I send our utmost gratitude to all of our dedicated partners who continue to financially support and pray for this ministry even in the midst of such global uncertainty. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for standing with us and for continuing to contribute to this grassroots ministry even as your own families are undoubtedly cutting back on many expenses. We’re all in the same boat on this, and we thank God for your generosity, commitment and faithfulness even in this season of prolonged difficulty.
Here in Honduras, as in the United States and around the world, prices have skyrocketed this year and we are learning how to “tighten our belt” and focus on reestablishing our priorities as a family and ministry in an effort to survive economically and continue serving faithfully in the context God has called us to.
We have downsized each of our ministry budgets and cut our household’s monthly budget in half in an effort to responsibly manage the donations we receive while not diminishing the quality of the services, ministry and education we provide here in rural Honduras.
It is our duty to ensure the future of this ministry and to be as frugal as possible, something we have always taken seriously but even more so in this current season. Thank you for sticking with us and continuing to partner with us as we invest daily in the lives of dozens of Honduran youth with the love and truth of Christ.
A recent celebration in our grassroots Christian school for “Indian and Native Cultures Day”
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
I send you our warm greetings from our rural ministry homestead in Honduras. I hope this post finds each of you well and thriving in the Lord. Before continuing, I would like to apologize for my prolonged silence on this blog.
Recently I was largely bedridden for 2-3 weeks with Dengue and Typhoid fever, and in general due to our rural third world context and busy schedule I’ve had less than 2 hours of computer/internet access weekly over the last few months. Ever since taking over the position of fifth-grade homeroom teacher in July, my schedule and responsibilities have increased drastically, and in general my personal involvement with our students this calendar year through teaching, discipleship and mentorship has been perhaps more intense and at the same time more rewarding than ever.
I oftentimes feel that I have three precious, very important balls that I’m juggling in the air: our home/family (where I long to be emotionally available and attentive to our six foster teens and my husband); our grassroots school/ministry to our local community (where I am very involved as the co-director alongside my husband and teach several academic and extracurricular classes); and my “international” duties in which I keep tabs on the finances and maintain contact with those who pray for and support us (such as the maintenance of this blog, which oftentimes seems to be the last thing I get around to doing).
I oftentimes feel that when I am excelling in one area (example: at home or in our school), the other two areas suffer neglect. I suppose that is currently the case in a very unbalanced way, and once again I apologize for my prolonged “cyber” silence.
So, yes, we are alive and well, and we continue to serve the Lord and our neighbors with diligence and love. Just this morning we got up at 4:30am (as per our daily family schedule) and had our devotional and prayer time in our tiny living room alongside our six foster teens before cleaning the house together and getting ready for the day. From 6:00-8:00am I directed my women’s athletic club in a local park, where we laughed too much and played volleyball after studying the book of Psalms together. Back at home on our ranch, I spent an hour or so in our office making and copying quizzes for my fifth graders and organizing my materials for class tomorrow. I have two individual piano classes pending today for two teen girls, and I’m trying to catch up on administration/international ministry relations at a local internet spot in our town over the next hour or so. My husband Darwin spends every Thursday teaching individual and group music classes to 3-4 dozen children and teenagers, all of whom come up the long gravel path to our ranch for a day of learning, love and oftentimes lunch. He’ll be teaching until almost 6:00pm tonight, and we’ll probably collapse in bed around 10:30 or 11:00pm only to get up at 4:30am again tomorrow.
I share this with you so that you might catch a glimpse into a normal Thursday for us. Each day is different and follows a specific established schedule due to the nature of the pandemic and the fact that we’ve developed a very creative hybrid model, although we still do 95% of our teaching and discipleship face-to-face. We are very content with the life and calling the Lord has given us, and next month we’ll celebrate our 8-year anniversary as foster parents.
May the Lord bless you and keep you, and thank you again for your patience and understanding in regards to my lack of communication lately. Thank you for keeping tabs on us and partnering with us in this ministry, either through prayer, financial support or other means. We truly appreciate you and thank God for your life, generosity and friendship.
Sincerely in Christ, Jennifer, for Darwin and family/mission
I send you our warm greetings on behalf of my husband, our dedicated ministry staff and extended family here in rural Honduras at the Living Waters Ranch. I hope this post finds you physically healthy and spiritually in-tune with God’s will for your life during this unique season.
The last several updates I’ve posted on this blog have been very general and upbeat as I’ve painted with broad strokes the overall scene in which we currently find ourselves along with joint triumphs and adventures we’ve shared as a ministry and family over these past several months.
To change the perspective slightly, this post will be written from a more personal perspective, much the same way as I used to write our blog updates in the early years of our life and ministry overseas. Although doubtlessly riddled with my own insecurities and weaknesses, I hope this post proves to be a blessing and encouragement to you and that God might be glorified through the words and perspective I share.
Several weeks ago I became our grassroots school’s fifth-grade teacher after an unexpected personnel change mid-year left us with a void needing to be filled. I sensed God calling me to step up to the plate, and although this somewhat drastic schedule change for me has greatly added to my weekly juggling routine, I have found renewed joy in my increased contact with these young children, as our 6 foster teens at home are already well beyond that developmental stage and are quickly approaching adulthood. I have six rowdy boys and one extremely shy little girl in my fifth grade classroom, and being their teacher has proved a new, blessed challenge that has put my creativity, love and faith to the test. The greatest challenge of all has been (and continues to be) to entrust these young lives to the Lord on a daily basis and try to faithfully protect their innocence in the midst of a world culture bent on corruption and moral failure. On many occasions after a day spent with my precious fifth-graders I have felt defeated and overwhelmed at all the filth these young lives have already been exposed to, and I find myself before the Father in prayer, undone and unsure how to guide these little ones along the blessed narrow path when so many evil forces seem bent on enticing them away from it.
Earlier this month I celebrated my 31st birthday in a low-key celebration alongside some of our family and friends here. We had a small bonfire on our front lawn with one of our young staff members playing worship music on the guitar, and teenagers (and adults!) ran about delighted by their firecrackers and silly pranks. Reminiscing, I remember having moved to Honduras when I was 21 years old and freshly graduated from college. I am now 10 years older. Physically I still feel like I’m close to 20 years old, as I eat healthy and train athletically five days a week and have begun playing pickup basketball on a local rundown court with our teenage male students (hence my sprained ankle and wrist that have plagued me these last several weeks), but in my heart I often battle against a certain heaviness and burden for all that I’ve seen and been exposed to in these 31 years. I carefully ponder these things and give them over to the Lord’s care, as my own youth is giving way to a new season as I likewise see the world around me change at a shocking pace. I oftentimes prayerfully (and, sometimes, fearfully) wonder what the world will be like in a short 5-years’ time and what price I will pay for the faith that up until now has come so easy.
This October will mark 4 years since my last visit to the United States (or any other country outside Honduras, for that matter). Weekly I read articles on the Christian Post and try to remain healthily informed from afar, and frequently my heart aches in response to what I read. I have no plans at this point for a visit to the States, and I wonder if I do step foot on American soil at some point in another year or two if I will even recognize my homeland (or feel welcome in it). Without a doubt, Honduras has many dire problems of its own and lawlessness has long since wrecked many lives here, but I feel at least temporarily safe and beyond reach at the base of these mountains and daily feel led into deep reflection and prayer about the state of the world at large.
I will leave it at that for now. This is the first time I’ve written – really written – since my publishing journey. May the Lord bless and strengthen us all for the days ahead, and may He teach each one of us how to experience genuine hope and joy in these difficult times. To Him be all the glory.
Here in Honduras we continue under many general restrictions that have served as a great frustration to us over the past 11 months, but we are determined not to put our grassroots Christian school on hold and leave our students’ lives adrift until this season of global uncertainty passes.
Our internet access in rural Honduras is highly unstable and the majority of our students come from families with very low economic flexibility, which means they don’t have consistent access to technology in their homes. This has made our attempts at ‘virtual education’ nearly impossible.Â
Thus, with a bit of creativity, risk and prayer, we’ve designed a largely off-site school program this year that we have begun as of February 2, the first official day of classes. We are not allowed to hold normal classes and activities on our Ranch as we would in normal times (this prohibition is currently in effect for all Honduran educational institutions), so we’ve decided to direct the majority of our school’s activities on a local church campus, in a backyard pavilion at one of our teachers’ homes, and in a local park. We’ve divided our student body into small groups in each location.
This year our students are still involved in evangelism activities, community service, dance class, Bible studies, P.E. class, organic agriculture and all the normal academic pursuits enjoyed under typical circumstances, just in varying locations. My husband Darwin is excited to have started up his youth choir again, seeking to involve many of the local youth in our town who are not enrolled in any school and spend much of their day wandering without purpose.Â
We ask that you pray for us as we implement this counter-cultural off-site program and that the local educational authorities do not interfere in our sincere attempts to continue educating, molding and loving our students for God’s glory.Â
This is one of our veteran teachers embracing a new local student who enrolled in our grassroots school’s small sixth grade class a couple weeks ago.
I write to you from our rural ministry homestead on the northern coast of Honduras to ask for prayer for my husband, our 5 foster children/teens (ages 12-17) and me.
This is a photo of the Living Waters Ranch where we live and serve for God’s glory.
I had fallen very ill a little over two weeks ago, and after doing the necessary blood tests I realized I had Typhoid fever again, a tropical illness that has plagued me 1-2 times per year over the past several years (and the effects of which tend to last in my body 5-7 weeks each time). As I was largely bedridden and unable to fulfill many of my daily responsibilities, we began investigating further after a local medical professional suggested that everyone in our household do the Typhoid fever bloodwork to see if someone else is a carrier of the disease (without necessarily manifesting the symptoms).
So, several days ago my husband took all of our kids into town, and everyone’s blood results came back positive. (It’s no wonder why I had never truly ‘overcome’ Typhoid; everyone in my household is a carrier, so they kept passing it back to me once I would temporarily get better!)
This is the view of part of our cows’ grassy pasture out behind the little ‘casitas’ (houses/buildings) on our property. We are the last stop at the end of our gravel road!
I share all of this with you to ask for prayer for our family, as we are currently waist-deep in the process of undertaking a rigorous antibiotic treatment and trying to sterilize our home as much as possible (which is difficult living out on a ranch in the hot, humid Honduran climate without air-conditioning, with wire-mesh windows and many insects/other wild critters close by).
GENERAL UPDATES IN A NUTSHELL: We thank God that our daily school/discipleship outreach to roughly 45 youth in addition to our community service/evangelism continues onward with excellence (despite my poor health these last couple weeks) thanks to the dogged dedication of our team of Honduran missionary-teachers. We continually strive to be Jesus’ hands and feet to those around us, and I hope to share some recent photos/stories in an upcoming post. Additionally, my mom and step-dad will be visiting us in a couple days, and we await their visit anxiously.
This is a view from the inside of the fenced-in area where we do the majority of our daily teaching, Bible studies, music classes, etc.
This is our cozy little cinderblock home where my husband and I live happily with our 5 foster children/teens. In obedience to the call God has put on our lives we have parented 12 youth together in this home since 2013; 7 have moved on and returned to their biological families and/or are now living their lives as young adults.
God bless you, and we sincerely thank those who regularly lift us up in prayer before the Lord and/or financially support this mission. We could not serve in the way that we do without your generosity, sacrifice and commitment. Thank you!
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!Â
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
Okay, so nobody actually went undercover, but the following photos were taken by our dedicated team of Honduran missionaries/teachers in the midst of our daily efforts to connect with, teach and disciple the youth in our community homeschool program for God’s glory.
We are currently wrapping up the 2018 school year (the traditional Honduran school calendar runs from February to November) with over 40 full-time students involved in our little grassroots mission. Thank you to all who pray for and financially support this living expression of God’s love in Honduras.
Our Christian psychologist solicited the help of a few students to paint her little counselling space.
Our school is very dedicated to giving individualized attention to each student as the majority of our youth come from very broken backgrounds and need personalized mentoring, tutoring and relational discipleship. For that very reason we try to keep each grade at a limit of 3-10 students. This is our very small eighth grade class with three faithful members who have been under our academic and spiritual guidance over two years now.
Much of our teaching occurs outside the classroom walls!
This was an organized field trip for a group of our students to explore a local river.
Last month we celebrated one of our foster daughters’ 15th birthday party, which is a very special occasion in Latin American culture. Here she (Jackeline) is posing with Erick and Aracely, an extremely dedicated Honduran couple who serves alongside of us daily at the Living Waters Ranch in teaching and discipleship while also voluntarily filling the role of aunt and uncle for our foster children.
Here my husband Darwin, Jackeline’s special needs brother Josue and I are enjoying her special day. It is not uncommon in our area for 15-year-old girls to already be pregnant or be living in a marital-type relationship, so the fact that our foster daughter is living in sexual purity, is doing great in school and is seeking God’s will for her life deserves celebration!
An after-school get-together between teachers and students on our front lawn
When it’s your birthday in Honduras, they pelt you with flour and/or raw eggs…One of our local students got to celebrate turning 13 on a school day! (Poor guy.)
(Front) One of our five foster daughters who just recently hit her one-year anniversary of happily living in our family. We plan on legally adopting her when she turns 21, as it is impossible to do so before then due to certain legal requirements around her case.
Another one of our foster daughters enjoying some kind of after-school fun. (I have no idea what she’s doing, but I absolutely love that smile.)
What better way to learn about plans in Science class than to go outside and plant a garden? This was my husband Darwin’s idea, and he gathered together our motley crew of roughly 20 primary schoolers to do just that…
This little boy was one whose father withdrew him from our school unexpectedly in order to join the migrant caravan to the United States.
Many of the youth in our primary school are already well into our teens (like the young man whose back is facing the camera, age 15 even though he doesn’t appear that age) but are very behind academically due to the poor local public school system and/or family issues that caused them to have to drop out of school for several years, drastically interrupting their education.
About a month ago my husband and Erick, the other male teacher/missionary on our team organized a campout up in the mountain with a group of our teen boys.
Even teenagers can enjoy jumping rope! Here are two of our teen boys (ages 16 and 17) who are in ninth grade with us enjoying this spontaneous after-school game. (My husband and I joined in as well!)
In Honduras, “Indian Day” is a very big deal…so we all got dressed up to celebrate!
What a precious family (mother, who works with us, and daughters who are in school with us)!
My husband got really into Indian Day and covered himself with clay and crafted a handmade loincloth. He was definitely the center of attention and made a whole lot of people laugh!
My husband and I performed a made-up Indian dance for our students (which they really enjoyed)…
One of our extremely mature and hard-working local students who aspires to be a Christian psychologist
One of our local teachers (right) alongside of a student of ours
Thank you and God bless! (I hope some of the photos made you laugh.)
Hidden Treasures: Seeking the Kingdom of God in Honduras 