Donna with Angel Tree recipient. photo by Louise Stanley
Donna Jackson watched the ushers at her church yell at a group of kids who would regularly throw things and cuss before running away. As an educator, Donna isn’t intimidated by unruly kids, so she introduced herself to the children five years ago. Soon enough, she was picking up 13 children weekly for church and Bible study.
“That was a challenge, because they would curse in the car and throw things out the window,” Donna remembers.
Had Donna quit on the kids like so many advised, she would have avoided the families’ domestic arguments, unplanned pregnancies, police calls and foul, ungrateful moths in the years to come.
But she would’ve missed the joy of seeing lives change, like that of Nautica Marshall, who became a Christian when accompanying Donna to an event hosted by Here’s Life Inner City. And Donna would’ve forfeited seeing the Word of God take root in Nautica as cancer threatened and then took her life she was 14.
“If I knew this was coming, I wouldn’t have walked through it,” Donna said. “But God knew this was coming. I don’t regret anything.”
Though she experiences weariness from families’ bad choices and wavering faithfulness, Donna doesn’t regret the day she refused to let the church turn away the children. She knows these beloved families are worth every joy and heartache as she continues pursuing them with the hope of Christ.
“It’s an investment in lives that’ll make a difference in eternity,” she says.
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