of the public school system after having completed fourth grade, and he was frequently seen darting around our rural neighborhood on his bike, generally wreaking havoc and without any direction. He has been surprisingly consistent with his attendance and effort with us thus far this year, and we are excited to see what fruit God will produce in his life via the many seeds that are being planted.

What a spacious and beautiful classroom!

This is our (mostly) precious special-needs son Josue who just turned nine years old yesterday. He serves as Darwin’s and my faithful ‘assistant’ in the various classes we give, and he enjoys playing with all the other kids during P.E., recess and lunch in addition to the fun games he does with his tutor. He serves as Darwin’s assistant in his advanced English class, and Josue surprised us all earlier today when someone thanked him for something (in Spanish), and he answered “Welcome” in choppy English. He suffers from severe speech impediments and struggles to put together basic words in his own language (Spanish), so we were all astonished to realize that he had actually learned (and was able to pronounce!) some English!

It looks like 11-year-old Jeffrey, one of our very wild and immature first grade students, got tired of playing recorder and decided to take a break! He’s eating a mango that must have fallen from the tree!

Amen! Glory to God!

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Learning How to Live: a Math Class Experience

April 3, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

On Thursday of this past week I began walking from one little building on our rural property to the next in preparation for my Advanced Math class that would start once recess finished. The general energy level on our property was extremely high as we had all just gotten out of Bible study and prayer groups, and everyone was busy eating their mid-morning snack, playing a pick-up game of soccer in our front yard or tapping away some upbeat tune on one of several pianos in our bright purple school building.

I quietly but very purposefully began moving rather unusual objects into our simple rectangular classroom: a large wicker table from our house’s living room [our family’s simple cinderblock home lies about six paces from our high school building as our family life with our 8 foster children is very intertwined with our open-door ministry efforts to the local community], three wooden stools, several boxes of colored pencils, a large bucket of water, old rags, and a cup of detergent.

As I greeted and passed by different students and teachers on my way in and out of my classroom, I smiled big – not only because we daily practice the art of joyfully loving one another, but because on that particular day I knew something no one else did.

Abigail, one of our new students this year, a 13-year-old in our small 8^th-grade class, eyed me with a twinkle in her eyes and said boldly, “Teacher! I think you’ve got something really fun planned for our math class today! …I mean, just look at that big grin you’re wearing on your face!” She wagged a silly finger at me, waiting eagerly for me to affirm her conclusion.

My eyebrows arched high and my eyes widened as my smile grew even bigger (if that was even possible). I answered, “Oh, Abigail, I always wear this grin on my face, despite the circumstances! So, really, you have no idea if I have something fun planned or not…” I shrugged my shoulders high as my smile remained intact, inciting her to question her teacher’s sanity (as she had probably already done on several prior occasions).

She suddenly looked perplexed and then, slightly worried, as she realized what I said was true. “Yeah, you are always smiling…” [Here at the Living Waters Ranch we like to say that our smile is our uniform. Whatever is happening – good, bad or ugly – we choose to receive and display the joy of the Lord.]

I made a tight squeeze through the doorway with the rather clunky wicker table pushed through on my hip as I glanced over my shoulder at her, “I love you so much, sweetheart! See you in five minutes when we enter class!”

Our rural neighborhood – and the country of Honduras as a whole – is known for devastatingly low educational standards. Overcrowded, underfunded government schools are required to pass all students automatically, and it is not uncommon for youth to spend years in the formal education system without having learned virtually anything. Many students graduate high school without knowing the times tables or basic grammar rules.

In my Advanced Math class that meets four hours each week, we are putting an end to educational corruption, to a system that enables students to pass on to the next level without having first mastered the level they’re at. We work on strengthening their generally weak math base with dynamic methods and then go onward with loads of mental math, complex problem sets and, of course, many hours of homework each week. I like to call my students ‘human calculators.’

And so, five minutes later when all 12 of my precious mathematicians came sweatily bounding into our unairconditioned classroom after recess, I walked to the front of the room and began the process of announcing that secret that had placed that unusually large grin on my face.

Our 12-year-old daughter Gleny, one of the youngest students in the mixed-grade homeschool-style class, saw the bucket of water near the door and made a strikingly accurate guess as she plopped down into her seat: “Oh no. Those of us who didn’t pass the exam are gonna have to wash the walls.”

I threw my head back and laughed freely while all 12 eyed me with dread. It was, after all, the last day of the first grading period, and they had taken their final exam the class prior. I would be announcing the news everyone was anxious to hear.

After a short lecture, I began writing their final grades on the white board as the suspense grew exponentially…

Only three students passed the class: one with flying colors and two by the skin of their teeth. The other nine missed the mark. Several had a final average of somewhere around 45%. [But I know something that they perhaps don’t: even those who earned a woeful percentage in my class have progressed mightily as they’ve learned more than many youth in local public institutions who pass with high grades.]

Without ever taking the large, sincere smile off my face, I ushered the three victors over to the wicker table at the other end of the classroom where I had snacks, encouraging hand-written celebratory notes, colored pencils and open-ended art projects for them to enjoy.

The faces of the other 9 dropped. I had warned them several days prior that they needed to put forth a great effort to study for the exam, because they surely wouldn’t like the consequences if they didn’t. Now they all knew that they were about to find out just what those consequences would be.

I asked them one by one how much time they had dedicated to prepare themselves for the final exam – which was worth half of their final grade. Their answers: one hour. Five minutes. Not at all.

I then glanced over at the victors and asked them how much time they had dedicated to study for the exam. Their answers: five hours. Seven hours.

My heart rejoiced as I reminded my students – the best and brightest in our homeschool program – that, in real life (as in our class) consequences always line up with decisions. You reap what you sow.

And that is why I was so giddy. In our world – and especially in this Central American country where we live – so often the consequences experienced in this life do not line up with choices. The lesson of ‘you reap what you sow’ is so easily lost when the murderers and the liars seem to be getting ahead and the ones who dare to act justly get killed. Here there is very little trust in just consequences due to an unresponsive, corrupt justice system. Whereas the lesson of ‘you steal or kill, you go to jail’ should be present in everyone’s minds, here there is no such thought impeding evil deeds. Here, you steal or kill and you can just keep on doing so for many years to come because generally the police do not respond as they should and/or are paid off by evil gang lords.

In other schools, students can put forth a sub-par effort and receive grand certificates and diplomas. Lies are everywhere, especially in the Honduran educational system. A dear neighbor of ours will be graduating from the local public high school soon, and he’s renowned as a very good student, but his grammar is that of a very young child and he has yet to learn the times tables.

And so on Thursday my heart rejoiced, because I knew that my beloved students would learn an invaluable lesson. Several of the 9 students who did not pass – three of our daughters included in the mix – had never before experienced such academic failure. Perhaps they were finally in a class that could not be passed with a nominal effort.

With the three who passed the class joyfully working on art projects in the far corner of the room, I then began filling the board with the ‘recuperation’ requirements. ‘Recuperation’ is a mandatory process in Honduras that is designed to ensure that all students pass, something which we are not in agreement with but is a process we are required to do. Whereas in most schools the failing students simply show up the next day to take the same exam again (several times if necessary), a false grade assigned if even so they never manage to pass the make-up test(s), we have a new technique: assign physical jobs and heavy homework loads as recuperation. If they do not complete the task with excellence, the failing grade remains the same.

Basically, you have to work if you want to pass (what a novel concept).

Recuperation to be turned in next week: 1.) Write the entire 4-page exam all over again, by hand, and complete it with excellence. 2.) 20 additional problem sets (each of which takes over 20 minutes to complete if done quickly) done with excellence. 3.) Wash the walls of our classroom today; wash those of the other math classroom tomorrow during recess. 4.) Receive a ‘strike.’ (Three strikes and you go to after-school detention, which lowers your overall GPA and is 2+ hours of physical labor under the sun). 5.) Write a half-page reflection about what you’ve learned.

My precious Gleny sighed deeply as she read the board – she had been right about washing the walls. Abigail, the one who had seen the wicker table and the colored pencils and optimistically guessed that the fun activity would be for everyone, eyed me with a little smile on her face as she began copying in her notebook the long list of recuperation requirements.

I went around the room, giving loving pats on the back and words of encouragement in the midst of total emotional devastation for those who did not put forth the necessary effort to pass the class. One of our new students, a 14-year-old boy, eyed me angrily as I blurted, “You know, I really like you! Even if you don’t like me, I really like you! You are gonna do a great job with the recuperation!” I gave him a hearty pat on the back and threw out a joke or two to lighten the overall mood among those poor souls who would soon be drowning in make-up homework.

That blessed day the students worked two at a time sudsing down the bright purple classroom walls while the others worked with pencil in hand to begin the long recuperation process, which would then be finished during their own time over the weekend. I sat at that delightful wicker table with the three who had worked their butts off to earn the prize. We drew. We colored. We chit-chatted. They divvied up the bag of snacks and read the hand-written notes I had left for them. It was great!

The following day I fulfilled my word to the 9, rounding them up during recess to finish the wall-washing job in the other math classroom. Teens on hands and knees, towels and rags in hand, soap and water everywhere, while less mature students from other classes passed by, observing the unusual process. After all, the ones washing the walls are the best students! They aren’t normally the ones who are assigned such consequences! What on earth had happened?

So we thank God, because this process of connecting hard work with rewards (and sub-par work with displeasing consequences) is not something that happens only in my classroom, but rather it is a team effort among those of us who serve, teach and disciple at the Living Waters Ranch. Several local Hondurans who have visited our mission (and those who now labor alongside of us) have commented that we “teach people how to live.” In a world devoid of love, we love abundantly because God first loved us. In a world devoid of truth, we proclaim it boldly. In a world where everyone is busy destroying one another and themselves, we go about quietly picking up the pieces, rescuing the lost and indicating the Way. In a world of confusion, of consequences that don’t correspond with actions – truth paid with murder; corruption paid with great wealth – here on this little piece of land we take very seriously the process of carefully forming those who come to us, of teaching them to live in the light of Christ, to take responsibility for their actions and, ultimately, to stand before the throne of the just Judge and give account for their every action, thought and decision.

The following day, my permanent smile fixed in its place, a 17-year-old young man who is new to our school this year found me during lunchtime and extended his hand. I instinctively reached mine out to receive his, although the lunchtime hand-shaking gesture seemed a bit odd. I tilted my head and looked at him as he began: “I just wanted to thank you for what happened yesterday.”

I felt confused. He was one of the ones who had not passed the class and who would now be working his butt off all weekend. What good could have possibly happened to him yesterday? “Y-yester-? Wha-?”

He continued: “For the math class recuperation. It is fair. I really appreciate that Jackeline [one of our daughters who is in the class] earned a 69 average, but even so you didn’t bump her grade up to 70. In other schools around here they would just give everyone a passing grade, but here the teachers are really interested in making sure that we learn. I’m gonna make sure that in this next marking period I work a whole lot harder to make sure I pass.” His smile was genuine, and his wisdom striking. He gets it!

My jaw was dangling somewhere down around my ankles as I sputtered, “ Oh, yeah, uh – great! Of course! We are so proud of you…” And he was off, getting ready for his after-school agriculture class with Erick. Wow.

We give thanks to God for guiding us as we form the young men and women that He brings us according to His Word, His love, His justice. While a handful of youth have left our program because they have chosen to believe the lies offered by a world that says decisions and consequences do not line up, we give joyful thanks to God for the roughly-40 who have chosen to stay, who like the 17-year-old young man who thanked me for the heavy discipline procedure understand what we are trying to do and are submitted to God throughout the process. Pray with us that the Lord would raise up great Christ-centered leaders (servants) among those whom He is training and transforming among us for His good pleasure.

Amen! Glory to God!

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March 2017 Updates and Prayer Requests

March 17, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

A Young Entrepreneur: Jackeline’s Cow

Darwin and I have been actively educating our children and teens in the realm of godly stewardship (how to wisely and generously manage their finances) for several years. Each of our foster children have several weekly chores that they are responsible for, and they receive a small income for them every other week. In a recent family meeting we shared with them the idea of investing their savings in the purchase of a young dairy calf, which will eventually grow at almost no cost and can then be sold (or kept to have babies). Jackeline, one of our teenage daughters, very enthusiastically embraced our suggestion and has since utilized the money she had been saving in order to purchase a young female dairy cow from a neighbor who sold it to us at a great price. Her calf now lives on our large rural property with our small herd that Darwin manages and milks each morning with our 15-year-old son Brayan. We are very excited that she has made this wise investment, and the cow – especially if it gives birth several times, whose calves can then be sold – has the potential to provide the income to send Jackeline to college, help transition her into adulthood, etc. You go, girl!

The following are photos from Pastor Domingo’s weekly Carpentry Club. He is a local pastor whose son entered our high school last year. He is now involved part-time as one of our Christian laborers and teaches elementary-level math, supports one of our prayer groups, teaches a Christian leadership class and does weekly house visits to our students’ homes in addition to leading the Carpentry Club. He is in the process of finishing a large swing set structure that will soon be installed in the Living Waters Ranch’s front yard.

A House Full of Pianists

Our eldest daughter, 16-year-old Dayana, continues faithfully onward in her piano studies as she is now in her third year of playing music under Darwin’s guidance. Every Saturday she goes into the nearby city of La Ceiba as Darwin’s assistant to teach piano lessons to a small group of young students. She has a dogged work ethic and has been extremely consistent in practicing roughly ten hours each week. Six of our other children are also in piano and/or violin, and just recently I, too, began practicing piano on a daily basis. Several months ago I felt God was nudging me toward learning more hymns and worship songs on the piano (I took lessons for about six months upon moving to Honduras in 2012), and as of this past week I am joyfully walking in obedience! I sat down at the piano bench for the first time in several months on Saturday to learn a new hymn, and I ended up practicing for five hours! In these past six days I’ve practiced 13 hours and learned two new worship songs! It is becoming a daily routine in our household that once our students and teachers leave around 3:45pm, several of us head to the schoolhouse (where the two big pianos are and several keyboards) to tap away for an hour or two. We praise God for this aspect of our daily lives and are encouraged as we see the majority of our kids develop the self-discipline and focus required to learn a musical instrument for God’s glory.

This is a photo of our four full-time Christian laborers (Reina, Erick, Isis and Ligia) taken during a team-building workshop we held in January. (Pastor Domingo was not present at the taking of the photo.) We give thanks to God for His faithful (and extremely hard-working) servants!

Relational Discipleship

We are thrilled and blessed that all of our Christian laborers have begun actively forming relationships with our students after-hours and on the weekends. Three of them live in our tiny rural neighborhood while two daily take a bus in from a nearby city. Erick, whose story I mentioned on a prior blog, has started a weekly Bible study in his home for several of our teen boys, and Pastor Domingo has opened up his home on the weekends to several of our students whom he has joyfully put to work sanding and sawing in his carpentry shop. He has also received several students in the church he leads in his front yard, and our other teachers recently organized a riotous hiking/swimming outing to a local nature spot on a Sunday. We are thankful that God is allowing us to form a holistic ‘lifeline’ for these children and youth who may not have other loving, God-fearing adults in their lives.

This is a photo of Miss Isis’ weekly dance club. Four of our kids (Dayana, Brayan, Sandra and Josselyn) are in this class, and I think the two hours that they get footloose in our dining room are the highlight of their week!

Here is a photo from Erick’s weekly Christian Leadership after-school club. (He teaches the class with a certain group of students on Wednesdays, and Pastor Domingo has a different group on Tuesdays.) Reina, who is one of our teachers, participates in the class as a student along with Geraldina, Sandra’s mom who manages the kitchen.

Genesis Returns Home

Genesis, the teenager who had moved from across the country to live with us and study in our high school, unfortunately made the decision to return home to her family. She struggled with great mood swings and general negativity during her four weeks living in our home, and despite our best efforts to encourage, pray for, and try to convince her to continue studying and preparing herself to fulfill God’s will for her life (she had said that she wanted to become a lawyer, learn piano and return to her rural village fully equipped to serve God), she decided to return home about two weeks ago to her dry, very poor rural region where she has almost zero educational opportunities and no plan. Please pray with us for her, as we do not believe she made the correct decision but hope all the best for her according to God’s will for her life.

Here are photos taken during Darwin’s Advanced English class. Two local young people who are not students in our school participate in the classes as well. Darwin loves to go around speaking English to all of our students, but very few of them have any idea what he’s talking about!

Working as a Team: Learning to Delegate Tasks

Amidst our many daily responsibilities as parents, directors of the Living Waters Ranch and teachers, Darwin and I are learning which tasks can be delegated and to whom. We are very excited and blessed that we have now delegated all of our legal communications with our lawyer who resides seven hours away in the capital city (in Honduras your lawyer has to live in the capital city if you want to experience any progress because that is where all the legal action takes place) to Miss Ligia, one of our faithful teachers who is a trained lawyer. She has taken great initiative to communicate and move forward with our capital-city lawyer in the adoptions that are currently in-process along with several other general legal procedures. We thank God for the team of very hard-working local Hondurans He has placed at our side and for the fact that Darwin and I are learning to rely upon them so that we do not get stretched too thin.

The following are photos taken during my secondary-level Art Club. On this particular day the students’ creativity was unleashed as they used clay, pipe cleaners and goggly eyes to design their own city/world — they could choose between the ‘Earth’ theme or, more fun, ‘Outer Space!’

Prayer for Sandra

We are currently seeking prayer for Sandra, the local teen who we met last year when she entered our homeschool-style high school and then later moved in with us for seven months to escape a situation of sexual abuse in the home. She has since moved back in with us nearly two months ago due to various dangers and bad decisions she was facing in our rural neighborhood. She has sought Darwin and I out in private to talk/listen, confess different things she had hidden, and seek prayer for her life, but she is still extremely unstable and, according to what our other daughters have told us, seems to be on the cusp of dropping out of our high school and returning to our rural neighborhood to live a life of purposelessness and sin. She is extremely bright and has many God-given talents, but lacks perseverance and steadfast faith to see things through. She was baptized last year and has expressed to us several times that God has placed the desire on her heart to begin ministering to a group of young children who wander aimlessly around our neighborhood through the creation of a weekly Bible study, but she is easily distracted and has yet to take any steps toward fulfilling this specific call God has on her life. We love her dearly and have been through quite a bit with her thus far, and we are seeking prayer once more that God would illuminate her mind and that she would remain firm in her decision to love and follow Christ.

A few weeks ago Darwin and I celebrated our two-year anniversary of parenting 13-year-old Jackeline (the proud new cow-owner) and her 8-year-old special needs brother Josue. We took them out to a local restaurant while Erick and his wife Aracely came over to our house to stay with the rest of our kids. Jackeline and Josue continue to have monthly contact with their biological relatives, and by God’s grace we maintain a very positive relationship with them.

Insomnia Progress

There is finally good news to be reported about my insomnia! Over the past two months I have been visiting a very professional local physical/massage therapist twice weekly as a last-ditch resort to finding the root of my sleep disorder. She has found several stress-related physical problems that have remained hidden over the last several years, and she has been working with me extensively on how to manage my stress levels better so that they don’t take root and turn into physical problems. My sleeping has improved drastically over these past two months although there is still much progress to be made. At home we have also made several positive changes to help manage stress levels better (such as the aforementioned delegating of tasks along with my new daily routine of playing worship songs on the piano), and I have begun sleeping much better. Please continue to pray for me as this will probably be an ongoing battle over the course of my lifetime (learning to trust in God and lay all my cares/stresses at the foot of the cross). Praise God for this progress!

This is Miss Ligia teaching the Beginners’ English after-school club. We keep class sizes small in order to create a family-like atmosphere that enables individualized contact and relational discipleship. Our teachers spend their recess and lunch period playing and talking with our students in addition to being their prayer group leaders on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This is Miss Ligia’s elementary-level Art Club!

Amen! Glory to God!

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First Update of the New Year

January 13, 2017 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

January 13, 2017: It has been over a month since I last wrote as we’ve unplugged from nearly all internet and administrative duties over the last several weeks. With great joy we finished off the year 2016 dedicating nearly every moment to the careful daily task of ‘building our nest’ with the 8 children our Father has placed under our (His) wings, three of which are already well into their adolescence.

Our daily rhythm has been slower as our beloved local Honduran laborers have been on vacation and our large rural property has been populated only by our family (Darwin, our 8 kiddos and I) and our night watchman’s quiet family. In these last few weeks there has been much time spent character-building, bond-forming and behavior-training as there has been less movement of people and activities on our rural property. We’ve been able to focus more fully on those under our roof who are blossoming into beautiful young men and women in the blink of an eye.

cayos86 — 16-year-old Dayana, who has been living with us as our daughter for over three years and whom we are in the process of legally adopting, with Darwin

cayos70 — 12-year-old Gleny, who has been living with us since November 2013 with her two siblings, will be entering our discipleship-focused homeschool program after having attended a local private school these last two years.

cayos58 — Brayan, who first moved in with us when he was 12 years old in 2014 and nearly fit under my armpit, now is nearly as tall as Darwin!

We’ve enjoyed weekly trips with our kids to a local park to swim and play, numerous family movie nights with popcorn and ice cream treats, and many family work days as we’ve slapped on our rubber boots and old clothes to do property maintenance, painting, and repairs together. We’ve moved furniture from one building to the next, cleaned out our classrooms’ stuffed-to-the-brim bookshelves, taken down doors, spent countless man hours sanding window bars, and gotten our fingernails dirty in just about every way imaginable.

We even got away for a few nights in December with our kids and escaped to a desert island off the coast to explore the ocean, go snorkeling, kayak, and fish. (Our kids caught a venomous snake, an octopus, a lobster, an eel, and even a few normal fish!) It was a new and exciting experience for everyone, and all ten of us squeezed into a little two-room rustic cabin that stood on pillars with the ocean’s waves passing underneath.

cayos44 — 8-year-old Josue, who will soon be celebrating his two-year anniversary of living with us. He and his older sister Jackeline have monthly contact with their biological family, and by God’s grace we maintain a very positive relationship with their relatives.

cayos19 — 9-year-old Jason and 15-year-old Brayan, roommates and brothers in Christ, enjoying the snorkel sets we rented to explore the ocean off the coast of where we live in Honduras.

cayos41 — Dayana and Gleny, biological sisters, learning to put into daily practice God’s perfect love despite personality and age differences

Darwin has begun reading through the Bible page-by-page, devouring many chapters each night, and two of our daughters have begun doing the same. 8-year-old Gabriela, who is lightyears behind her peers developmentally due to severe abuse suffered in her early childhood, has spent many hours each day receiving classes from her faithful tutors (local teenagers who are our students during the school year) and, miraculously, is in the very beginning stages of learning to write the letters and begin working with numbers. She will be entering first grade alongside of a few local students in our homeschool-style program in a couple weeks.

15-year-old Brayan, who has been successfully living with us for nearly three months now for ‘Round Two’ of being a member of our household, has been waking up early with Darwin every morning to go milk the cows, which has been a wonderful bonding activity for father and son and likewise a phenomenal work-ethic-building activity for Brayan as he is acquiring more maturity and consistency.

cayos45 — Darwin and I exploring the ocean in a kayak. The waves booted us out of the kayak twice!

cayos18 — Walking hand-in-hand with the little ones, who developmentally are about 3-5 years old

cayos5 — Our beloved Wild Man, Cow-Milker and Big Brother who is acquiring a surprising amount of maturity, humility and wisdom as he continues his daily walk with Christ

cayos83 — Darwin and Brayan at dawn (or dusk? who knows?) fishing on the pier

These slow-paced vacation times have also allowed for many long one-on-one discussions, intimate times of confession and repentance, and conflict resolutions among siblings. Family foot-rubs, late nights spent giggling and story-sharing with our teenage girls, praying together as we sit cross-legged on the tile floor to give thanks to Father God.

I’ve also been dedicating a chunk of time nearly every day to teaching our six oldest kids (ages 9-16) math classes homeschool-style as we gather around a long wooden table in one of our empty classrooms and I stand at the front with the whiteboard, scribbling numbers all over the place as we work to fill in many educational gaps they’ve suffered due to chaotic, no-school childhoods before arriving at our home.

cayos8 — Gleny and I after having jumped off the pier

cayos73 — The tribe the Lord has formed among us: 10 people of various ages (and races) from six different biological families all living under one roof, united as family by Christ’s blood

cayos57 — Darwin overseeing his young fishermen

cayos9 — Our precious pianist (we call her “Beethoven’s great-granddaughter”) and adventure-loving big sister who is daily taking steps to find healing and freedom in Christ

Our local students will return to us full-time January 24 as we currently find ourselves in a three-week stage of preparation, brainstorms, communal prayer, strategic meetings and book discussions as we are seeking God’s perfect will for this new school year (the Honduran school year begins at the end of January/beginning of February and finishes in late November).

We currently have 40 students (ages 8-18) signed up to study at the Living Waters Ranch this school year (including the 8 who live with us), with all but 2 of our 25 students from 2016 returning in addition to several new additions.

cayos36 — 12-year-old Josselyn, who has been living with us a year-and-a-half and who is daily being transformed by God’s love as she learns and grows within healthy limits

cayos55 — Accompanying our young sailors on their sea vessel destined for Africa

cayos68 — Our 8. (The five more adventurous ones jumping while the three keep-it-safers hid out on the float below)

cayos33 — Developmentally-challenged Gaby and Josue ‘kayaking’ on the shore. (We kept the life jackets on those two at all times — even during mealtimes and when they went to the bathroom!)

As our influence in the community is growing, God has brought more workers to labor alongside of us in these times of planting, watering and harvesting. Miss Isis and Miss Ligia, who were featured on this blog several times throughout the year 2016, have committed to continuing their service for God’s glory in 2017, and three additional teachers/mentors have been added to our team: Domingo, a well-respected local pastor in his fifties (who is the father of one of our students) and who has experience in military service and as a carpenter; Reina, a local Christian teacher in her late forties who has many years of experience in the classroom and had approached us many months ago wanting to work with us due to the comments her neighbors had shared with her about our purpose and vision; and Erick, the very wise young man who lived at the Living Waters Ranch with us for nearly a year in 2013/2014 and who has a very strong gifting in evangelism and discipleship.

cayos4 — 13-year-old Jackeline and 16-year-old Dayana, roommates and sisters in Christ, exploring the coral reefs around the island

It has been a very special privilege in these first couple weeks of 2017 to be in such gifted, dedicated company as we’ve all put our heads together as a team – as Christ’s body – to search out God’s will for us as his sons and daughters, as a beacon of light in our very dark neighborhood, as a school for many youth who would not otherwise study, as a ‘rescue shop within a yard of hell.’ Our kids have actively participated in these meetings (oftentimes lasting 3-4 hours with many different speakers, activities, moments of prayer, etc) as they are taking an increasingly active role in participating in the ministry the Lord has entrusted us.

Thank you to all who read this blog and share with us your generous support, prayer and counsel. Please continue to pray for us as we are in the formative stages of this new year of service and love for God’s glory.

Amen!

Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Community Life, Family, Homeschool, Information About the Mission, Living Waters Ranch Primary School, Living Waters Ranch Secondary School, Music, Special Needs Kids

Diplomas, Choir Songs, and More: Our Yearend Celebration in Photos

December 8, 2016 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

We recently celebrated our end-of-the-year academic promotion and music recital with our students and their families. Each of our 25 students (12 in elementary and 13 in high school) received diplomas for the different extracurricular clubs they had participated in — Sports Club, Christian Leadership, Art Club, etc — along with their official certificate for having passed their grade. Darwin’s musical group performed various piano and recorder pieces along with singing several songs, and the students from Cooking Club prepared delicious snacks for all the guests.

We handed the camera off to several kids as they dashed about as undercover paparazzi, but the camera’s battery died before the majority of the invitees arrived and the actual event began!

Enjoy the photos from the set-up…

clausura1 — Some of our teachers and students preparing the decorations for the event in the porch of the small building that serves as our high school/music training center/office.

clausura10 — Miss Luz, a local Christian woman who served with us this year as the special needs teacher and prayer group leader, was putting the finishing touches on the snacks…

clausura9

clausura11 — The two cats we got recently to help with a rat infestation in our pantry — Kitchen Guard and Rat Police — were making sure everything was going smoothly with the snack preparation.

clausura8 — Charlie, a 13-year-old local student who did not pass our 7th-grade discipleship program due to immaturity and a general lack of academic preparedness, was very brave and showed up for the event even though he wouldn’t be receiving the official certificate for having passed his grade. He is a faithful member of Darwin’s recorder group, so he participated in the music recital and was awarded several diplomas for his consistent participation in Christian Leadership and other extracurricular clubs. (This is one of the young men I wrote about in the previous post whom we tracked down and convinced to enroll again next year even though he was upset he didn’t pass this year.)

clausura16 — 13-year-old Arnold, one of our local students who passed our 7th grade program after much blood, sweat and tears (or something like that) during our two-week intensive yearend bootcamp, was helping his teacher tape up the decorations.

clausura12 — While everyone was stressed out, zipping around from one decoration to the next and getting diplomas and everything in order, I took advantage of the microphone set up for Darwin’s choir and had a little too much fun playing the event’s quite animated ‘announcer’…

clausura27 — Anybody know any good jokes?

clausura13 — Miss Ligia (high school teacher, left) and Miss Isis (elementary teacher, right) enjoyed my jokes.

clausura14

clausura28 — Our 13-year-old daughter Jackeline getting ready to sing and play piano. She passed fifth grade with flying colors in a local private school and is currently doing sixth grade (the last grade in elementary school according to the Honduran educational system) right now during school vacation so that she will be able to enter 7th grade (the first year of high school) in our discipleship program in February. We are very (very, very) proud of her as she has experienced a dramatic transformation after having spent a very difficult first year with us in 2015 that was riddled with laziness, depression and very poor decision-making. Keep it up, girl!

clausura20 — How many more people, tables and musical instruments can we fit on the porch? Keep ’em coming!

clausura2 — Yexon, the 12-year-old son of our night watchman who has been in school with us along with three of his siblings for two years. He passed both second and third grade this year in our accelerated elementary program for students who are academically behind. He’s trying to look serious for the photo!

clausura3 — Josue, our 8-year-old son with special needs who has been living with us for almost two years, enjoyed running around our yard while everyone else frantically made preparations for the event. Exercise is a great way to keep away the stress!

clausura4 — Go, Josue, go! Feel those endorphins!

clausura5 — And he just kept on running and laughing!

clausura7 — Gotta pass right through the mud puddle!

clausura17 — 9-year-old Jason and 15-year-old Brayan, two of our pianists (and sons), enjoyed playing a few songs on the keyboard as the beginning of the event drew near.

clausura18 — Darwin had many choir and musical ensemble members to get ready for the big outdoor event. Everybody get in line to get your red ribbon!

clausura22 — 15-year-old Marina and 10-year-old Paola (both of whom look much younger than they are due to malnutrition they suffered in early childhood), two of our faithful elementary school students, arrived at the event with several of their siblings and mother. They are both on their way to fourth grade in our accelerated program after having spent their early childhood in deep poverty with no education. They are some of the first people in their very large family to learn to read and write and be involved consistently in school. We are so proud of them!

clausura19 — Our 12-year-old daughter Gleny — who we are in the process of legally adopting along with her two siblings — had had enough of my antics with the microphone!

clausura21 — Arnold, one of our local students who generally displays a ‘too cool for this’ attitude, has recently confessed how much his experiences this year at the Living Waters Ranch have meant to him. In the last couple weeks he and Darwin and I have made many phone calls and house visits to persuade his parents to allow him to continue studying with us (the father, who is not a Christian, was looking for a more ‘traditional’ educational experience for his son). After much effort, his parents finally agreed and understood that this is the best place for their son to study and grow in God’s will, and Arnold has since come to sign the enrollment papers for next year! Praise God!

clausura24 — These precious young women are 16-year-olds Sandra and Dayana, our two eldest daughters and two of our students who successfully passed our 7th grade program. Sandra is successfully living with her biological mom again as the mom has valiantly left behind the abusive step-father to look for new, healthier beginnings. Dayana continues to live with us as we are in the process of legally adopting her.

clausura25 — Here are three of our strapping young gentlemen getting ready for the big event. For teenage boys who are accustomed to wandering gravel roads in torn, dirty clothing and surviving year after year in suffocating poverty, getting ‘squeaky clean’ and all dressed up in formal attire to participate in an organized music concert (that they’ve been practicing for for months) is a really big deal. All three of them were baptized in October and have signed the enrollment papers to come back again next year.

clausura29 — Derbin, a local young man who is not our full-time student because we do not offer the grade he is in (ninth), but who participates very faithfully in choir, piano, Christian Leadership and Bible study, was excited to attend the event with several of his young siblings. Nice mustache!

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.