Several hours after our group Bible study this morning, I grabbed our old-fashioned digital camera and headed undercover (well, not quite) to each of our intensive classes that we hold every Friday for our more mature students. Most of our teens tried to run away or hide their faces when they realized I was taking pictures, but even so I got a few shots that are worth sharing.
The following are photos taken of the following intensive 3-hour classes: Music/Orchestra (piano, violin, recorder, marimba and guitar), English as a second language, and organic agriculture/discipleship. Normally during this early afternoon time-slot there is also a group in community evangelism, but this week that class was cancelled because the local pastor who directs the group is in surgery. Thank you to all of you who support this redemptive work and/or pray for God’s continued guidance and protection over us.
This is Ariel, one of our older local teen boys who comes from a very chaotic, undisciplined home life learning to play the marimba.These are two of our daughters whom we are in the process of adopting. Musical training – paired with ongoing relational Christian discipleship – is one of our techniques to redeem broken teens and heal them through healthy, dynamic activities for God’s glory.Paola (left), one of our new foster daughters who moved in with us about six months ago, with a local teen as they learn to play the recorder.The builders are making great progress on the dining room annex! (For the last couple weeks our community kitchen with its fridge, stove, pantry, etc has been moved to our front porch! Thank goodness we’ve got a big porch!)
The classes imparted at the Living Waters Ranch are not confined to normal classroom walls: we oftentimes teach outdoors, go on prayer walks with our students, and interact with the beautiful Honduran habitat around our buildings as part of the youth’s integral learning experience.This is Miss Ligia’s English as a second language class. Everyone got the giggles and tried to hide their faces when I entered with the camera!Nobody wanted to show their face!When I got close to her with the camera, she got the giggles! What a beautiful smile!Now back outside with the beginners’ recorder class on the porch!This is our new Christian psychologist who is multi-talented! In addition to helping greatly in the integral psychological/spiritual healing of our youth in Christ, she has also been instrumental teaching in the classroom, leading a group of teen girls in twice-weekly prayer time and freely sharing her God-given talents through various outlets.One of our local Honduran missionaries has a great passion to pair organic agriculture with small-group Christian discipleship, so several of these agriculture/discipleship classes are given throughout the week to the 60 youth in our program who desire to participate. In these photos our 16-year-old foster son Brayan is working with a local teen to dig a 12-foot-deep hole to receive the waste from the pig pen we are building. These activities cultivate work ethic, perseverance and strength of character in our teens in addition to a deepened love of God’s Word.
They’ve been working on this pit for weeks — one rock at a time!Two of our local teachers/missionaries work alongside of our students to cultivate the land organically as they learn more about their Creator and how to care for His creation.This is the little plot our kids have been working so hard on. They’ve planted plantains and banana trees here.
After my escapade out in the pasture, I passed back through our front gate and found one of our musicians hard at work in his song notebook.My last stop: a posed photo with three of our beloved recorder players (our foster daughter Jackeline, far left, and two local teens who have been in our program full-time over two years). Lookin’ good!Who knew that teenagers could be this cute?This is our foster daughter Jackeline. She is a talented mathematician, an avid cow-farmer and a great big sister to special-needs Josue. The Lord has done great things to transform her since she first moved in with us over three years ago, and we love her dearly.
Nobody else was willing to participate in an impromptu photo shoot, so I headed back across our front lawn to our cinderblock home to finish up my admin duties for the day! God bless you!
My husband Darwin recently took the following photos of his small group of students in the Living Waters Ranch’s beginners’ recorder class. This first semester (February-May 2017) he gave several music classes to different groups of students, including piano, advanced music theory/recorder and the beginners’ recorder class pictured below.
Last week as we entered into a new weekly schedule, Darwin began his group choir lessons for the first time this year, which a lot of our returning students are excited about because the choir was their initial connection to us as we began forming relationships with youth from our neighborhood from 2014 onward.
Darwin is a very passionate music teacher, and he firmly believes that God can utilize music to restore and renew the souls of broken children for His glory. He oftentimes takes the students outdoors to play in the shade of some large tree on our rural property, and he tends to incorporate prayer and Scripture-reading into the class. The photos shown below were taken on one such occasion.
This is “Little Ever,” our youngest student. He just turned 7 years old, and he is our daughter Gabriela’s classmate in our small first grade class. He is our night watchman’s youngest child.
Here are three beloved teen hooligans in Darwin’s recorder class. Roy (far left) is one of our eldest students this year, a local 17-year-old who came to us through unlikely circumstances and whom has really taken hold of all that has been offered to him through the Living Waters Ranch. His aunt recently told us that she is thrilled that God has used those of us who serve as Roy’s teachers to be ‘channels of blessing’ in his life. Roy is very consistent in showing a grateful and positive attitude, something that is highly uncommon in this culture. He is a follower of Christ and is one of the youth leaders in his church after having passed through a very difficult and dark childhood.
This is 12-year-old Cesar, part of a sibling group of three brothers who entered in our discipleship-based community homeschool program in January of this year. He had dropped out of the public school system after having completed fourth grade, and he was frequently seen darting around our rural neighborhood on his bike, generally wreaking havoc and without any direction. He has been surprisingly consistent with his attendance and effort with us thus far this year, and we are excited to see what fruit God will produce in his life via the many seeds that are being planted.
What a spacious and beautiful classroom!
This is our (mostly) precious special-needs son Josue who just turned nine years old yesterday. He serves as Darwin’s and my faithful ‘assistant’ in the various classes we give, and he enjoys playing with all the other kids during P.E., recess and lunch in addition to the fun games he does with his tutor. He serves as Darwin’s assistant in his advanced English class, and Josue surprised us all earlier today when someone thanked him for something (in Spanish), and he answered “Welcome” in choppy English. He suffers from severe speech impediments and struggles to put together basic words in his own language (Spanish), so we were all astonished to realize that he had actually learned (and was able to pronounce!) some English!
It looks like 11-year-old Jeffrey, one of our very wild and immature first grade students, got tired of playing recorder and decided to take a break! He’s eating a mango that must have fallen from the tree!
Hidden Treasures: Seeking the Kingdom of God in Honduras 