From the Archives: 2009

Written by Jen Smith

I never really knew my mother.  She died when I was 2 years old.  That set the stage for a rather unhappy childhood.  When I was 11 years old, I began drinking to cope with the pain.  There was a history of alcohol use in my family so it just seemed like the normal thing to do.  

My cheerleading coach in high school was a Christian.  She often invited me to church, and I usually refused until one day I finally accepted an offer to go to a drama that was being presented.  That was my first introduction to the hope that can be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  I was given a book called “The Book of Hope” which radically changed my life.  “The Book of Hope” is a harmonization of the four Gospels telling the story of Jesus in a chronological sequence.  Overnight I became a different person.  I quit drinking.  I no longer went to the parties where alcohol was served.  I even gravitated toward new friends.  

As graduation preparations were being made toward the end of my senior year in high school, I was asked to sing a duet during the ceremony.  My faith in Christ had become a vital part of my life, so I asked our school principal if I could also say a prayer.  I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I could not, and that if I did pray at graduation, I would not be allowed to graduate and I would be arrested.  Shortly afterward, I even received a letter from the school district’s lawyers emphasizing that I was not to pray.  It became quite a controversy.  The American Civil Liberties Union got involved in the fight against my prayer, and the American Center for Law and Justice became involved in the fight for my prayer.  The topic was discussed all over the school and was even debated in some classrooms.  At that time my dad was even against me.  He was embarrassed by the whole ordeal and said that if I prayed, my family wouldn’t come to the ceremony.

When graduation night came and it was time for me to get up and sing, I said “I’d like to say a prayer.”  Immediately, my microphone was cut off.  Everyone knew what was going on. Some shouted encouragement for me to go ahead and pray, which I did.  Others shouted “No.”  Before long my mike came back on.  After the prayer and song, the principal got up and denounced me.  She received a lot of boos for that.  And, as it turned out, my family did attend.  After it was over my dad cried and said to me, “I’m so proud of you for standing up for what you believe.” 

Two years later a speaker came to our church to talk about missions.  I couldn’t resist the call, and soon I was a 20-year-old missionary taking “The Book of Hope” to children around the globe.  For the first time in my life, I witnessed real poverty and persecution.  Over the next nine years, I ministered in 35 countries in some of the most hopeless places in the world.  I took the message of hope to children like Dennis in Uganda, who had been abducted and forced to become a child soldier. And people like Vesa in Kosovo, a war-ravaged country of devastated towns and bombed-out buildings. I asked Vesa if she had read “The Book of Hope” we had given her the previous day.  “Yes,” she said.  “I couldn’t put it down. Jen, do you really believe that what is in this book is true?  Why has no one ever told us before?”  It was a heartbreaking question that I couldn’t answer.  I could only tell her that we were there telling her now.

Our ministry literally took us around the world. During the day we would speak at school assemblies and invite the children to an evening outreach event featuring testimonies, dramas and, of course, “The Book of Hope.” Each week our message reached tens of thousands of people who had come to us without hope.  In 9 years on the field, it is no exaggeration to say that I had the opportunity to touch the lives of millions of people.  

Looking back on all my experiences, I am continually amazed at how God can take an ordinary small-town girl like me and touch millions of lives.  Someone helped me find hope when everything in my life seemed hopeless.  The rest of my life is dedicated to sharing that hope with others.