Spring Baseball

Spring baseball is back in full swing! Last weekend we had our dear friend, Paul, visit us from North Dakota. He and Brent spent part of their weekend together watching Drew play in his first tournament of the season. The pictures I have are thanks to Paul as I was at home with my 3 littlest people who were still recovering from their illnesses.

Here are some of the pictures...





And a video of a BIG hit!



Great job DREW!! :-)

I am so excited to have baseball back again. It is truly a blessing to our family, something we all look forward to. Brent and I love to watch the boys play, the boys LOVE to play, Lizzy and Abby look forward to seeing their friends, and Daniel is happy everywhere...but loves to be outside (except for when it is TOO hot!). Both boys have tournaments this weekend and I cannot wait to get my chance to watch them play ball again!

Thanks for the great photos Paul!! And thanks for coming to spend the weekend with us!

A Heart for the Orphans

About this time, spring of 2012, I thought our family would be praying about where in the world the Lord would have us live. 3 years ago Brent was thinking South America, I was loving the idea of Africa and the only place we had ever been for any length of time was Turkey. And now it seems the Lord has made Texas our home. He gave us Daniel and Daniel is right where he needs to be.

I love children. I have a soft and tender heart towards kids. I feel energized after spending a morning with 32 toddlers. I enjoy teaching any age of elementary children. I love having extra kids running through our home. This is why my heart was drawn to Africa. I know all around the world, even in our own community there are orphans, but my heart is drawn to the millions of children without a mommy and daddy in Africa. I thought maybe we would have our own orphanage, a place like George Mueller, where in addition to feeding and loving and clothing the kids, we could prepare and help them be ready to be adults.

Brent and I both have a heart for adoption. And when I look at our table I see two empty chairs that need to be filled. Right now is not the time, but maybe one day.

A couple of years ago I realized that God had also given Lizzy a tender heart towards the fatherless. She loves listening to Twila Paris lullabies. One night when "More Than Words Can Say" came one Lizzy started crying and then sobbing. The lullaby has a line that sings "And if you don't have a mommy He'll take good care of you..." She was just 4 years old when she said to me through tears, "Who would not have a mommy and a daddy?" It is heart breaking to think of. And it was more than her little heart could handle.

Since then she has shed many more tears for the orphans. I often feel like I want to rescue her from her sadness, but instead I hold her and often cry with her. As much as I do not want her to be sad, I do want her heart to break for those things that break the heart of God.

She says when she grows up she is going to move to Africa and take care of all the orphans. She also says she will marry a handsome prince. And so I pray that somehow these two dreams would become one.

This past summer I took the boys back to North Dakota for 3 days. While we were away visiting dear friends, Lizzy was busy at home working on making books. Before I had left, my friend Amy had posted a link on her facebook page about the food crisis that was happening in Africa. I had shared this with my kiddos. We prayed and talked about what we could do to help. And while the boys and I were away, Lizzy put her own plan into action.

The books that she was making were for the orphans. I came home to her little "store" which consisted of colored pages stapled together and displayed on the chairs that went with her little table. She had made 12 books. And she was selling them for $1.00 to raise money for the orphans and the people who did not have any food. Of course Brent and I bought one. And she called grandma and grandpa and grandma and they bought one. My friend Ruthie bought one. The boys bought one. My friend Amy bought one. And pretty soon she was "sold out". From that little store she raise $128.00 that we sent through Compassion Internationals response to the food crisis in Africa.




She has continued to make stores and try and sell her things to raise money for the orphans. I am currently praying and brain storming with her for some ideas of what else we can do.

A few nights ago she said to me, "I keep making books and stores and stuff because I do not want their bellies to be hungry. It hurts so much when I am hungry and they go without food for a few days sometimes. It must hurt so much."

Such compassion for children from the heart of a child. I hope it only continues to grow.

If you would like to buy a book, or a project or a trinket, just send me a note or leave a comment. Lizzy would be happy to fill your order for any donation to the orphans.

Team UMIZOOMI

For awhile now Daniel has belly laughed anytime the "Team UmiZoomi Fan Club Commercial" comes on Nick Jr. Yesterday I was able to capture it on video. He makes me laugh!! Maybe we need to become a fan?!?

Back To School

I have been meaning to sit down and blog about this for awhile now and just have not gotten it done, but Brent is back in class at Dallas Seminary!! And we could not be more proud of him!!

A few weeks ago, while I was out on a run, I felt like the Lord laid it on my heart that it was time for Brent to return to school. Considering our life circumstances, we have reached a fairly stable day to day routine again. But there was one thing I knew Brent would say in response to my suggesting he start up school again...we do not have the money. This is what I then said in response to the Lord, "I would love for him to go back to school, but he is going to tell me that we cannot afford it." And God reminded me of Arnold Fruchtenbaum and I knew that I was supposed to do the same for Brent.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum is a Jewish believer that spoke and taught several times at our church in North Dakota. (If you click on his name it will take you to his personal testimony and biography.) His knowledge of the word inspired both Brent and I, and he was one of the reasons Brent chose Dallas Seminary when he began looking at schools. During one of his visits to North Dakota, our pastor Vic, had Arnold share his personal testimony. Among other amazing details, I remember it was an incredible testimony of the Lord's provision. I remember Arnold saying that he was going to wait to go school and work to save money to pay for it, but the Lord asked him to go right away. And to share what would take several pages to fill, God provided every penny to pay for his schooling, some of it coming from people that Arnold says to this day he does not know who they are. God is so faithful. And I believe that is what the Lord wanted me to remind Brent of.

So I came home from my run, this is pretty much how our conversation went:

ME: "Brent, while I was our running, I think the Lord laid it on my heart that you should go back to school this spring."

Brent: "Jaci, you know I would love to go back to school, but we cannot afford it right now."

ME (with a smile): "Somehow I knew you were going to say that."

Brent: "Because it is true!"

ME: "The Lord also asked me to remind you of Arnold F. and how the Lord provided for his schooling when he could not afford it."

Brent: Quiet.

ME: "Well think about it. Pray about it. But how I see it is what so we have to lose? So you register, start the class and if we cannot pay for it I guess you will have to withdraw. And the worst think that will happen is you will have spent extra time learning about the Lord and his word without the credit to show for it. But it least we will have tried."

Brent: "okay"

Shortly after Brent and I had this conversation, he began looking into what classes he still had to take. He also "reclassified" his student status from 2 masters courses to one. He chose to finish out the Masters in Christian Education as he feels now where the Lord has us it will be more beneficial than the Masters in Cross Cultural Ministries. And most of the mission specific classes that he wanted to take he already had. And he also took the BIG step enrolled for an on-line course! The Gospels with Dr. Mark Bailey. This is a class that I audited the summer of 2009 when I was pregnant with Daniel. And he is actually watching the same class sessions, because that is when they taped it! The class was amazing.

As we moved forward, we looked at the different payment plan options and decided to set up monthly payments. This was still going to be a stretch for us right now as each payment would have been a little over $300/month. But we kept going forward. I encouraged Brent to reach out to someone from the school who had told him when he decided to return, to let him know because he may be able to help.

And that is exactly what happened.

Brent contacted this man. And his reply said, "Good timing, I just happen to have $1000.00 left on a scholarship. Fill out the paperwork and we will get this applied to your account." That left us with just $165.00 to pay. And we CAN afford that! He also said he thought that they could probably get that amount of help each semester until Brent graduates!

So Brent is back in class. Well, in class in our home. But he has been back to campus, enjoyed a brown bag and chapel and reconnecting with people he has not seen for awhile. God has also provided a dear friend and fellow DTS classmate that lives in our community. And this Sunday we will be starting a home group study with his family and another.

This was a BIG step for the Jackson family, and one that I could not be happier about. We are proud of you Brent!!

And continue to be in awe of the faithfulness of our God.

I am so hoping for our whole family to be there when Brent walks across the stage and shakes Dr. Bailey's hand in the spring of 2015.

A Bag of Rice

A bag of rice is good for filling hungry bellies.

It is good for making homemade tambourines.

A great material to use for filling bean bags.

It can be useful for making heating pads for aching bodies.

And recently I found out that it is good for salvaging a camera. A camera that was used to take pictures of a cute 2 year old boy who stood at the edge of a tub while his big sisters took a bath and "ate" bubbles. A camera that I thought was taking adorable pictures of my little D-Man (only to find out that the snotty nose stood out way more than the bubbles on his face). A camera that as I was toweling off my big girls was oh so happily dropped into the bubble bath water by my charming little man.

He had the cutest look on his face as he did it.

I posted a little blurb about what had happened on facebook and my cousin Paula responded immediately saying..."Take the card out, the battery out and put all of it in a bag of rice for a week." So I did.

In the mean time I went to use our old camera, only to find out that was no longer working either.

Thankfully our little handy cam can snap pictures, so I thought well for now this is my camera too.

The camera that ended up in the bathtub was just purchased to go on our trip to Disney World. Now it was far from the fanciest, but it was compact and took nice pictures. So I was a little bummed. But I thought what are you going to do? So I chose to smile at the memory of the giggle of Lizzy and the look on Daniel's face as he stood smiling at the edge of the tub oblivious to what he had just done.

Yesterday the camera came out of the bag of rice.

And guess what?!? It worked!! And all of the pictures were still there!

Here are the snotty "oh so not worth my camera being destroyed by a bubble bath" pictures...





And thankfully it was NOT destroyed!

So if you are someone you love drops your camera in a bubble bath take out the battery, the card, and put it in a bag of rice. You might just have as good of luck as I did!

And your bag of rice might suddenly be worth its weight in gold.

Who knew? :-)

Daniel's First Steps

We are all so excited for him to walk!! This was a big step in that direction!!

The After PIctures...

Can you tell what is different? :-)
Same cuteness...