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Summer Updates from Honduras

June 16, 2022 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Dear family and friends, near and far:

I send you our warm greetings from our ranch ministry homestead (the Living Waters Ranch) in a forgotten corner of tropical Honduras. We are currently in the midst of another suffocating Honduran summer, and the heat/humidity makes for some long, sweaty days!

First of all, I want to extend our sincere thanks to all of those who continue to faithfully contribute economically and in the arena of prayer support to this ministry. As in America, here in Honduras inflation, gas prices and overall costs of living have skyrocketed over the past many months (because many of our products are imported from the States, and any changes in the US political/economic sphere — for better or worse — almost always have a direct impact on us here). Your continued support of this mission — even in these globally trying times — has been an incredible support, and we continue to serve, teach, disciple and care for dozens of children and teenagers through our Christian school and music outreaches for God’s glory.

We continue to ask for prayer support in the arena of protection from government harassment. The new Honduran government seems bent on shutting us down or at least complicating our lives/ministry to a very high degree, and they have showed up numerous times recently to interrupt our daily school activities, nit-pick, threaten and throw additional requirements on us that are almost impossible to fulfill. They see our alternative school as a threat to the public education system (which is very closely linked to Honduran politics), and due to fear that we might “steal” their students or that our system of grassroots, personalized education just might work a little bit better than the status quo, they are bent on making sure we don’t succeed. This has been very taxing on us (especially for my husband Darwin, who is the one who normally takes them on and has to jump through a ton of hoops just to keep us open), so we humbly solicit your prayers and seek God’s protection in the midst of it all.

Other than that, the 50+ students in our small grassroots Christian school are thriving like never before, and this year has brought about many new experiences, moments of blessing and life-changing relationships. We hope to continue to serve, mentor, coach and raise up these children and youth for God’s glory for many years to come if God continues to grant us the strength, resources and favor to do so.

On a family level, our foster family continues to go through a season of upheavals as several of our long-term foster teenagers have left the nest ahead of schedule and others have told us they are headed that way. It has been a bittersweet season of heartbreak, of learning to let go, and of maneuvering new (and sometimes complicated) waters of knowing how (and when) to remain involved in our kids’ lives in this new season that many of them have chosen to live outside the protection of our home. The Lord has opened many doors for us to remain involved in our kids’ lives as mentors in this new season, although admittedly it is very complicated and they are oftentimes all over the map (sometimes geographically, sometimes emotionally). We solicit your prayers for our household, where we currently have 3 teenagers who remain with us for now. We are continually seeking God’s will for our family, the future of our household, etc., as many of the dreams that we had hoped to achieve with our kids have been changed drastically. We are currently asking God for new dreams and a new vision for the future.

The five members of our household (my husband, our 3 teenagers and I) have been diligently seeing a Christian psychologist/counselor in a nearby city on a weekly basis over the past couple months as we seek to navigate through the many changes/challenges we’ve faced, and likewise we have been sponsoring several other people whom we serve through our ministry to receive these edifying visits with the counselor. The Lord has called us to serve those who have suffered trauma/neglect and oftentimes have had their lives smashed to pieces, and He’s called us to help pick up the pieces in His name and help make lives whole again. It is a messy task (and in the process we ourselves can get pretty bruised and damaged), but we believe it is worth it and that what we are doing is not in vain.

Thank you for your prayers, friendship and support.

Sincerely, Jennifer (for Darwin and family/mission)

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December 2021 Greetings

December 13, 2021 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

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

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The Miracle Dinner: Give It All Away to Make Room For the Impossible

November 20, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

Darwin and I stood out just beyond our front gate in a circle with our 10 foster kids ages 9-17. A million tiny lights twinkled above as we took in the perfectly still night on our rural property near the mountains. In a country where corruption, widespread despair and unpunished violence are the norm, to look another human being in the eye — alas! one that does not even share your blood! — and to really feel God’s love for that person truly is a sign of our Father’s active work in the world. We all held hands in that blessed circle that night, each person in perfect peace as our kids waited for what Darwin and I were going to tell them.

Earlier that day Darwin had told me that one of our beloved local students that we’ve been closely discipling and teaching for two years was probably going to have to drop out of our community homeschool in order to begin working full-time because his father had lost his job and his family thus had no means of purchasing food. The love that God has given us for this student is immense, and we knew full well the poverty his family was in when his father did have a job: several family members live together in a one-room wooden shack with a dirt floor and suffer what we can imagine to be immense daily hardship. And now that our student’s father — the sole provider of the household — had gotten laid off, how would they survive?

As Darwin shared this devastating news with me, the Lord immediately put an instruction upon my heart, “Share your rice and beans with them.”

We had just received a day or two prior two big sacks of rice and two big sacks of beans (each weighing like 50 pounds). The Lord had already led us to give away one sack of each, thus leaving one of each for our family’s consumption and daily use in our community kitchen where we serve lunch to roughly 45 people on schooldays. For us, rice and beans are not a cute side dish but literally our steak and potatoes that we eat 2-3 times each day. It is our daily bread. To give away that which was given to us — to supply our own very real economic need as we seek to feed many hungry mouths each day — would surely be foolish, right? It would be poor administration of that which was given to sustain us. Downright crazy! If we were to give away our rice and beans, what would we eat?

Even as these extremely logical objections showered my mind, my heart was already convinced; ready to obey, and to do so joyfully. To participate with the living God as His hands and feet to the most vulnerable? Surely there is no greater privilege than this! Count us in.

(As I share this story and the rest of the ensuing events, I do so not to call attention upon ourselves but rather to serve as witnesses to God’s active work in the world with the great hope of stirring you on toward great faith, obedience and good deeds in Jesus’ name.)

Then, completely unexpectedly, the Lord spoke another command to my heart: “Not only your rice and beans, but also all the other food you purchased this morning.”

Wha– ?

Oh, I had made my peace with giving away our bulk-sized sacks full of rice and beans, but also those specialty items I had purchased that same day at the local grocery store? Those spaghetti noodles, cartons of eggs, and frozen chickens that would serve as delicious — and sometimes rare — compliments to our general menu of strictly rice and beans? Surely if we gave away all of that food as well (which, again, was destined toward a great purpose: to feed our foster children and local students, all of whom come from backgrounds of devastating poverty and malnutrition), we would be committing a great act of irresponsibility. To give away not only our rice and beans but also the additional food would literally leave us with nothing! (And it is not a mere question of running back to the supermarket to buy more.) That food was destined to be our provision — our daily sustenance — for then next week or so!

Then Jesus’ words entered my mind, right on the heels of His command: “If you are asked to carry a load one mile, carry it two miles. Go the extra mile for love of Me. Don’t give just your rice and beans; give it all.”

Oh, how many times do we congratulate ourselves on giving away our leftovers, that which we never truly wanted or needed! But to give away all that we have for love of God? Oh, this is pure, raw obedience. This is the kind of stuff miracles are made of! Surely God was making room for the impossible. I ruminated on His second command, still trying to reason myself out of it.

Hours later, then under that beautiful starry night sky in that blessed circle with my husband and our 10 kids, we made the announcement. Carefully, in hushed voices, we informed our children of our student’s (their friend’s) great economic need and that God had spoken to our hearts that He would supply their need through us. Our kids listened attentively, some with a sparkle in their eyes.

I spoke, “God told me to give them our big sacks of rice and beans.”

I breathed as I felt like I was taking a running start as I was about to go free-falling over a giant cliff, “…and all the other food in our kitchen.“

That was it! That was what God wanted me to say!

Total peace flooded my body, and all those noisy objections were at once silenced.

I continued, then full of confidence in God’s perfect will (especially when it goes completely against all human logic), “So, now all of you will head into our kitchen, and whatever God leads you to give away, grab it and we’re going to load it up in our truck. Remember, we don’t give away what we don’t like; we give to God the best of what we have.”

Their eyes trained on ours, smiles grew on their faces as Darwin and I indicated to them that it was their moment to participate, to act as God’s warriors of compassion on the front lines of the war. They squealed and raced off through our front gate and into our large, concrete-floored kitchen as if they were hot on the trail of delicious treats in some competitive Easter-egg hunt.

Darwin and I followed in their enthusiastic footsteps and we entered our kitchen to find our 10 kids in a frenzy, grabbing egg cartons and frozen chickens, salt, and the like. Our eldest son, 16-year-old Brayan, had one of the big sacks of rice or beans on his shoulder as he carried the incredibly heavy bag out the door. Others grabbed bananas and just about every food that moments before was sitting idly on our pantry’s shelf.

At one point, as the frenzy was winding down, one of our daughters reached for a bag of Cornflakes to add to the giving bag. Our 14-year-old daughter Jackeline intervened, eyes full of sincerity and joy as she stopped her sister, “Better yet, let’s give away the bag of granola. I like the granola more.”

Oh, she got it! To give away that which one likes more. Jackeline prefers granola; thus that is what the Lord led her to give away. Yes!

And so within a time span of five minutes or so our kitchen was completely emptied — all but one frozen chicken, some toilet paper and possibly that bag of Cornflakes that Jackeline left behind. We bounded out to our vehicle — everyone helping shoulder loads, carry bags and load the whole prize up into our truckbed.

As everyone got on board, we instructed our kids to be as quiet as possible, as this act should be done in secret. This was not about us; it was about obedience to God’s call to love. After all, Jesus said that to feed those who don’t have food is to feed Christ Himself. We were on a sacred mission to feed Christ in disguise. Surely there is no greater fun, no greater rush of adrenaline that to live in a constant gamble for God! Our hearts were bursting with joy.

And so we rumbled quietly down that pitch dark gravel road to a lonely corner on the edge of a pineapple field where our beloved student lives. It appeared that no one was home. This encouraged us, as we would then be able to leave everything in their front yard as a total surprise gift without being recognized as the ones who were used by God in the process.

A few emaciated dogs howled near the house as our girls asked us nervously, “And if thieves come and take the food before the family returns home?”

My honest, immediate response, “May God bless the thieves.”

Their eyes grew as they stared at me in disbelief, although deep down they knew that to be true. Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you. It was what God had been teaching us in word and deed over the last several weeks. This was just one more experience of stepping out in faith.

Forgetting the flashlights at home, I used my itty bitty cellphone to light a path through the overgrowth as everyone shuffled out of the car and began unloading the food as quietly as possible so as not to alert the neighbors. Oh, what a reverse robbery! Arriving in secret to give rather than to steal! Blessed be the name of the Lord, for He loves these reconnaissance missions.

Once everything was unloaded, we quickly re-entered our old pickup truck and rumbled back up that rocky trail to our rural homestead. We could feel God’s presence unspeakably near.

As I look back on these events — which happened a few weeks ago — I cannot remember if it was that same night or the next day, but what I will now share with you is the truly surprising part of the whole story.

As we were left with nearly no food in the house, we joyfully went about our business without giving a second thought to our empty pantry. I even got wrapped up in a deep conversation with Carolina, our new 15-year-old daughter who moved in with us last month, and our scheduled dinner hour completely escaped me. As she and I wrapped up our conversation with prayer and a long hug, I glanced at the clock and realized I had not fulfilled my “momma” duty very well to prepare dinner (but what was there to prepare anyway?), so I assured our hungry kiddos that I would head over to our kitchen and see what I could scrap up to make dinner.

In that moment our teenage son Brayan came through our front door and said, “Dinner’s ready.”

My head cocked to one side and one eyebrow probably instinctively raised high as I asked, “What? Really? Who made dinner?” (And what on earth did they make? Dry Cornflakes and a couple squares of toilet paper to go with it?)

“Yup! Dinner’s ready,” asserted Brayan as I continued to stare on in incredulity. He clarified, “Carminda brought dinner over. Everything’s served.”

Carminda — our night-watchman’s wife who works with us part-time during the week in cleaning and cooking but who has no commitment whatsoever to make dinner for us on a weekend. It was Sunday. And, let it be known that she had never made dinner for us before when it wasn’t specifically her day to come work and prepare food (nor had anyone else).

(Plus — just to go further in my explanation of these events — she had no idea that we had just given away all of our food.) It was already late and she should have thought that we had already eaten dinner. What had prompted her? That is for God to know and for us to marvel at in awe and joy.

So I walked — taking careful steps as if walking on holy ground — across our front lawn and over to our community kitchen building that also serves as our family’s kitchen. There on our wooden dining room table were two big pots — one with a chicken-and-vegetable soup, the other with hot, fresh rice — and (if I remember correctly) she had also made fresh tortillas for us. A full meal. And she wasn’t even there, beaming with a big smile to see our reaction to her generosity. She — herself a poor woman who frequently doesn’t have enough food to feed her own family — had simply prepared us an extravagant meal, dropped it off almost as if in secret, and went on her merry way.

I stared at the food in silence.

Our kids enthusiastically opened up the pots to take a sneak-peek at what was inside as everyone’s stomachs were growling. It smelled so good! Our kids ran to the sink to wash their hands then sat down, squeezed together like sardines, around our rectangular table as they waited anxiously for Darwin and I to sit down with them so that we could all pray together and then eat.

I waited a few more moments, my heart exploding in a thousand fireworks of faith. Surely this is a miracle of God’s provision!

As we sat down to give thanks for that food — the miracle food that showed up when we had given away all that we had — Darwin and I explained with steadiness in our voice and joy shining forth from our faces that we were truly living a miracle. Never before had anything like this happened to us, and it could not simply be explained away by common human reason. Truly God had led us to give it all away, and truly He had prompted our poor, blessed neighbor to prepare food for us even as she had no idea of our act of total obedience.

And so we ate with great joy and thanksgiving. And, dare I say, many other events — some small, some big — of this same breed have been happening around here in these past few weeks. Miracles of generosity and miracles of provision. I hope to write about more of them soon. Be encouraged as we are encouraged, and let us all give ourselves fully over to the will of the living God. He is mysterious in His ways, and great in love and mercy!

Amen! Glory to God!

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New Beginnings: My Return to Honduras

October 4, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

I’ve been home now five days after having been away from Honduras six weeks for medical treatment and spiritual renewal in Christ, and it’s thus far been a journey of learning all over again many things I thought I already knew. How to really live in the joy and peace of Christ, for one — not just talk about it or read about it or even counsel others on how to do so, but to really live in Christ everyday and allow His peace to permeate me no matter how much activity is going on around me. Really, these last five days have been the beginning of a completely new era (from the inside out) — in my walk with the Lord, in my relationship with my husband and our children, in handling many responsibilities with grace, and in my daily walk of loving and serving those whom the Lord has so generously placed in our lives.

A truckload of screaming teenagers greeted Darwin and I on Sunday at the little local hotel where we had been staying since I arrived on Friday. (My first “re-initiation” upon returning to Honduras was with my husband as he picked me up from the airport — alone — and we got away for two nights before I saw the kids. We are both learning all over again what it means to love one another and live in the joy of Christ right here in our daily context, and truly these last five days have provided us a completely new beginning.)

So, that truckload enthusiastically unloaded on Sunday as Pastor Domingo and close to a dozen teenagers — some our kids, some our students — ding-donged impatiently on the front gate of the little hotel where Darwin and I had been staying. Everyone exploded out of the truck and began a hugging processional as each teen and I embraced before beginning the 20-minute journey up the highway to home, where the rest of our kids were waiting. That was Sunday.

In many ways, everything is the same — the same things are happening as before I left (the same little daily adventures, learning experiences and potential frustrations that come with living in a third world country and laying your life completely down so that Christ might live through you) but the Lord has given me an entirely new attitude to confront these situations. My surroundings are the same, but I’ve been given new sight (in the sense of seeing things the way God wants me to see/experience them).

There were welcome-home posters, hand-written letters of encouragement and prayer from each of our students and teachers, and many sweet moments along the way. Although I was returning home, in many ways I felt like tip-toeing around with a sneaky grin on my face, feeling like a welcome stranger as I was experiencing everything from an entirely new perspective (and without the feeling that I had to run-run-run and handle everything myself). In many ways, these first few days back in the full swing of the daily routine have been a lot about quietly observing and discerning all over again what God wants from me in this place. I’ve gotten up at 5:15am to brush our kids’ hair and get them ready for school; I’ve washed our clothes by hand on our front porch; I’ve gotten back into our administration activities; I’ve done everything I did before, but it’s now fun and enjoyable, whereas before I felt like I was constantly trying to battle off a wave of anxiousness night and day as every demand on my time seemed like too much.

On Monday we had a lengthy meeting with our team of teachers and mentors — those six people (including my husband Darwin) who held the fort down for six weeks during my absence, taking on my teaching, parenting and administrative duties without complaint — and person after person took the time to share, unhurried, what the Lord had been doing in their life since we had last seen each other in late August. God’s presence was near, and while we perhaps should have been handling school logistics, planning the upcoming calendar or “doing” something important and work-related, the Lord led us to take several hours to share and listen to one another, as each person independently told of huge breakthroughs in their walk with the Lord over the last several weeks, many with tears.

And, the truly remarkable thing is that every aspect of the work the Lord was doing in my own heart on a range of issues over these last several weeks — from my walk with Him to my freedom from many lies the enemy had led me to believe to my new way of viewing our students and loving them better — He was also working out in our teachers’ lives completely unbeknownst to me. He literally kept us all on the same page (and even advanced us a couple chapters along the path of true freedom in Christ!) even though we were geographically far away and had very little communication. Wow.

So, fast-forwarding to Tuesday (yesterday), I gave each student individually a big hug when they came streaming through our front gate at 6:40am, participated with everyone in Bible study and worship, took on my math class again and fully (and rather spontaneously) participated in every aspect of life and service in our home with a newfound spark in everything I did. (I’ve been getting 3-5 hours of sleep since getting back to Honduras and generally feel extremely at peace in God’s presence, which has radically changed my parenting style, general outlook and attitude, etc). I even spontaneously prepared like 8 blenders-full of garlic, cucumber, and other-vegetables smoothie for all of our teachers and students (like 50 people), which led to a lot of laughter, almost-vomiting and renewed health in many. It was great!

So…

One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was a full-blown participant in Pastor Domingo’s military-style athletic training class. (I had arrived at his class after lunch with our oldschool digital camera to just take some silly pictures of the kids, but God had other plans.) The exercises were actually not incredibly difficult, but my non-athletic attire and the scorching heat/humidity did make for quite an interesting (and sweaty!) afternoon. After all was said and done and I went to our little bathroom to take a cold shower, a ton of dirt came falling out of my hair (and not to mention all over my clothes)!

Every Tuesday afternoon all 40 of our students (ages 7-18) divide up into their various P.E. groups — swimming, long-distance running, dance, little kids’ games, and military training. This was a photo I took from my first experience attending Pastor Domingo’s military training class! (I was standing it the taller grass behind the instructor doing whatever squats/push-ups the students were doing while I took the photos, so that’s why some of the students are laughing).

Bottoms up! I struck the same pose as the students (with the camera shooting photos from between my legs), so that’s why this photo came out upside-down!

Our 9-year-old special needs son Josue participated right alongside everyone else! (At this point, I was belly-down in the grass after having been in a one-armed planking position taking photos.)

Okay, everybody line up for a brisk jog around the property! (Roy, our 18-year-old student on the far left who was leading the activity, was very calmly advising all the students to be careful with the large rocks and unexpected holes scattered across the terrain they would be running on, all of which are well hidden under the tall grass where our cows graze). Who needs a track or a gym?!

Well, I earnestly desired to try to run the lap around our 17-acre property with our students, but they left me behind in the blink of an eye! (I was too busy looking out for the potholes below me and trying not to sprain an ankle). So, changing plans, I grabbed a huge stick off the ground and decided to dart off in the other direction and plan a surprise attack on the students once they came to the end of their run. Before I knew what was happening, Isis, one of our young Honduran teachers, was right behind me!

And we were off like lightning (really, really slow lightning) as we began running mischeviously toward our hiding spot, where we would jump out with our sticks to surprise the unsuspecting students…

Gotta love this photo! When Darwin saw it, he said we looked like cave-women. (This photo really captures the whole spirit of our spontaneous game).

There were no photos of our actual attacks (perhaps for good reason!), so this is the last visual record we have of our cavewoman attack… (And, in case you were wondering, almost none of the students were surprised. Only like two screamed. The rest just looked at us and shook their heads every time we launched ourselves out from behind the parked car and screamed with our sticks when the various groups of students passed.)

At one point our students got ahold of the camera and started taking their own pictures!

After our big stick-bearing cavewoman scare (which actually wasn’t that big of a scare for most), it was time to do some mountain-climbers, ab work and squat jumps! (This will be the last time I wear a nice blouse and jeans to any military-training class!)

You go, Josue! (He and I have had a wonderful time together since me getting home on Sunday).

Okay, enough of that class! I headed up the gravel path to the inside yard where I found Miss Reina and Miss Ligia (two of our other teachers) leading a hilarious P.E. class for our littler tykes. I arrived to find several students (even some of our teenagers who wandered over before I did and decided to join in!) blind-folded and trying to find their way across our uneven, rock-filled yard. It was such a simple game, but it was a riot!

There goes Sandra (in the middle of the three) blind-folded and with the bright fire-fighter pants on for the competition! (We have a costume closet of things we’ve purchased at a local thrift store that we use for silly occasions such as these). Our daughter Gabriela (Gaby) is on the left, and a local student participates on the right.

Be careful, Sindy! (She was particularly scared about not being able to see, so I periodically yelled out, “Sindy, snake!” and she would jump around and scream. But she would get her revenge when I took up the blindfold a few minutes later…)

Uh-oh! Sandra got lost and started heading for our house!

Okay, my turn! (Man, was it scary not knowing where I was going, and they made me do it walking backwards!)

I kept trying to feel the ground to try to find the rocks — I didn’t want to roll an ankle! (Look at how dirty the back of my blouse got!)

Got off track and almost went right out the front gate! (Sandra wouldn’t give me any verbal cues — she just kept laughing!)

One of the last games of the day was limbo! (A tall person really can’t compete with short kids on that one…)

Amen! Glory to God!

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September 2017 Prayer Requests and Triumphs

September 26, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 1 Comment

Below are our current prayer requests and triumph reports from our life of service with Christ in Honduras. Thank you for your interest in supporting/following this work.

***All of the photos on this post were taken by Isabel Dayton during her visit to the Living Waters Ranch a couple months ago. Even though the work at the ranch has continued onward in my absence and I’m in frequent touch with those in Honduras, we don’t have any new photos at this time. (I’ll try to take some once I’m back in the routine of service next week.) Thank you and God bless!

1. We are coming to the end of our second full school year of Spirit-led “discipleship-based community homeschool” with roughly 40 students who meet daily in our home (the Living Waters Ranch) for a complete homeschool curriculum that we’ve designed/tweaked over these last two years as God has led. The Honduran school calendar runs from February — November, so we are nearing the end of school and are reflecting back on all that has happened this year. The Lord brought new key Honduran missionaries/teachers/pastors to our team; He brought additional students, all of whom come from very broken places; and we’ve all learned a lot (sometimes the hard way) and are actively drawing near to the Lord as we seek to walk alongside of the children/youth in our school in the Way of Christ. We simply give thanks to God for allowing us to participate on this great adventure and for the fact that many kids/teens are coming into a saving knowledge of Christ and are genuinely walking with Him. Nothing has been easy, but it has absolutely been worth it. Classes will wind down and come to a close in November, and then all of our teachers and students will reconvene in early January to begin prayerfully planning for the new school year. Please continue to pray for God’s protection and blessing over our community homeschool — the lives of all our students, that of our teachers, the physical protection of our property where we live and serve, etc — as Honduras is a very dangerous country. He has protected us until now, so we eagerly press onward.

2. We thank God for His continued provision over our lives, as we have lacked nothing in these 5+ years of serving Christ by faith in Honduras. We thank God for His miraculous provision (in every sense of the word — financial provision, His way of bringing each of our local teachers/missionaries to work alongside of us, His provision of believers who actively intercede for this mission, people who lend us their expertise, the wisdom and discernment He has provided when we have needed it most, etc) and stand in awe of His power made manifest in our little corner of the globe. Thanks be to God.

3. We are currently facing several potential complications/frustrations in regards to the process of legally adopting 4 of the 8 children my husband and I are fostering. We have had to switch lawyers and are having to re-submit much of our paperwork, so please pray first and foremost that this process (which tends to put our nerves on end, especially as we are coming into close contact with a third-world government that suffers from great corruption, inefficacy, etc) would bring us great joy rather than stress, as we are earnestly convinced that God wants us to be family forever to our kids, and that makes the legal hassles and uncertainties worth it. Please pray that the government may have favor upon us, that everything would be expedited as much as possible, and that all monetary costs involved in the adoption would be provided for (as all of our needs are). Thank you.

4. I will give a quick update in regards to 12-year-old Josselyn, one of the young women who has formed part of our family since July 2015 and for whom many of you had been praying in months prior. She had gone through a very rough season earlier this year as she even ran away from our home twice in search of her biological family (where she had been sexually abused and generally neglected), thus I had solicited urgent prayer on her behalf. She continues to live with us to this day, and she has not run away again (or even threatened to do so) in these last several months. She and her little sister Gabriela (Gaby) are currently in a season of monthly monitored visits with their biological family members, and thus far we have been able to maintain a respectful relationship and kind with them, so we thank God for this emotional stability in Josselyn’s life as she has accepted that her home (at least for now) is with us, and we ask God’s continued blessing and guidance over these monthly family visits. We are unable to adopt these two girls because their biological family is still closely involved, so we simply ask that each day the Lord would accompany us as we seek to parent and love them without holding on too tightly or feeling threatened by their biological family. Our payer is that the peace of Christ reign in our relationship with our 2 girls and their biological family members, and that God’s will be freely done. Amen.

5. Lastly, as many were informed, I had come back to the States for roughly five-and-a-half weeks in August/September for emergency medical, spiritual and emotional intervention as I had reached a breaking point in Honduras and could not go on without receiving help. I had been struggling with debilitating insomnia for several years and, as a result, had contracted any and all viruses, tropical fevers, etc, one right after another and was spending more time in bed receiving shots/IVs/antibiotics than I was participating in our daily life of service, so I accepted my parents’ offer at help and came back to San Antonio, TX in search of healing. I’ve written about this journey in greater detail in the prior post, so you may click on it if you would like to know more about my healing journey. I will be heading home to Honduras in three days. Please continue to pray for my ongoing recovery so that I may be as healthy of an instrument as possible in God’s hands, and let us thank Him for fully orchestrating my visit to San Antonio, my diagnosis, several breakthroughs I experienced, provision to cover medical costs, etc. Thank you.

I could probably list many more prayer requests and triumphs, but I will leave it at that for now. If you or anyone you know is not currently receiving our periodic printed newsletter and would like to receive it (it contains photos, testimonies/stories, etc, very similar to this blog), please send me via email that person’s name and physical mailing address so that they may be included on the mailing list. Thank you again for partnering with us in this amazing Kingdom work; God bless you.

With peace and gratitude in Christ,

Jennifer, for Darwin and all of our kids/teachers

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June/July 2017 Updates and Prayer Requests

July 18, 2017 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Answers in Regards to Katy’s Case

A couple months ago I wrote about my encounter with Katy, the younger biological sister of two of our foster daughters. Since then there has been much back-and-forth communication with the local government agency in regards to rescuing Katy out of what might be a situation of abuse/neglect (as was the case for her two sisters), and several weeks ago the agency’s lawyer finally made the visit to investigate Katy’s living situation further. The lawyer informed us that she saw nothing out of order and that the final verdict is that Katy will remain living with her biological family. The lawyer did comment, however, that it appears that Katy has a mental illness in addition to the girls’ mother, whom the lawyer met in person (I have yet to meet her, but we have heard stories about her). That is the agency’s final answer, so we choose to be at peace with this, and we hope and pray that Katy is, in fact, safe and well-cared-for with her biological family (as is the hope for any child). This information regarding the mother’s mental illness also helps us as we parent 11-year-old Gabriela, whom we also suspect has some degree of mental illness, which might be genetic or incurred due to sexual abuse. Please continue to pray for little Gabriela (Gaby) and her 13-year-old sister Josselyn as both girls this month reached their two-year anniversary of living in the protection of our home. Pray also for our relationship with the girls’ biological family, as we are currently in a season of supervised family visits each month and are carefully handling this relationship so that it may produce blessing for all involved.

My husband Darwin gives weekly music lessons not only in our community homeschool for local students but also individually with the majority of our foster/adopted children. This is a photo he took of a late-night ‘orchestra’ training as he brought everybody together to practice their instrument for several hours prior to a public recital they would be hosting. Darwin is currently offering recorder, piano, guitar, violin and choir lessons to more than a couple dozen at-risk youth in our rural neighborhood free of charge.

Darwin singing opera with a broom as a microphone on the front porch of our elementary school house

13-year-old Sindy (right), one of our extremely involved local students, enjoying the antics of “Mr. Darwin,” her beloved teacher

Christ’s Functioning Body: Relational Discipleship/Community Development in Our Rural Neighborhood

We are so thrilled and thankful that the team of local teachers, mentors and pastors that God has united this year at the Living Waters Ranch continues to work in harmony as we seek to open our homes and lives to lost youth for God’s glory. Domingo, a local pastor in his 50’s with a background in military service has opened up his church and his carpentry shop after-hours to the teenagers in our program, and local young couple Erick and Aracely have gone to extraordinary lengths to receive the local teens in their home at all hours as God has stationed them in a strategic part of our neighborhood close to several of our local students. They have been used by God to give advice and counsel, pray, direct a weekly youth Bible study, lend a hand in service to poor neighbors, etc, out of a response to serve Christ in integral discipleship. Many of our local teenage students, especially the young men, have been deeply impacted by Erick’s commitment, openness and example, and we are seeing very real transformation occur in the lives of several of them. Please join with us in thanking God for His provision in these faithful laborers as we are truly serving as Christ’s body (several different functions but with the same overall purpose) to instruct these youth in the Way of Christ with the hope of training them up to be useful instruments in God’s hands.

Jeffrey, one of our 12-year-old local students in first grade at the Living Waters Ranch, doing a community service project under Erick’s guidance on the weekend (they were helping build a home for a local single mom).

Here are several more of our local youth involved in the community service project Erick designed for those who participate in his discipleship group. (Community service projects among Hondurans are generally very rare, so this step to reach out and show God’s tangible love to a neighbor is a really huge step that these youth had likely never been guided to take before.)

Here is a photo Erick and his wife took during a recent youth group gathering in their home on a Monday night. Three of our teenagers (Brayan, Dayana and Jackeline) participate in addition to several of our local students and neighbors. Erick is a highly gifted and knowledgeable teacher of God’s Word, and he has a passion to form humble, dedicated followers of Christ.

Guard Dog’s Puppies to be Used as Instrument of Blessing to Neighbors

Although this headline might not be the most important on the list, just the same we are very excited that one of our guard dogs recently gave birth to five healthy puppies. The pups’ dad is our Rottweiler, so they promise to be large and fearsome (at least in appearance). Good, large guard dogs in Honduras are extremely valuable (and sometimes difficult to come by), so we are thankful that we will be able to bless several of our key neighbors with a healthy puppy that will in turn patrol their property.

This is our 9-year-old son Jason enjoying our puppies a few days after they were born…

Christian Psychologist Invests in Our Girls’ Healing During a Week of Intensive Workshops and Group Therapy

Last month (June 2017) we enjoyed the visit of a dear missionary who has been living in Central America many years. She first spent time with our girls during a week of intensive activities in December 2016. We are thankful for this key relationship and influence in our girls’ development into healthy, wise daughters of God, and we look forward to receiving her in our home again at the end of the year.

This is our eldest daughter, 16-year-old Dayana, who has been living with us almost four years and whom we are in the process of legally adopting

This is 13-year-old Jackeline who has been living in our family two-and-a-half years and who has undergone drastic transformations in her character and work ethic for God’s glory

This is 13-year-old Josselyn enjoying a goofy moment! You go, girl!

In Good Standing with Local Government; Prayer Sought that Blessing and Healthy Communication Might Continue

Enjoying good communication and mutual understanding with authorities in Honduras is not something that is perhaps easily achieved or sustained as corruption may always lie just around the corner in addition to the fact that many laws and governmental expectations seem to be ever-changing and interpreted differently by each person. Thus, we plainly thank God for His constant protection over us and for having bestowed His blessing upon the numerous relationships we hold with local authorities (police, educational authorities, etc). Please pray with us that peace and good standing may continue, as the task of updating and presenting paperwork, seeking out meetings, etc, is ongoing as we earnestly desire to do everything with the highest integrity possible.

This is our 12-year-old daughter Gleny, who has been living in our family almost four years, giving a dynamic tutoring session with our two most developmentally-challenged kids, Gabriela (11) and Josue (9). Gleny is a fantastic teacher, and she loves working with little kids!

Experience and Wisdom Gained This Year; Students’ Growth and Development Noteworthy

As we’ve reached (and crossed!) the half-way point of another year serving as Christ’s messengers in rural Honduras, we thank God for the experience and wisdom we’ve gained. We are now a year-and-a-half into the journey of directing a discipleship-based community high school (and expanding elementary school) in our rural homestead, and we’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way! We truly thank God for the progress gained, both in our experience as leaders/servants and in the lives of the children and youth in our program, who likewise are experiencing revolutionary changes in their lives as God is impacting and transforming them with the good news of peace with God through Jesus Christ. As we enter the second half of our school year (the Honduran school calendar goes from January/February — late November), we currently have 37 full-time students plus a small handful of local youth who participate in select activities/Bible studies we offer but are not completely engaged every day. Praise God!

These were the only four students who successfully avoided after-school detention during the second grading period (two months)! They were very diligent to complete their homework on time and fulfill all expectations placed upon them. Keep up the good work! (We told all our other students to pick these guys’ brains to see what their secret is so that they can hopefully avoid going to detention as well!)

These were the students who achieved academic excellence in the second grading period!

This crowd had perfect attendance during the months of April and May! Way to go! (I remember last year when it was a huge struggle just getting the kids to come to class! Thank God for these wonderful blessings of progress and maturity in our students!)

Prayer Sought for Ongoing Unity and Development in Our Large Foster/Adoptive Family of 10

Please continue to pray for Darwin and I as we are nearing the four-year mark of parenting children who come from very broken places. Our eldest daughter will be turning 17 years old in three months (oh my gosh!), and our youngest son (Josue, who has special needs) just turned 9. As everyone is making a quick sprint towards maturity, please pray for us as we continue to fine-tune our skills as parents. Pray that our kids (and teens) would always be given a soft, malleable heart in regard to discipline and correction, and pray with us that God would truly grant our kids wisdom and grace as they grow in Christ. We have seen tremendous strides in each of our kids’ lives since they’ve been under our care, and we humbly ask that Father God may grant us perseverance, abundant love and the Biblical wisdom needed to truly parent these kids well. During this second half of the year, God has led me to teach less classes in our discipleship-based community homeschool in order to be more present to our 8 kids as just plain ‘mom’, faithfully prepare family dinners each day, etc. (I’m trying to be a stay-at-home mom and run an organization/ministry! Pray for me!) Below are photos we took during our weeklong family retreat last month. These periodic family retreats are a simple yet powerful step we’re taking to strengthen family ties and form healthy memories together in our family that’s building its nest behind schedule.

Darwin playing music on the porch of the little rustic 2-room cabin we rented.

Jackeline and I embarking on our wild kayaking adventure from one island to another. Little did we know just how difficult it would be, as the current was particularly strong that day as it threatened to carry us out to high seas! Arriving (and safely returning) from the arduous journey was probably the hardest thing either of us had done in quite some time! (We look so happy in this photo because we had yet to commence the journey and had no idea how hard it would be! The next day Darwin and our 16-year-old son Brayan tried completing the same journey, but they returned because Brayan got scared!)

Kayaking together proved to be an excellent experience in teamwork and communication (and emotional control, as both of us felt like screaming or crying on several occasions!)

Amen! Glory to God!

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May 2017 Updates and Prayer Requests

May 27, 2017 jenniferzillycanales 2 Comments

Play Structure Complete!

The large wooden play structure we had designed was finished a few weeks ago by Domingo, one of our faithful team members who is a local pastor in his 50s who serves with us as the Christian Leadership teacher, Carpentry Club leader, and elementary math teacher. We love the way it turned out, and the kids are all over it every chance they get! It has added a very fun and dynamic dimension to recess and lunch hour, and it supports our overall mission to restore broken youth spiritually, emotionally and physically for God’s glory.

Living Waters Ranch to Enter a Three-Week Intensive Mid-Year Term

With our roughly-40 students (8 from our foster/adoptive family and about 30 from our local community who participate daily in our discipleship-based homeschool) we will be entering a three-week period of different classes as of next week to ‘shake things up’ while further equipping our youth with experiences and knowledge they need in order to continue growing and exploring God’s will for their lives. My husband Darwin will be giving several intensive choir workshops; I’ll be teaching a Biblically-based world geography class (in addition to a crash course in grammar along with several Speech/Communication workshops) with our older students; and each child/teen will have the option of ‘specializing’ in one of several areas, including English as a second language, Agriculture/Christian Leadership, Carpentry/Christian Leadership, etc. All students will be involved in twice-weekly art classes during this mid-term time, and we’ll continue faithfully with our Bible study and prayer groups as usual.

The following three pictures were taken during Darwin’s reading class. (This is our 15-year-old son Brayan who is so sweaty because he just came in from recess). Darwin has been extremely creative in the class as he’s taught the kids to read in latin, organize a class play, study the Scriptures, watch and write about motivational videos, read personal and spiritual anecdotes from great spiritual leaders from centuries past, read about brain psychology, and so on. The students Darwin has in his class are teens who generally don’t get too excited about reading (and/or are extremely shy and prefer to just sit there as Wallflowers), so his very concentrated (and energetic) efforts with these guys has had a phenomenal impact on their integral development.

Updates Regarding Katy

The lawyer from the local government office has yet to fulfill her word to go out to Katy’s family’s home to investigate her living situation, although she promises to do so this upcoming week. Please pray for all the government workers involved, as they are overburdened with cases of child abuse, neglect, etc, and the personnel and their resources simply aren’t enough to manage each one with excellence. Our home and our hearts are prepared to accept Katy into our home if and when the Lord should bring her, and we continue our active communication with the government agency in hopes of her rescue.

A couple weeks ago Darwin went out to spend time with and take a few photos of five of our night watchman’s children who are all in our school on the elementary level. Our relationship with them began almost three years ago, and God has blessed our friendship with their family in a very special way. All of the kids had not previously been in school, and the majority of their family members are illiterate and malnourished. The family was accustomed to moving homes frequently in search of jobs and a stable food supply for their family as they struggled in extreme poverty. God brought us into relationship with them first through Darwin’s youth choir, then the kids entered school with us full-time, and now the family as a whole is about to celebrate their 2-year anniversary of living on our property and serving alongside of us. The eldest son is currently in his last year of elementary school in our accelerated program for older students and is on track to enter high school in 2018. The eldest son decided to be publicly baptized last year, and most of the family members are actively involved in Bible study and prayer groups. These kids/teens are also some of our own kids’ best friends, as we all live on the same rural property.

Second-to-the-left is Armando, our faithful night watchman and the father of these five beautiful children. He is generally very quiet and keeps to himself, but Darwin caught him playing with his kids one evening and took advantage of these family photos.

Brayan and Darwin Compete in Local Race

My husband Darwin and Brayan, our 15-year-old son, competed last week in a large organized road race in the nearby city of La Ceiba along with Larry, a longtime spiritual mentor of ours, and several other local youth whom we have friendships with. Events such as these are almost unheard of in our area (there are generally very few organized sports teams for youth, and athletic training of any kind is uncommon), so Brayan and Darwin had been training together for several weeks prior as they got amped up for the big event. Brayan, who came into our lives as a very uncoordinated and broken 12-year-old in 2014, has really taken hold of long-distance running over the past couple months as he’s been training with Darwin and Erick, and he actually won third place in the youth category! I was unable to attend the race (I stayed at home with the rest of our kids), but they told me there were roughly 80 or so teen males who participated, and our son — who comes from very broken places, and whom God has been restoring and healing over the past several years in accordance with His will — came in third! Wow! We are very excited about his newfound self-discipline and motivation that Father God is inculcating in this young man whom we love so much, and Brayan is excited to travel with Darwin and Erick next month to compete in another road race in a city that lies 3 hours away.

Health Updates

As was written on our prior blog post, my health as of late had been quite weak as I was battling Typhoid fever and an aggressive virus. I’ve gone in several days over the past few weeks to a local clinic to receive IV fluids packed with vitamins and antibiotics, and they’ve done their job well! I’ve recuperated strength and energy and have even felt the desire to begin playing with the kids and exercising again. (A couple days ago I got into a pretty extreme game of Monkey-in-the-Middle with a large group of our students and had a blast). Thank you to all of you who have prayed for my recovery.

These photos were taken in Darwin’s twice-weekly PE class. As of July, we will be dividing all of our students up into different PE groups: dance, military patrol training (with Pastor Domingo who was in the military 20 years), long-distance running, sports, and games (for the little guys).

Teachers Attend 3-Day Conference

I am currently attending a 3-day conference with two of our teachers (Isis and Reina) in another city in Honduras as we seek to continue learning about this field that the Lord has placed us in. We’ve attended workshops on the legal side of managing a ministry, heard testimonies and advice from other people who have fostered/adopted kids, learned more about child psychology and how to nurture kids who have been through severe traumas, etc. It has been a fruitful time of making connections with others who serve in similar fields, learning from the experts, and also continuing to form the bond between the three of us as sisters in Christ. Below you’ll see a few silly photos we took when no one else at the conference was looking…

Reina jamming out with the translation headset…

Me pretending to give a speech at the conference. (I was not one of the speakers…)

Isis playing hide-and-seek under our conference table…

Amen! Glory to God!

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Loving, Joyful Youth Under the Headship of Loving, Joyful God

May 10, 2017 jenniferzillycanales Leave a comment

Recently we organized an all-day event of various old-fashioned yard games for our students and neighbors. We very intentionally incorporated games that involve teamwork, healthy physical touch, riotous laughter, coordination, and sensory development as many of the youth the Lord has placed in our lives come from very broken places and are in the beginning stages of being restored and renewed by God’s love under our care.

The majority of our young friends are very immature for their age due to not having received vital components in their early childhood (such as adequate parental attention, Biblical guidance, loving discipline, etc), thus they lack healthy self-esteem, an accurate understanding of who God created them to be and the basic tools necessary to confront reality in a godly way. Knowing that these ‘lacks’ in a child or teen’s life propel many toward a life of crime, depression and/or sexual deviancy, we understand that spending a day full of godly friendship, intense laughter and team-building activities goes a long way towards restoring and forming healthy individuals who respond to God’s love and interact with others in a loving way.

In our corner of the globe here in Latin America (as around the world), there is much competition, violence and physical intimidation/abuse among peers and families, so learning to use one’s physical strength to bless others, carry a teammate, etc, is a very important aspect of learning to receive and then be instruments of God’s love in daily life. Patting someone on the back in encouragement, receiving a hug from a trustworthy adult, learning how to give (or receive) a piggy-back ride, etc, are really big steps toward their recovery into loving, joyful beings under the headship of the loving, joyful God.

Furthermore, many of our kiddos have very poor motor skills/physical coordination due to malnutrition and under-stimulation in their early childhood, so all the activities we do with them are geared toward stimulating them toward integral health, growth and abundance according to God’s perfect will for their lives.

So, one of the first games on our agenda was a crazy partner activity. I stood among the many teams of two and shouted out “Backpack!” and the teens had to grab their partner and fling them on their back. Then “Baby!,” which they then scrambled to cradle their friend’s weight in their arms as if they were a precious (oversized) newborn. And so the game went, me shouting out one wild command after another until everyone was panting and heaving, either from laughter or exhaustion…

‘Backpack’, everybody! Get up there!

What a beautiful baby! Don’t let him fall!

One of the next games on the day’s agenda was a fan-favorite that I introduced to them last year: Chinese freeze-tag! My husband Darwin and one of our 50-year-old local teachers (Reina) got in the mix as everyone was running wildly around our yard!

Watch out, Jackeline! Your teacher is gaining on you! Run, Reina, run! (She was such a good sport — she came out on one of her days off in order to participate in all the games with the kids without having any idea what would be in store!)

Look at Darwin go! Our eldest daughter Dayana was hot on his heals, and he was determined not to get caught!

The next game was an old classic: the water balloon toss! Every time you throw it, you’ve gotta take a step back!

Then: hide-and-seek!

I hid in an outdoor trashcan (with the lid on!) and no one found me until one of the teen boys casually walked by, took the lid off, and went to throw some trash on my head! My legs are so long that I had quite the hard time uncurling my body to get out from the tight space once the game was over!

Hey! Who’s hiding out on the school building’s roof?

Next up: a new game I read about on the internet! Everybody has to hop on one leg and use the other one (no hands allowed!) to try to push their partner over! It’s like standing-up leg wrestling. Let’s see who’s got the best balance and endurance!

When Darwin and Brayan went head-to-head (below), neither one wanted to lose! Thank God that we have two very strong, godly men in our household!

Then it was my turn to go up against tough-as-nails Paola! After a pretty intense go of it I finally beat her as I ended up hopping on one leg after her all around the yard!

The grand finale! Teenagers Cristian and Derbin went at it for several minutes while the spectators looked on!

Who likes watermelon?! Did I mention that you can’t use your hands? Eat up, boys!

One of the last games was one I invented right on the spot, and it turned out to be a riot! I warned the kids that they would be participating in the world debut of a new game…They had to crawl on all fours with a spoon in their mouth before reaching bowls of shortening (like Crisco) and flour on the ground. They then had to fill the spoon with one of the ingredients before crawling to their teammate at the other end of the yard to start spreading the delicious ingredients all over their face. The object of the game? Who knows, but it was really funny to watch!

Watch out, kids! Here comes Darwin with a huge spoonful of flour! Run and hide!

Hey! I told them to just put the Crisco on their victims’ — er, I mean teammates’ — face! Poor Josue was covered from head to toe! (And poor Darwin and I who had to bathe him and Gaby afterwards! The real prize awaited me the next day when I went to wash his clothes — and we don’t have a washing machine!)

Now it’s Reina’s turn! You go, girl!

Yup! We successfully finished the game! How do I know? Because all the Crisco and flour were emptied from the bowls and applied successfully to the kids (and Darwin, far left)! This is a game everybody can win, right?

Our 16-year-old daughter Dayana (middle, red shirt) was not too happy with me because it took her lightyears to pick all the Crisco and flour — which turned into a dreadlock-like substance — from her very thick, curly hair! Needless to say, I don’t think she’ll be requesting the game at her next birthday party!

And, last but not least, at the end of the day-long event, our 8-year-old special-needs son Josue followed me into the kitchen where I snapped this priceless shot of him. It is my new favorite picture: every mother’s worst nightmare! He looks like a naughty little guy who’ll get into anything when momma’s not looking (which is actually quite true)!