Israel and Hollie Holliday and their four children, serve as missionaries for Providence World Ministries, at La Providencia orphanage in Honduras. Clint and I are headed there this week for a visit. He will be building a brick oven (and anything else that needs to be done) while I photograph the families and school children of Providence.
La Providencia is a special place and not what I would typically think of for an orphanage. I copied the following from their site:
La Providencia places the orphans into family homes with a set of parents and seven siblings, and the families of 10 will be together for the entirety of the children’s educational lives. The children will also “inherit” a grandmother (from the widows’ home), aunts, uncles, and cousins.
All orphanage models are located somewhere on the spectrum between an institution and an adoptive family. La Providencia locates itself on the family end of the spectrum, by placing the children in homes with seven siblings and parents who commit to them for their entire educational lives (and likely much longer). We realize that this approach requires more resources and will thus mean that we will take fewer orphans than if we used an institutional setting. We intentionally sacrifice quantity for quality, because we believe that it is in the best interests of the children we are able to take. In particular, the family model substantially increases the chance that the children will become societal leaders without attachment disorders and other ills common to children without stable families.
La Providencia will eventually have 24 homes for the children, in addition to a medical center (completed), an elementary school, a high school, a dining hall/multi-purpose facility (completed), a widows’ home, an administrative building, a soccer field, a lake, and all necessary infrastructure.
”Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10 is one of my favorite verses- God’s grace abounds in my life. It is my hearts desire to celebrate families with photography. Our family pictures provide me with so much encouragement- I can’t wait to photograph and celebrate the families of Providence by gifting them with portraits. I cannot see a small child without thinking of my own boys. I love them so very much and am so very grateful for their lives. It’s with a mother’s heart that I see all of God’s children and yearn to serve them.
I have been brainstorming ways for my photographer buddies, and blog readers to help. There are so many! First, we can use your prayers for: safety, good health, and that our work be glorifying to God. I’ll be posting more after returning from our trip. Some of my most fabulous girlfriends are hostessing a super fun benefit for Providence. Lots of amazing door prizes, and cool items for sale (like 147 t-shirts!) and photography sessions up for silent auction, all to help the families. I am very happy to say that White House Custom Color (the best print lab in the whole world) has already donated seriously reduced print rates for the portraits being sent back to Honduras!
Looking forward to sharing the portraits soon, and giving all of you photography lovers the opportunity to help with this exciting endeavor!
I had the pleasure of photographing the Holliday’s last year when they were at home visiting family in Tennessee. This image of Hollie is one of my favorites. She is beautiful, and the example that she sets as a wife, mother, and Christian woman is inspiring. I cannot wait to visit her next week, and Lord willing have some of that goodness rub off on me 
James Henry mid-scentence- telling me about his horse, Wildfire. The boy talks, and talks, and talks. Always talking! So much to say-
Eli insist on feeding himself and this is the scene at almost every mealtime-
We ended an amazing day of celebrating, with an evening picnic at the park. Hope you all had a happy Easter too!
I love a little photo journalism, and I love, love images of my boys playing together. I try to be nonchalant about it without my flash, so in the first three I turned up the ISO to 1600. I had a pretty big aperture (f 2.8) and very slow shutter speed (1/50 and 1/25 in another). I am surprised that there is not more motion blur. I usually try not to go under 1/100 sec, especially for children. Anyway, I was laying on the ground and therefore steadied my camera a bit that way. I have a problem with camera shake so I usually try to lean on something for support. The last image of Eli standing, woah! Is that my baby? pulling up?! I did use my flash for that one. Oh, and I was using my wide angle 16-35 mm lens, hoping to show more of the room.
