Donkeys

February 16, 2025

Donkeys

On the way to their horse-riding lessons, Heaven and Courtney saw these 3 donkeys in a pasture and asked me to stop.

The donkeys were very friendly, but I had to honk at the girls to leave so that we would not be late for the riding lessons.

A lot of people do not know that many dairy farmers use donkeys to protect the dairy herd against predators like coyotes. They will even tangle with mountain lions.

All the girls were interested in was that these three donkeys enjoyed being petted

New Horse Riding Crew

March 30, 2025

New Horse Riding Crew

From left to right, Ethan, Mia and Abby Long joined our regular crew of Ruby, Courtney and Heaven at our Godley Texas equestrian facility.

This equine therapy, combined with Old School instruction about work ethic, integrity, promise keeping and other Christian values has had a major impact on the high risk children in our care.

We now have an equestrian training facility in Rio Vista in addition to the Godley one in the above photo

Beach Adventures

August 30. 2024

Beach Adventures

After a week in school, 14-year-old Journey gets around to telling me that neither she nor her sister Heaven had ever been to a beach, even though both are native Texans.

With the permission of their grandmother and their school, I took them out of school and took them on a 3-day Galveston beach trip.

They thoroughly loved it and had all kinds of fun.

They had never seen a live crab up close, so I showed them how to get one out of the crab’s borough in the beach sand.

As seen in the photo above, they were very pleased with their catch

First Day of School

First Day of School

Journey Griffith and Heaven Daniels first days back to school 2023, 2024 and 2025

JTYR now has 9 children at Cleburne Christian Academy.

Journey and Heaven have been attending there for 4 years now.

The low student to teacher ratio at CCA has been a critical tool in JTYR’s support of the high-risk children in our care. Due to various severe trauma events in these children’s lives, they were in a doom spiral in public school before we moved them to CCA.

We are very pleased to see their substantial improvement, spiritually as well as academically, since they started CCA.

Journey is already in college level on-line courses at CCA and on her way to being a strong Christian responsible adult. Heaven is one of our best students in the horse-riding program we have.

Another one of the students, Bella Trice, is planning to go to Baylor University and wants to be a pediatric surgeon. She is definitely smart enough to do it.

Spreading The Word

June 9, 2022

Spreading The Word

Late one afternoon when I was just about to close down the Youth Ministry Yard Sale, a young man ( late 20’s ? ) drove up in a new Lexus and wanted to know what our ministry was about.

He explained that he was retruning from a 3 year missionary service in Nicaragua and was driving back home to Memphis. I was a bit curious why he was driving a rental Lexus but too polite to ask.

While I was explaining about our three group homes and the up to 28 high risk children we support, he was very intently listening. Ater listening, he stated that he wanted to make a donation but all he had was pocket change.. he also wanted to look around to see what we were selling.

While he was looking at the items, I went in back to start locking things away.

When I cam back, he was gone but the Tips/Donation Box had a large amount of pocket change… he did not take anything… just apparently left all the pocket change he could find in the Lexus.

God works in His way… never heard from that young man again… apparently we made an impression on him and he certainly made an impression on me.

Children Playing at Rio Vista

Children playing on an old tree at the Rio Vista Group Home

No cell phones, no video games, no woke peer pressure…. Just DJ, Journey and Heaven enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon at our Rio Vista Group Home.

It is surrounded by the 800 acre ranch owned by Dr Kevin Owen, a prominent retired Cleburne veterinarian who has been very supportive of our youth ministry,

The children also like playing on the hay stacks as well as a go kart and fishing in the nearby Nolan River adjacent to the ranch. At night, they listen to the nearby coyotes, horned owls, occasional mountain lion and watch the possums, raccoons, armadillos, deer, feral hogs and other critters cross the back yard.

We can only hope and pray that these memories will stay with them and guide them to a life focused on the real world our Lord has gifted to them.

Santa’s Visit to Rio Vista

We had a visit from Santa last night at our Rio Vista Group Home.

Nine of the thirteen children we currently support were able to attend.

They all had a great time and really pestered Santa with a lot of questions.

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas !!!

New resident at our group home

Ms. Olive was born Wednesday afternoon (09/21/22) to Lasondra and Jerry Houston… she joins her brothers Waylon ( 5 ) and Wyatt ( 3 ) ….. Lasondra is the Den Mother for the other guests at our group home.

Two weeks ago, we welcomed Jessica and her 3 children ( 3 yrs, 2 yrs and 8 months ) as guests.

Next week, we will add Christine and her 8 year old daughter to our group.

At that point, we will once again be full until we complete the conversion of the 2 car garage into 2 separate living quarters.

After that, we will be able to house 6 families with children.

Big Birthday Present

We have had Bella Trice with us since she was 7 years old. This past weekend, she had her 13th Birthday party at the Weatherford Urban Air and had a great time.

Bella received many birthday gifts from her family members and friends.

In turn, she gave us all a great present…. She showed us the email from her school to Adam announcing that Bella will start in Advanced Placement in ALL of her classes starting next semester.

We are all very very proud of Bella. She has overcome TREMENDOUS setbacks, medical issues, loss of her beloved father, etc etc etc…. setbacks that would have decimated most adults …. And yet she has remained a sweet, funny and loving human being I am glad to know.

I told her years ago the old saying… there is family you are born to, family you choose and family that chooses you. She has known for many years that she is definitely family I was and am happy to choose.

There is no such thing as coincidence… at Bella’s birthday party, I saw a young lady that I had not seen since she was 7 and moved out of town. Greycie was with us from the time she was 4 until they moved 3 years later… she is now 13 years old.

Then on Sunday morning, another of the children in our group, 7 year old Heaven Griffith, received news from her grandmother Julie … Heaven’s teacher had just texted Julie that Heaven will be in advanced placement in her school starting next semester.

What a great blessed weekend

New Boss in Town

Zoe ( in coveralls ) taking charge at the horse riding lessons

We were blessed on Sunday afternoon to have 9 children at our horsemanship training in Godley. Zoe Gabel at 2 years old was our youngest and took charge of the group.

We will now split the lessons into 2 …. One group of 5 will be on Saturday mornings and one group at 4 will be on Sunday afternoons after church.

As soon as we get another 4 or 5 children added, we will then start a third class for Saturday afternoons during the school year.

During the school year, this will be our capacity…. During the summer months, we will be able to add additional classes during the week.

We are very proud of the Christian spiritual progress these children have made and hope and pray their example will be inspiration to their school peers

Zoe taking a well earned nap after a full day of being boss.