To learn more about how you can help sponsor a family portrait, please click on the Providence tab above.
To view more family portraits from our trip to Honduras, please visit my portraits site and click on the Portraits of Providence tab.
Clint and I loved visiting the families in the village of Aguas del Padre. We shopped at the Lenca potters hut and visited family friends of the Hollidays with a sugar cane mill. It’s harvest season for the cana and it was so special to watch the family work together at the press. To see more images from the village, please visit my site and click on the “Portrait of Providence” tab.
(Beatriz and Mario, house one parents)
(their biological children Jose Mario, and Loida)
A family portrait! My hope is that this image hanging on the wall of their home will be a visual reminder to the sweet orphans that they belong to a family.
House two parents- Elsy and Orlando - They have one biological son that Elsy is holding in the family portrait below (not Jair in the red hat but Esdras,in the blue)
I am often overwhelmed with sorrow for all of the suffering in the world. I can relate to ol’ Johnny Cash, the man in black, who vowed to wear the dark color as a reminder of the pain, until Jesus came back. 147 million (orphans) is a much larger number than I can wrap my mind around. However, I was filled with joy this morning as I sat organizing these images because Josue, Dagoberto, Julissa, Carolina, Jair, Alama, Douglas, Kenneth and Fanny are no longer forgotten, abandoned, or institutionalized. Thank you Jesus for La Providencia, the Holliday family, the house parents, workers, and supporters of PWM that are commited to loving your precious children. My hope for the Portrait of Providence project is to give hope by shining a light on His grace and mercy, administered through believers. Onward Christian soldiers!
Be strong and take heart, all you who HOPE in the Lord -Psalm 31:24
see more images on my portraits site by clicking the “portrait of providence” tab
Clint and I are back from an amazing trip to Siguatepeque, Honduras. Our hearts and minds are still in a bit of a tailspin from the journey. When I set out to create a Portrait of Providence I did not know exactly what it was going to look like. We are still processing so many of our experiences but the thing that we were both struck by the most is the MIGHTY work that the Holliday family is doing with Providence World Ministries. I know that they are objecting to such praise and attention because they are true servants who “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better than themselves” (Phil 2:3).
I have been attempting to organize the many, many (2,449!) images that I took on our trip. I chose the above as a little sneak peek sampler at random and was struck by the thought that each image is in a way a portrait of the Holliday family. The first image IS their sweet family and the rest are people that in some way are being served by their family. The orphans, the school children as well as their families, at church, and in the village, the Hollidays are working as the hands and feet of Jesus.
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 
