Tag Archives: Foster Family

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

An Update from Jennifer: “Please Pray for Us”

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Dear friends and family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely, Jennifer (for Darwin and family/ministry)

Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Child/Youth Leadershp, Community Life, COVID-19, Current World Events, Family, Foster, God At Work Among Us, Homeschool, Marriage, Music, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests, Special Needs Kids, Teaching

December 2021 Greetings

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Dear friends and family,

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

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

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

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

Sincerely in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Child/Youth Leadershp, COVID-19, Current World Events, Foster, Teaching

Summer 2021 Updates

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I send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead in Honduras, Central America, and I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are well and thriving in the Lord.

Our ministry status continues on much the same as I detailed in our Spring 2021 update. We continue to be the only school in our area that we know of that is holding face-to-face classes on a weekly basis, and we continue to progress in the areas of organic agriculture, Christian discipleship, youth orchestra/choir, athletic training, hospitality, and integral character formation for God’s glory. In spite of the odds, this has without a doubt been our best year of holistic ministry thus far.

My husband Darwin posing with a group of our students that participated in a day of intensive work in order to earn a new backpack and school supplies. The event was a big success, and the students felt motivated doing honest work and likewise being able to acquire much-needed supplies in order to continue their education. We are hopeful to orchestrate another event such as this so that our students can earn a new pair of shoes or other necessary items. It is a privilege for us to help inculcate a healthy work ethic in our students while likewise providing for their material needs. Praise God!
Here two of our missionary-teachers, who are like family to us, are posing with their team of students after triumphing in first place during an intense, edifying afternoon of teamwork activities and academic competitions.

Due to my husband Darwin’s expanding youth choir and our record-low dropout rate so far this year among youth enrolled in our school, our influence in the local community is growing and we now have roughly 60 youth actively participating in and benefiting from our ministry. My husband and I also currently have 6 foster teens in our home, ages 13-18 (two young men and four young women) whom we are raising as beloved sons and daughters. Our dedicated team of Honduran missionary-teachers is likewise thriving as never before, as much in the classroom as in the sphere of mentorship and community evangelism/good deeds.

Cleaning is serious business down here where we coexist with many insects and other critters in the intense heat/humidity, and all of our buildings’ windows are made of wire mesh, so dust and grime easily get inside! I truly learned how to clean once I moved here, and now it has become an indispensable daily routine. 
Over the last few weeks we have done many small-scale maintenance and cleaning activities (washing walls, hanging hammocks, purging closets, doing yard work, etc.) on our rural ministry property in Honduras as part of an ongoing effort to be good stewards. We are thankful for this place that God has lent us to live and serve in His name!
These were my feet recently after enjoying several hours of tree trimming, raking and hauling rocks on our ranch property alongside some of our teenage daughters and female students. Praise God for the opportunity to do honest, physical work in God’s beautiful creation!
The children and teenagers from our neighborhood/school come in waves and fill this space with laughter and activity throughout any given week. In the early mornings and on weekends my husband, our 6 foster children and I have the space largely to ourselves and enjoy this peaceful refuge the Lord has granted us.

We send our sincere thanks to those who faithfully pray for and financially support this grassroots ministry. I continue to post photos, anecdotes and edifying material on Facebook on a regular basis if you want to follow us (Jennifer Zilly Canales), and I am likewise available via email for those who want to contact us directly (JenniferZillyCanales@gmail.com). God bless you, and may God receive all the glory for the work He’s invited us to do here in rural Honduras.

On Friday, July 2nd we held our mid-year recital on our ranch property as a way of encouraging our local community and sharing with them some of the fruits of our students’ hard work so far this year. There were performances from my husband Darwin’s youth orchestra and choir along with dance routines and evangelistic activities.
Some of the members of our family during a recent outing to a local church for a special presentation.
Central America, Current World Events, Family, Farm Life, Foster, God At Work Among Us, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests, Teaching

September Updates from Honduras

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I send you our warm greetings on behalf of my husband, our foster children and the few dozen students/staff in our school.  We want to sincerely thank those who continue to pray for and financially support this ongoing mission on the northern coast of Honduras.

Here are  four of our  foster teens preparing the land during a recent family work day.

Our guard dogs were eager to ‘help’ us plant our garden!

Through this post I would like to extend the offer to pray for you. Our family has developed the daily discipline of interceding in prayer for others each morning before beginning our daily activities, so I would just like to leave the door open should you feel you want our family to pray for you specifically. Our family is learning that many times we humans try to fight our ‘battles’ in our own strength or by our own means, but truly much of what we face has spiritual implications and must be fought through prayer before the Lord. My email address is JenniferZillyCanales@gmail.com should you feel led to contact us privately and share with us a personal struggle or concern. We have little to offer in general terms, but it would be our honor and joy to pray for you if you reach out to us.

Here are several baby ducklings who were recently born on our ranch. Our foster teens have enjoyed tending to their needs and partaking in the tender care of God’s creation.

I will keep this post fairly short; our daily commitments and service-oriented lifestyle continue on in much the same way as I’ve reported on this blog the last several months. We are thankful that God has opened up recent communication with several of the teens who lived with us for a season but currently find themselves outside our home. We’ve had the privilege of parenting 12 youth in all since 2013, and currently 5 continue living under our watchful care. We sense God is orchestrating much reconciliation among us and opening doors for new mentor-type relationships with several of our 7 foster sons and daughters who had dropped out of our lives for a season. This is a huge triumph!

Here are our foster teens eating lunch in the home of our missionary-teachers after receiving morning classes.

I would ask for prayers regarding the publishing of my first book, as I’m in the midst of a possible change of publisher. There are many decisions to be made, and it is my hope that throughout the process God may be glorified and that many lives will be impacted as a final result. Thank you for your prayers!

This is one of the views from inside our ranch property where we’ve lived and served full-time since 2013. Throughout the last several months we’ve engaged in several small-scale maintenance projects as we strive to be good stewards of the land and facilities.


God bless you and your loved ones, and please don’t hesitate to let us know if we can be of service or encouragement to you in any way.

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

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

Late Summer Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

 

Central America, Current World Events, Family, Farm Life, Foster, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests

Manuscript Sent to the Publisher and Other Updates

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We send you our warm greetings from our ranch homestead in Honduras. I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are healthy and thriving despite the pandemic.

We send our sincere thanks to all those who continue financially supporting and praying for this small mission even in the midst of so much global uncertainty. We appreciate you and thank God for His provision through you. Several months ago one of our local missionary-teachers (Lawny) helped me write thank-you notes to all those who actively support us, but the Honduran post office has been closed since March so we’ve been unable to send them! If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll reach you by Christmas! : )

My husband Darwin and one of our foster daughters in a recent water balloon fight on our ranch

Our eldest daughter, age 19 and living outside our home for the past year, participated in her little brother’s 13th birthday party. We are amazed to see God’s work in her life and the way He is restoring our relationship with her. 

Here in Honduras we continue indefinitely under quarantine and general restrictions, although we have learned to make the best of it. Our small staff of missionary-teachers continues to diligently work and educate our students, but now they do so mainly out of their own homes. The majority of our teachers live in close geographical context to our students, so they have begun teaching and giving tutoring sessions in their own living rooms and on their own porches, receiving small groups of students at a time. One of our local missionary couples (Erick and Aracely) still directs an intensive discipleship group 1-2 times per week out of their home and continues to organize community service and evangelism projects on a regular basis.

We began our journey as foster parents with these three back in 2013. They’ve grown a little bit since then!

Here are a few of the calves that have been born on our ranch property recently.

We are currently digging a professional well on our ranch, as water issues have plagued us for these past several years. The NGO Primero Agua is helping us install this addition free of charge, and we’ve been hosting their men in our home for the past couple weeks.  They will most likely have to wait to finish the project until early next year as our property is plagued by many rocks and they need a more advanced drill to get past them all.

Today I officially sent in the manuscript of my first book to a self-publishing company, and these next few months will be dedicated to editing and marketing. The title is Hidden Treasures: An American Living in the Developing World Wrestles with Significance, Faith and Suffering. This has been my main project throughout these past few months of quarantine, and I hope the book will serve as a small flame to light the paths of many for God’s glory. In my book I use pseudonyms to protect our children’s identities, and I will begin doing so here on this blog as well. So, in the following posts don’t be surprised if I stop mentioning our kids’ real names!

In the summer months we have a lot of birthdays in our home! We take advantage of these small celebrations to pray individually for our kids and dedicate them once more to God’s care.

My husband, our five foster teens and I are doing exceedingly well.  We continue to run daily as a family and are currently on the cusp of reaching 30,000 pages read in quarantine! We have, however, been without internet for about three months now, which has both complicated and simplified our lives.

God bless and keep you. Sincerely in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

Central America, Current World Events, Family, Farm Life, Foster, Homeschool, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests

Greetings and Updates from Rural Honduras: Quarantine Edition

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We send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead on the northern coast of Honduras. We sincerely hope that each of you and your loved ones are found safe and at peace during the uncertainty of the Coronavirus epidemic.As are many around the globe, we have currently been put ‘on-hold’ by all the unexpected changes that have come with the Coronavirus scare. We continue to diligently parent and guide our 5 foster teens at home but are confined to mainly long-distance school-related activities with our teachers and students. We had not wanted to suspend our service to the local community, but we were given no other choice.
We are currently seeking the Lord within the context of our own home and trying to consume as little as possible.  We have also decided to dedicate several hours weekly to musical practice and other in-home academic pursuits. My husband has been leading our foster teens in many agricultural/maintenance activities on our rural property, and a few of our daughters and I have begun composing music/song to some of the Psalms from the Bible. We’ve also been devouring many edifying books and currently have the goal of reading 10,000 pages as a family. After only a few weeks of quarantine, we’re already more than halfway there!

As for our family’s physical health, we are finally getting over a prolonged bout with Typhoid fever. The antibiotics proved ineffective, so we have turned to several natural remedies. They have begun producing positive results and our symptoms have largely faded, so we thank God for the renewed blessing of health in our household. I would, however, ask for prayer with my ongoing battle with insomnia, as I’ve only been able to sleep 2-3 hours per day over the past several months. Such levels of sleeplessness produce almost constant fatigue in my daily life and greatly affect the measure to which I am able to enjoy and likewise be useful in the life the Lord has given us.

If any who read this blog have personal prayer requests or worries/concerns during this time of global uncertainty, please do not hesitate to contact me personally (JenniferZillyCanales@gmail.com) and I will be more than glad to be in contact with you, encourage you and lift up your needs/concerns in prayer before the Lord. We choose to trust in God in the midst of what can potentially cause fear and unrest, and I would like to make myself available to encourage others in the same.

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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

First Update of the New Year (2020)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Central America, Family, Foster, Marriage, Personal Reflection, Prayer Requests

Communication Sabbatical + Year-End Request

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I send you our warm greetings from the Living Waters Ranch, our rural ministry homestead in Honduras.

I write to inform you of two things:

  1. I will be taking a communication sabbatical from this blog during the next four weeks. I hope to spend more focused time with my husband and our 6 foster children as all of us will have our annual  month-long break from our normal school, work and ministry activities.
  2. Our ministry income has unexpectedly come up short these last three months and our funds are currently much lower than they should be. If you desire to support this mission through a year-end tax-deductible donation, you can do so electronically through the following link: DONATE LIVING WATERS RANCH.

Please pray for us during this upcoming month as my husband Darwin and I seek to slow down and rediscover how to live a quiet, private life before the Lord while cultivating our foster children/teens in Christ.

We will be working on several agricultural and maintenance projects with our foster children around our rural property in addition to blessing our neighbors through small evangelistic/service-oriented activities in our rural neighborhood. We recently invested in a small herd of sheep for our farm, and we are in the process of teaching our four teenage daughters to drive. As a family we will be doing a lot of cooking and domestic labors as we slow down this month, and my parents will also be visiting us soon.

Thank you to all who pray for us and support this mission financially. We could not serve in the way that we do without you. God bless you, and may your holiday season abound in rest, joy and the Lord’s perfect peace. I look forward to being in touch in mid-January.

With peace and gratitude in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

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Fall 2019 in Rural Honduras: Photos, Updates and Prayer Requests

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Greetings to all from the Living Waters Ranch, our rural ministry homestead on the northern coast of Honduras.

I’m relieved to inform you that the political crisis has calmed down a bit lately, and the roads have been open with no noticeable protests for the last several weeks. We continue to pray that peace and justice might prevail in Honduras and that God might grant our leaders true wisdom so as to effect God-honoring, long-term solutions for this hurting nation.

Below I share with you a diverse set of photos (and detailed explanations!)  from our daily life of service in this little corner of the world…

This was a campout that several of our local missionary-teachers and students went on during a recent school vacation. These types of events are organized in order to dedicate additional time to disciple our students, offer healthy recreational activities for them,  and pour into their lives beyond the classroom for God’s glory. We offer several campouts such as these throughout the year, and many of our teenage students participate.

Darwin and a select group of our students (including two of our foster kids) were recently invited to sing on television with our new guitar/choir teacher (the man in the vest on the far left). He is a very talented local musician who composes up-beat songs with Christian and ecological messages.

This is 11-year-old Josue, a special-needs young man who lived with us as one of our foster children for over 4 years before moving in with his maternal grandmother earlier this year. We still see him frequently (and invite him to all of our family birthday parties), and he will actually be coming back under our full-time care during the upcoming months as his grandma will be out of the country for work until roughly March 2020. (Grandma feeds him really well and doesn’t let him play much outdoors, but we already have a plan for how we are going to help him regain the active health he enjoyed before!)

Several weeks ago my husband and several of our local students’ moms got together to celebrate my 29th birthday alongside of all of our students, teachers and foster kids. We miraculously cut the cake into over 60 pieces in order to make sure everybody got a piece! (I dare you to count ’em!)

You gotta be good at math to cut this cake!

Waiting for their little piece of cake!

One of our local students, an 8th-grader, explains his recent science project to a group of onlookers.      

This is my husband Darwin with a group of his English class students on a special field trip into the city of La Ceiba to eat pizza. Some of our local students never get out of our little rural town, so experimenting a change of environment tends to be very exciting. (One of our local teens had never seen the ocean even though the nearest beach is only a few miles away from our town. That was remedied as Darwin organized a large group field trip out to the beach earlier this year.)

This is Jeffrey, a local 15-year-old youth who has been in our school for the last several years. Currently in 4th grade, he has several developmental delays  and comes from a severely disintegrated home, as his father and one of his brothers left earlier this year for the United States, leaving him, his mother and two of his brothers behind. Jeffrey requires a lot of individualized attention as he has dislexia and ADHD, and my husband Darwin has a very soft spot for him. We are very proud of Jeffrey for choosing to stay in school and be exposed to daily biblical teaching, as it is very popular for teenage boys in our neighborhood to simply roam the streets or get mixed up in trouble.

This is a photo taken in Darwin’s group piano class earlier this month. Music is a fundamental element we try to inculcate in all of our students as part of their integral development, healing from past traumas, and preparation for life and God’s service.

Whenever our foster children have a birthday, we like to take the opportunity to write them love letters and little notes of affirmation and encouragement. These specific index cards were part of 16-year-old Paola’s celebration, and a few of them read “You are strong in Christ,” “Your life is of great worth,” “God has been good to you,” and “You are beautiful!”

Birthday parties are so much more fun with disguises!

Prayer is an integral part of life in our home. On this specific occasion we were praying for God’s blessing, wisdom and salvation over one of our foster kids on their birthday.

Several weeks ago I began teaching an intensive World Geography class to all of our students, focusing on current world trends and how we should react to said trends from a God-honoring standpoint. A recent topic for the class was the ever-increasing LGBT influence around the globe and how we as Christians should stand firm on the Bible’s clear teachings concerning homosexuality and God’s design of man and woman, biblical marriage, etc. As part of the class curriculum I asked all of our students to look up Bible verses specifically addressing these gender- and identity- issues, and to write them on index cards, poster boards, etc, in a loving and clear way with the goal of communicating truth and edifying one another as God created them. We have since filled two of our school’s bulletin boards with this precious information, and we continue to influence our students and foster kids to live a God-honoring life, not giving in to what the world claims is normal but rather standing firm on the Rock of truth.

Here are two of our beloved local missionary-teachers participating in a recent game of blindfolded Chinese freeze tag alongside of our students. (One is a lawyer by profession and the other is a trained beautician, but both have been called by God to lay down their lives and traditional plans in order to love, teach and disciple the next generation of Hondurans for God’s glory.)

This is Darwin doing the father-daughter dance with one of our foster daughters (Gleny) who recently turned 15, which is a big birthday in this culture.

Here is Erick (purple shirt), one of our extremely influential local missionary-teachers leading up a Saturday effort to clean up the streets in our neighborhood — a never-ending job done with grace and dedication!

Who knew that picking up trash could be so much fun?

God bless you, and thank you for your continued prayers and support. Please pray that the Lord might increasingly shine His light through us and that many might come to repentance and saving faith in Christ through this hidden yet faithful work. 

Sincerely,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

 

PS — Please feel free to contact me directly at JenniferZillyCanales@yahoo.com if you would like to share any personal prayer requests with me and/or reach out with any questions, suggestions or concerns.

Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Farm Life, Foster, Homeschool, Marriage, Teaching

Bed of Flowers: A Spontaneous Photo Shoot on the Front Lawn

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Yesterday in the early morning hours as I walked out onto our quiet front porch — our 7 foster kids sleepily getting showered and ready for another day of school — I stared at the raw, wild beauty that God had blessed us with right there on our front lawn. Little red flowers had fallen from two of our trees and laid scattered on the ground in a stunning array.

I thanked God in my heart for such beauty, and I considered that the entire scene would make for a one-of-a-kind photo shoot. After all, we have another kind of tree on our property that sheds yellow flowers in springtime every year, but we had not moved fast enough this year and sadly missed our opportunity to take pictures.

Well, just a couple hours after I stood prayerfully mesmerized on our front porch all of our missionary-teachers and local students came buzzing through our front gate for a new day of classes and discipleship. With minimal interruptions to our daily schedule we seized the day and organized a spontaneous photo shoot to capture behind the lens a measure of the love, joy and fellowship in the Lord that we enjoy here on a daily basis.

God bless you, and I hope these photos make you smile…

A partial view of the Living Waters Ranch, our rural ministry homestead where we love, disciple and educate over 40 youth in a homeschool-style setting for God’s glory

Our group of eighth-graders, including one of our foster daughters and eight local youth alongside of their homeroom teacher, one of our local missionary-teachers

Our ninth-grade homeroom teacher with her tiny group of faithful students: all three are foster daughters of ours!

Me having too much fun directing the photo shoot on our front lawn

My husband Darwin (blue shirt at the bottom of the photo) with his group of sixth-graders, including our foster son and seven local youth

One of our beloved adolescent tutors with her small group of basic primary students, all of which live in our local community with their parents

One of our highly dedicated  missionary-teachers (floral shirt) with two of our adolescent tutors who serve alongside of us in integral Christian discipleship and education

Our seventh-grade homeroom missionary-teacher with her group of students, including one of our foster daughters and eleven local youth

Last but not least: one of our missionary-teachers took a photo of my husband and me!

“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:8-9
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Baptism: A Public Proclamation of Faith in Christ

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A couple months ago a young man in our discipleship-based homeschool began asking when we would hold a baptism because he wanted to be baptized. He is an older teen who has only been in our school since February of this year, and he had previously lived his life quite adrift in our rural neighborhood without any real knowledge of God. He had been abandoned by both of his parents at a young age, and the disorderly reputation he established henceforth was quite well-known. (To be more exact, one of our teen foster daughters mentioned to me that they had gone as a group to his house in January and invited him to enroll in school on our rural ministry homestead specifically because he was so desperately lost.)

Thus, we were all surprised to see this precious teen’s newborn faith blossoming up within him and the new way in which he spoke and acted with deepened sincerity. The Lord was truly changing him, and he was eagerly soaking up all the Biblical teaching and guidance he could get in his search for Christ. He came to us repeatedly over the ensuing months in the midst of our daily relationship with him, explaining to us his faith in Christ and that he eagerly desired to be baptized as an important step in his walk with the Lord.

Through this one young man’s faithful insistence, we felt the Lord guiding us to open up the opportunity to the 40+ youth in our small school to see if there was anyone else who likewise wished to be baptized as a public proclamation of their faith in Christ.

The following photos record the event that took place in a local river earlier this month. We know that these photos do not capture a final declaration of faith and salvation but rather the very beginning of a lifelong walk under the lordship of Christ. Please pray with us that these youth might be granted the perseverance, wisdom and faith to continuing cultivating this life with Christ for the rest of their days and that they might not so easily drift back into the complacency and sin from which they came. We truly hope that the Holy Spirit might ensure that this work of faith in their hearts might reach completion and that God might be glorified through their lives as his beloved sons and daughters.

God bless you, and thank you to all who pray for and financially support this little mission on the northern coast of Honduras. We love the role the Lord has given us in His Kingdom and thank Him for your generous participation in this work. To Him be the glory.

With joy,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

This is the young man who came to us repeatedly asking to be baptized. He has begun participating in community service projects and praying for those in our local community, and he recently expressed his new understanding that God is his Father even if he doesn’t know his earthly father.

Our newest foster daughter sought us out a few weeks after moving into our household and told us she wanted to invite Jesus into her heart and be baptized. This is the start of new life!

This is another one of our teen foster daughters who will soon reach her two-year anniversary of living with us. God has done and continues to do great things in her life.   
All of these photos were taken by Randy and Marcia Orban who were visiting us during the time the baptism took place.

Bible study, Family, Foster, God At Work Among Us, Personal Reflection

Are You a King Kong or a Thor? (A Reflection on Obedience and Response)

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On our rural ministry homestead in Honduras we have three watchdogs that patrol the fenced-in area of our large grassy property. Their job is to make sure that no intruders get close to the little rainbow-colored buildings that serve as discipleship school, office and home. 

During daytime hours we keep all three dogs locked away in a pen behind our home so that they don’t have any interaction with our students or daytime visitors. Once everyone leaves at about 4:30pm, we let the dogs out and they enjoy intermingling with our family while also assuring that no unwanted visitors enter our remote property.

Two of the dogs are Dobermans, named King Kong and Xena. They serve their purpose well, as most people see them from afar with their large black bodies and clipped ears and don’t desire to get any closer. The third of our guard dogs is Thor, a Pit Bull puppy given to us a few months ago by a relative who was unable to care for him. While the Dobermans are poised, majestic and ready to defend our property at a moment’s notice, the Pit Bull is a bit more clumsy, goofy and outgoing.

King Kong and Xena

Yesterday afternoon my husband, several of our foster kids and I were eating and chatting on our front porch, which is currently where we have our fridge and our makeshift outdoor kitchen space while we have been working towards getting the area closed-in. Our three dogs are always eager to be close to the family, and suddenly the two Dobermans (King Kong and Xena) were excitedly — and more than a bit intrusively — approaching my husband to see if he might share his food with them. Tails wagging, the snouts of both dogs came dangerously close to my husband’s sandwich as he was sitting in a plastic chair with his food on their nose-level. In that moment one of our teen foster daughters — several yards away — made a sharp “Shhh!” sound to correct the dogs, and they immediately responded to the verbal correction and laid down at his feet, totally obedient. He kept eating in peace as we all continued to share the events of the day.

I thought, impressed, “Wow. Our dogs were extremely obedient just now. One sharp sound — without even saying their names! — and they immediately recognized their error and backed off. I sure wish our kids reacted in such an immediate, obedient manner when they are verbally corrected…Or I myself…”

To contrast the immediate, total obedience of our Dobermans (which was not an isolated incident yesterday but rather characterizes their overall demeanor), I will now share with you something that happened moments ago with Thor, our beloved Pit Bull puppy who is nothing like his older counterparts.

Little Thor when he arrived at our home several months ago

Today is Saturday, and this morning I got up before the other members of our household and quietly went out onto our front porch to serve myself a cup of water and grab some breakfast. As I sat down in the still morning hours on a concrete bench overlooking the vast green pasture where our cows were grazing, of course all three dogs eagerly came over to greet me and see what I was eating.

I don’t share people food with our dogs (and they know that), so the Dobermans immediately left me and my breakfast alone and sat quietly on the porch near me but without excessive bothering. Thor, however, jumped right up on the bench with me (which is a big no-no), so I began verbally trying to scare him off while I tried to protect my food at the same time. His snout danced up and down, enthralled by the smell of my breakfast, and I shook my hands in a shooing fashion and began scolding him louder and louder, assuming that my agitated posture and sharp tone of voice would send him the message that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that he would react accordingly.

Well, that didn’t happen. The Dobermans looked on, totally poised and well-behaved, while little Thor stayed put on the bench right next to me, intent on disobeying because he liked the idea of tasting a morsel of my breakfast. 

Several unsuccessful moments passed of me trying to shoo him off when I realized that he had zero intent of obeying me. I then grabbed a marker off the table that one of our students had left from the day prior and began thumping him with it — on his rear end at first, and then when that had no effect I kept thumping and shooing him on his back and then finally on his head.

I don’t enjoy beating our animals (and I don’t think thumping him with a bright pink marker can be classified as that), but he looked visibly hurt that I was treating him in such a harsh manner.

But he still made no move to get down off the bench.

Several more moments went by of me thumping and harshly scolding him while he just looked at me with these big, sad eyes as if he had no idea what he had done wrong or what he could do to escape from the torment.

Finally our two Dobermans dashed off to bark at something they sensed on the other side of the fence, and that distracted Thor just enough to cause him to clumsily jump down from the bench and follow them in their valiant defense of our property.

Our three guard dogs together

I laughed in relief and began eating my breakfast in peace as the dogs had finally left me alone, but suddenly the lesson — and the striking contrast between our dogs’ responses to correction — began to be made clear in my mind, and I dwelt on this for the following several minutes. 

I felt as if the Lord was telling me that we humans tend to fall into one of the two categories that our dogs had so perfectly embodied: that of quick, willing submission (loving, responsive obedience) or stubborn foolishness (chronic disobedience).

How many times has the Lord (either through His Word, through another person or through His Spirit moving within us) indicated to us something that we should repent of, something that needed to be changed or left behind, etc?

How many times have we reacted like King Kong and Xena, the ultra-obedient Dobermans? Perhaps very few.

How many times have we reacted as clumsy Thor, even getting beaten up a little bit along the way and getting our feelings hurt but even so never truly submitting, never actually learning the lesson at hand? Perhaps too many.

I leave you with this simple reflection inspired by ordinary events as we each consider before the Lord if we have truly been obedient to His call or His correction, if we have heard His voice or read His Word and truly reacted, or if we too often remain put in our foolish ways and refuse to change, to submit, wondering why things aren’t turning out so well for us in the process. If only we would obey, the torment might cease! Have we refused time and again to forgive, to break free from an addiction, to fulfill Christ’s command to love unselfishly?

God bless you and keep you in your daily affairs, and may He illuminate each of us so that we might come to know the perfect obedience of Christ even in the midst of suffering and trial. To God be the glory.

With peace and joy in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission

Answers to Illegal Immigration to U.S. Borders, Central America, Family, Personal Reflection

Spontaneous Photo Shoot: Jackeline’s Reading Perch

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A couple days ago after our discipleship-based community homeschool classes had let out at 3:00pm and our local students had returned to their homes in our rural neighborhood, I crossed our quiet front yard and caught sight of our 14-year-old foster daughter reading a Christian novel while perched on top of our large play structure that is normally swarmed with kids during recess time. It warmed my heart to see her so still and at peace while reading for pleasure (she used to hate reading, and we’ve been intentionally working on this not only with her but with all of our kids), and the sight of her way up there overlooking the beautiful pastures inspired me to go grab our little digital camera and take a few undercover photos of her…

When I got up close for one of my shots of her, my cover was broken and she started laughing when she saw me!

Our 15-year-old foster daughter Carolina — who moved in with us about six months ago — watched from close by and laughed while enjoying our spontaneous photo-taking antics.

Soon enough both Carolina and another foster daughter of ours, 14-year-old Paola, joined in the fun and started swinging on the monkey bars below Jackeline’s reading spot. (Great focus, Jackeline! She just kept on reading as if they weren’t there!)

The jungle gym is not only for little kids, but also for teens! Our kids are very playful…

…And so are their parents! Now it’s my turn! (At this point Jackeline’s taking photos from her perch!)

This is a photo Jackeline took of our cows’ barn in the distance and the mountains behind our property.

Our 16-year-old son Brayan, whom we are in the process of legally adopting, has greatly grown in his maturity/initiative in these last few weeks with the help of a local tutor. He finished his homework early (which used to never happen), so he went out front to enjoy a couple hours playing with the soccer ball! Good boy!

One last shot of Jackeline on her reading perch at dusk…beautiful!


Amen! Glory to God!

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

Prayer Request for Spiritual Renewal in Our Household and Ministry

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We are currently seeking your earnest prayers for spiritual and emotional renewal in our household with our 10 foster kids/teens ages 9-17. (This is probably going to turn out to be a somewhat disorganized post that is anything but eloquent).

The last several weeks all of our kids have been on school vacation (which has allowed all of us much more family time where we’ve all been together with less distractions), and the Lord has allowed us to go through something akin to the “valley of the shadow of death” (I call it this because that is what it has felt like) with them as we’ve come up against unforeseen challenges, incorrect attitudes, and sin issues in our household one after the other, leaving us all quite broken and frazzled in the aftermath. This has all led to many times of sincere prayer, on-edge conflict mediations between various family members, occasions of asking forgiveness and of forgiving, intense times of counsel with our teens, and moments of various members of our household becoming emotionally undone (myself included).

Seven of our ten kids are teenagers, and all of them come from extremely broken backgrounds. Parenting any teenager is a delicate task, but parenting 15- and 17-year-olds who come from dark places and who entered our lives on the cusp of puberty or several years already into their adolescence is not for the faint of heart. They want their privileges and freedoms as they are nearing adulthood, but they are still in the beginning stages of being trained in righteousness and have not yet proved they are trustworthy. (This power struggle creates much angst in our household).

I am seeking earnest prayers as our household has been shaken several times over the past several weeks, and we are in need of genuine repentance and spiritual maturity for each one of our precious children as they grab hold of their identity as beloved sons and daughters of the Living God. There are always certain challenges and difficulties in our daily parenting endeavor in such a large, mixed household, but for some reason the last few weeks have been much harder than usual. All of this has left Darwin and me quite exhausted and a bit discouraged.

This is a no-frills post; I am simply asking for prayer in regards to a renewed commitment to Christ in each one of our children along with spiritual maturity, the fear of the Lord, and abounding wisdom, joy, peace and love within the bounds of our hearts and household. Pray against gossip, disrespect, rebellion and sexual sin in our household, and please ask God to grant us revival in our walk with Him. Pray that the Lord would pick each one of us up in His mercy and encourage our hearts as we are entering a new year and a new season of serving Him. (Our small, dedicated team of local teachers/missionaries returned yesterday as we are entering a month-long period of team training, house-to-house evangelism in our rural neighborhood, intensive math tutoring for local students, and general preparation for a new school year in our discipleship-based community homeschool that will officially begin at the end of this month.)

Please pray also for me specifically, as these last few weeks have wrung me dry on all accounts, and I’m in need of encouragement and refreshment both relationally with other humans and on a spiritual level in my walk with Christ. I’ve gone walls-up with everyone around me after having been hurt so many times by our kids in these last few weeks, and due to emotional fatigue I feel as though I’ve just been going through the motions of each day, running from one activity to the next, just trying to stay afloat. Please pray that Christ might fully permeate my being and flood me with His peace so that I might be a useful instrument in His hands rather than merely a broken woman who runs around with her hair on fire all day until getting to her room at night and collapsing, exhausted and discouraged. Please pray that my heart might not be hardened and that my being might receive the light of Christ to cast away all darkness.

Thank you to all those who lift us up in prayer and support the Lord’s work through us in Honduras. May God bless you in this new year and fill you with His love. Thank you for considering our humble state before the Lord.