Jackie's Journey "Inexplicable Agony!"

Ralph and Christina teaching one evening in our rustic jungle living room…

 The word that Americans were living on the Pucuro River among an isolated tribe located near the headwaters was big news to the people in a tiny Choco settlement about a day’s journey downriver by dugout. Ralph and Jay Gunsteens were eager to take some of our new believing Kuna’s on their first missionary trip down river into this community.

 I remember the day they took off in the piragua and wondered how these remote people would receive the message God was bringing to them.  It was rainy season and the mud was deep as they arrived on  the riverbank.   This secluded  group of Indians had a few horses and cows and the ground was thoroughly contaminated.  Ralph, who had his combat boots for just such an occasion, was wearing his flip-flops and sinking deep into the wet ground.

The Choco village a day downriver

Darkness was closing in and the boys were invited to eat and spend the night.  The next day they were given an opportunity to open the Word and share God’s love, plan and provision.  Ralph and Jay were well received and some of the townspeople even returned a visit to Pucuro in the weeks that followed.

 About two weeks after returning to our village, Ralph began to suffer with excruciating abdominal pain.  We committed him to our healing God.  The limited medical resources available to us interior had been exhausted.  Since we were soon due to renew our visas, we decided to take the three-day journey early and leave for Panama City to see if the doctors in the Canal Zone could help us.

 The  medical doctors realized Ralph had picked up something rare and unusual and unable to find the source after a battery of tests, they sent us to Gorgas Laboratory,  the Center for Disease Control for the military in Central America. Ralph was becoming increasingly restless and powerless to cope with the intense pain.  He would walk the floor, day and night and had not slept for days.  His only few moments of relief came when he would drink a bottle of Coca-Cola!

 I knew I had been called to this ministry and I knew God was allowing this exercise for our good, it had divine purpose and would benefit others; yet, this was touching one of God’s most faithful servants and I was stymied!

 Have you ever wondered why it is so much more difficult

to watch the pain of someone else ??

 The Lab was our last hope.  We made an immediate appointment and to our surprise…they could take us in early the next morning!  After all, Ralph’s case was intriguing…it came out of the remote jungle! The Lord had opened up a home on the military base for us to use the few days we planned to be in the city and we were grateful for His provision.

 That night, Ralph stopped pacing and laid down sometime after midnight.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  About two hours later, we were jolted by someone breaking the glass on the back door!  Literally… breaking into the house!  The  frantic and hostile man was reaching through the shattered glass and unlocking the latch!

 Ralph was instantly on his feet yelling at the intruder!  As he left our bedroom, he turned and said, “Safety is in the Lord, Jackie!”  As he slammed the door shut, he told me to call the military police and stay with the girls. Panicked and processing, I did as I was told and listened to the scuffle in the hall!  There were loud voices and then silence!  My heart stopped!!

 In a few seconds, Ralph had subdued the man and tapped on our door to tell us we were going to be alright.  The intruder was a cocaine addict and knew someone that lived in this borrowed house.  He needed money and was desperate to get in!

 Have you ever had an intruder violently

invade your place of safety?

 This is Part One of this saga…

And Ralph’s prognosis?  You won’t believe it…

See you next week to find out…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "...Got Purpose?"

So often we think to be successful we need a sense that we are getting more out of life…more me time, vacation time, more quality time with our children, more opportunities to develop a more mature relationship with our husbands, more exercise, less weight…”It’s all about me!” 

 We are blinded by schedules and activities (work, practices, meets, tournaments, tutors, recitals, award ceremonies and more).  We moms live in a maze of taxi driving (pick-ups and drop-offs), carpools, careers, pickle-ball, parties, sleep-overs, play-dates, fears and circumstances that keep us from seeing the clarity of our designed purpose.  We are forever seeking balance…

This is the opposite of what God envisions for us.  We are to live life with a due sense of responsibility…not as(women) who do not know the meaning and purpose of life, but those who do…making the best use of our time, despite all the evil of these days…not being vague but grasping firmly what we know to be the will of God.  Eph. 5: 15-17

 True success in life is measuring what we are by what we could be (always seeking His purpose and meaning in life) and what we have done by what we could have done (by His grace).  “Faithful is He who called you who will also do it (is we get out of the way, relinquish our self will and yield to His!).  It is achieving the full potential God planned for us.  We are destined with His purpose on our life…”It’s not about me!” Col. 1: 28,2

 Are we focused on what God is focused on or are we hastily and thoughtlessly doing our own thing…running through life?  If we have not realized our life purpose and set eternal goals, our present priorities to reach that goal are short-sighted and superfluous!  Our focus is blurred by the demands of the immediate on the altar of the permanent.

 When I was a young Christian, I was challenged by Betty Stams Declaration of Purpose.  She was a missionary to China and was martyred by the Communists in 1949.

“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes and accept Your will for my life.  I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to You, to be yours forever.  Fill me and seal me with Your Holy Spirit.  Use me as You will, send me where You will, work out Your whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.”

 While at Bible School, I stapled that statement inside the flap of my Bible and it is still there today…a reminder of my commitment to my God, who gave His All for me, to die daily.  “If anyone would come after me (Christ), he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9: 23

 Taken from Philippians 1: 21, “For to me to live is Christ and to die (to my will, rights, ambitions, entitlements…) is gain…”  This has carried me through life and has been my comfort while serving in the jungles of Panama until this day…

 Where is your heart?

What is your Declaration of Purpose?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "What Does Your Future Hold?"

Life had become routine in the Darien jungles of Panama. The sounds of Howler monkeys, the screeching of magnificent multicolored parrots and the beauty of the bright colored Toucan had become commonplace.  One morning we woke up to find two little spider monkeys on the front porch crawling on the girls’ bikes!

I still could not reconcile with the colossal hairy spiders, the over-sized scorpions, the copious species of slithering snakes, the blood-sucking vampire bats or the jungle army ants!  Nor would I ever find harmony with the dripping humidity and the ever-present roaches, chiggers and mosquitos!  However, I did learn to appreciate the large Iguanas for their tasty eggs.

 Daily, the Kuna’s would greet us, early, looking for sugar or oil and a morning visit.  We had become part of the community and they had begun to accept us.  We had brought healing medicine, oil, and sugar after all!

 The Indians had, somewhere along the line, become part of our family and we had become attached to them and their way of life.  We had learned so much from them and were amazed at their physical strength compared to their small stature.  Their ability to take one bullet and return with a deer or two bullets and return with two deer was uncanny.  We, also, learned much from their survival skills in the dense jungle.  But their openness to listen to the truth of God’s Word after a year and a half of total mistrust and resistance was the most astounding of all! 

 Watching the young mothers with their babies and the respect and trust these women had for the older women in the village was heart-warming  We had grown to love these very special people and had developed a mutually fulfilling relationship.  As they came to know Christ, our hearts were full of gratitude for the privilege of serving the King in such a rugged and remote region.

 The women swept the village once a week during dry season and it was an opportunity for Sue Gunsteen and I to listen to the women chatter and hear the community gossip.  You didn’t want to miss the sweeping because you would then become the object of their conversation that day!  

 However, I was consistently on guard because of something my Uncle, an orthopedic surgeon, had told me while he was visiting us at Language School.  He spoke quietly: “Jackie, you carry the TB germ from your mother at birth; it lays dormant now but could activate in the right environment or as you get older”.  I was 25 at the time, so I only had to focus on the environmental issue, I thought to myself!  Then, a year or so later, during a Congreso meeting, we knew we had reached a level of tribal acceptance when they offered us a gourd filled with “Chicha” and everyone drank from that one rustic cup!  Needless to say, I did not want to offend by NOT drinking from it! 

 But for me the sweeping and the common drinking gourd became an act of faith because the sweeping stirred up the tuberculosis germs that blew in the village and of course, the tubercular women would contaminate that cup!

 The Lord had given me a promise while we were in missionary training. 

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,

plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans

to give you a hope and future”.   Jer.29: 11

 The Lord used these powerful words of promise to banish my fear and sustain me as we swept the village, drank the “sugar cane-sweetened platano (cooking banana) drink” and treated the TB patients in their homes and the clinic. 

 HE knew my future and had it planned. There was, therefore, no reason to be troubled.  My focus was not on my fear but the need to keep in harmony with Him, His assignment and His will.

 Are you ever preoccupied with the future

and what it holds for your life?

 In a world full of uncertainties, it is easy to “roll into” the pattern of helping God design your future, rather than simply submitting to Him and His plan that comes with assurance and hope!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Who's Got the Answer?"

“A while back, the clue on Jeopardy was “Jezebel’s husband.” None of the three contestants knew that the answer was King Ahab. About that same time, I was doing a crossword puzzle, and the clue was Samuel’s teacher. I happened to know that Eli was Samuel’s mentor. But it got me to thinking about how little the average American knows about the Bible.

A Gallup poll in the 90’s concluded that only half of the adults nationwide could name ANY of the four gospels. That same survey found that only 42% could name even 5 of the 10 commandments. The Barna Research Group reports that 12% of American adults believe that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. And 75% believe that “God helps those who help themselves” (a quote from Benjamin Franklin, not the bible).

In years past, the American education system was centered on the study of God’s Word. In the early days of our country, a child learned to read from the pages of scripture. Bible stories were commonly known and discussed in polite society. Writers drew inspiration from biblical characters.

Go back a bit further in history and consider how many references there are to the Bible within the pages of Shakespeare’s writing. God is mentioned in 30 of his 37 plays, for a total of over 700 times. Countless references, allusions and paraphrases of scripture can be found in his work. The pages of his work are so saturated with God’s Word that Shakespeare’s writings were referred to as the “Lay Bible.”

So, what has happened? 92% of Americans claim to own a Bible. They may own one, but they do not seem to know what’s in it! Truth is, we are more likely to be able to quote endless lines from a movie or rattle off song lyrics with ease than to know even the most rudimentary things about God’s Word.” (this was too good to not repeat…posted by Sherry Worell)

This is to our great shame!

Could I challenge you to get in God’s Word this week?

It is the heart and mind of God

and what He thinks about everything!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Standing on that Promise!"

While living in the jungle, I was a notorious pursuer of the promises in the Word to ease the rigorous life required to live interior…Don’t you just love promises?  The circumstances of life, with its hurdles and opportunities, give us great comfort, if a promise comes with it.  “

 One day Ralph (who carried the heaviest load) in our jungle journey, gave me a promise after observing my daily activities with two little girls, the medical clinic with my missionary partner(Sue Gunsteens), the linguistic work, the washing of three dozen diapers (plus clothes) on a rock in the river, hanging three dozen diapers and clothes on a line in my back yard (at least twice in one day to avoid the rain clouds that threatened to soak it all again!), cooking meat and vegetables I had never ever seen or heard of, doing 4:30 to 9:30 hour days, and at the end of the day, with the house still full of people, putting Christina and Kim into bed with mosquito netting, carefully tucked tightly under their foam rubber mattresses…

 It occurred to me that these non-stop, long days in 95-degree heat with 95% humidity gave me an excuse to pause and do my own thing.  Just the thought seemed selfish and when I verbalized it, it sounded really wrong!  “To him that knows to right and does not do it; to him it is sin.” Jas. 4:17  My faithful watchdog, Ralph, had been pitching in to lighten my load and realized that was not my REAL need.

 Are you familiar with the promise that comes with that portion of Scripture that tells us not to worry becauseof God’s promise and provision for us. “Seek His kingdom (presence) and His righteousness and ALL these things (the list mentioned in the prior verses) will be given to you as well.” Matt. 6: 33  The… “all these things will be added unto you” sounded perfect!

 BUT…this promise comes with a huge condition!

 I was given a concise definition of what that condition meant and where I had dropped the ball.   It was clear that the promise was contingent on my seeking the Lord first and foremost. “He (She) did evil because he(she) did not set his (her) heart to seek the Lord.” II Chron. 12: 14   I was robbing God and myself by not living in a state of “seeking and setting my heart on Him moment by moment.” I was too busy sacrificing the immediate on the altar of the permanent!

 Evil is doing our own thing.  We have two choices: Seek Him and the wisdom from above or seek the wisdom from below…which is Satanic, selfish, proud, envious, and everything EVIL.  God’s will or Satan’s…there is no…MY WILLl!   My will makes the choice of which master I will submit to.

 Is your heart set first on seeking Him?

Let’s grab hold of God and ask Him for a passion to pursue Him…

 “If you seek me with all your heart, You will find me.”

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Fire of Sorrows!!"

Our family… The Day of Ralph’s Celebration of Life

 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me,

YET not my will but your will be done.”

 The day we said good-bye, this quote from C. S. Lewis kept running through my head…“When I am in the presence of God, it seems profoundly unbecoming to demand anything!”  Luke 22:42  Christ said, “What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?  But for this cause I came to this hour.  Father, glorify Your Name.”

 My attitude toward every “fire of sorrow” and difficulty is, initially…please don’t let this happen!  Then reality sets in and the truth comes blaring with its message. I cannot be saved from its flames, but I can be rescued into its divine purpose by His grace!  There is no evading it, enduring it, denying it or asking, “why?”  It is a fact of life that escapes none of us.

 Grace, by my husband’s functional definition, is “God who works in you the will and power to do His will”.  Phil. 2: 13  He always gave the five factors of grace as:

Grace is:

(1) Given to every person Titus 2: 11;

(2) Given freely Eph. 2: 8;

(3) If received, we are Given more II Pet. 1; 2;

(4) Grace can be resisted Heb. 12: 15;

(5) Given to the humble. Jas. 4:6

 Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost for His Highest” this month directed our attention to making sure we saw this “fire of sorrows” from God’s point of view and realize that “the GRACE we had yesterday will not do for today”!  We are to draw on the grace of God now, in this moment…in the trenches, in every conceivable condition we find ourselves in.

 I love his checkpoint…”the proof that you are drawing on the grace of God  is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but HIS grace!”

 With gratefulness I am drawing on the grace of  God,  

not presently…but NOW!

Will you join me?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Evil?"

“First, we overlook evil

Then  we permit evil

Then  we legalize evil

  Then  we promote evil

   Then  we celebrate evil

Then we persecute those who still call it evil!”

 Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil.  Isa. 5:20a

 Life is simply a stewardship, not an ownership; a trust, not a gift.  With a gift you may do as you please, but with a trust you must give an account. Ephesians 2:10  One day we will be called upon to view evil, as God sees it!

 Wickedness in all its forms seems to dominate the culture on every level.  Instead of seeing trials and conflict serving as a continual process to personal growth, they are seen as an interruption to our walk because we refuse to view them through humility and His divine purpose.

 J.P. Phillips once wrote, “The real danger to professing Christians lies not in the more glaring and grosser evils but in the slow deterioration of vision, a slow death to daring courage and willingness to adventure.”  The adventure referred to here is in the context of our daring to stand alone against the throes of evil, in a world that is fraught with lies and deceit.

 Accepting truth with humility is a lost art!  Self-defense, self-esteem and rationalization are the resources used to confront conflict.  Our homes, children, communities…all of life is consumed by it.  Hence, evil takes control and prevails, with division, divorce and destruction. All in Satan’s plan to steal, kill and destroy us.

 Our challenge for our sake and the sake of our children, who are stepping into the print we leave behind, is to step up to the plate of maturity and receive “the meat” of His Word and respond to life’s situations from God’s point of view and act in harmony with it!

 In these days of uncertainty, “we renounce secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God.  On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”

 God’s  Word calls Evil out…

 How often do you get in God’s Word?

 Is His Word dwelling richly in you?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Princess Puzzlement!"

Taking a look at the need we have in our bookstores (that are disappearing!) it is obvious that Biblical worldviews are sorely missing! Children’s books are not representing those of us who are intentional in presenting godly character, biblical values and eternal perspective.

Articulating a biblical worldview within our sphere of influence is what “The Princess Parables Series” is all about. They are written to strengthen the belief that God made our little princess special and designed her with destiny and purpose.

The mission of “The Princess Parables” is to introduce and encourage the disciplines necessary to step outside fantasy and into the magical realism and authenticity of a loving and accepting God who teaches finding contentment in serving others, not in serving oneself. Although written in fiction, each Princess story is based on fact. It teaches a specific character quality in the name of its Princess and takes the storyline from a Parable that was taught by the greatest teacher ever born.

 It has been specifically created to put a functional tool into the hands of young mothers (urban, suburban, rural, stay- at-home, teen moms, single moms and married moms, grandmoms, aunts, and teachers, each with a different lifestyle, but all who share a similar desire to be the very best power of influence they can be!

The passion to meet the need of every person desiring to cultivate what God has programmed into her child’s “Princess Potential” has been a huge source of motivation and it allows parents to nurture their little ones into genuine greatness.

The innocent imagination of a small child is a book yet to be written and images of truth, hope, loyalty, joy, grace, charity and faith are but a few of the myriad of opportunities lost when the exposure to truth is clouded and “synergized” with fantasy.

If you have a little princess…

Take a peek at The Princess Parable Series this week…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Princess Perplexity!"

The original intent of this weekly blog was to encourage young moms to be all they could be for the benefit of their little princesses. It takes intentional planning, commitment and direction.

From their earliest memories our little girls are swamped with a princess course that introduces them to an unreal world filled with wizardry and lacking strong moral themes with eternal values. They are asked to define love and romance by standards that are not true to life or a representation of clearly defined biblical standards.

These little girls are needlessly exposed to the illusion of life and love  through the many Princes Charming’s and young squires that are so readily available to them in most story lines; however, the child is not exposed to the truth of genuine love. Children are caught in a quagmire of choices that offer only temporal values, but not eternal ones.

Their personal identification with a fantasy character is deceiving on many levels because the charge to discern the good and evil is often obscured by wrong motives and intentions on the part of the “hero” in the story line. Often the attitude of the leading character is questionable and the continual interjection of clairvoyance and magical fantasy is confounding.

The child is left to choose from bad and really bad, instead of from good and bad. Neither choice is particularly clear, but the medium being used (book, film, cartoon, etc.) is “thought” captivating and attention binding. Both of these goals are shortsighted and not fulfilling for the long term.

Living in a post-Christian era, we seek to carve out a more excellent and realistic milieu for our children, these little ones that are so literal and entrusted into our keeping for so short a time. Most Christian parents are seeking an alternative to the present prince and princess culture trend in books and films presently available. Their main reason…our worldview influences all areas of life!

Every exposure a child has (visual or auditory, etc.) is adding to their life experience and their worldview.

Presently, how would you describe your child’s worldview?

How would you describe your worldview?

The original intent of this weekly blog was to encourage young moms to be all they could be for the benefit of their little princesses. It takes intentional planning, commitment and direction.

From their earliest memories our little girls are swamped with a princess course that introduces them to an unreal world filled with wizardry and lacking strong moral themes with eternal values. They are asked to define love and romance by standards that are not true to life or a representation of clearly defined biblical standards.

These little girls are needlessly exposed to the illusion of life and love  through the many Princes Charming’s and young squires that are so readily available to them in most story lines; however, the child is not exposed to the truth of genuine love. Children are caught in a quagmire of choices that offer only temporal values, but not eternal ones.

Their personal identification with a fantasy character is deceiving on many levels because the charge to discern the good and evil is often obscured by wrong motives and intentions on the part of the “hero” in the story line. Often the attitude of the leading character is questionable and the continual interjection of clairvoyance and magical fantasy is confounding.

The child is left to choose from bad and really bad, instead of from good and bad. Neither choice is particularly clear, but the medium being used (book, film, cartoon, etc.) is “thought” captivating and attention binding. Both of these goals are shortsighted and not fulfilling for the long term.

Living in a post-Christian era, we seek to carve out a more excellent and realistic milieu for our children, these little ones that are so literal and entrusted into our keeping for so short a time. Most Christian parents are seeking an alternative to the present prince and princess culture trend in books and films presently available. Their main reason…our worldview influences all areas of life!

Every exposure a child has (visual or auditory, etc.) is adding to their life experience and their worldview.

Presently, how would you describe your child’s worldview?

How would you describe your worldview?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Price of Freedom!"

“We hold these truths to be self-evident:  That all men created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,

that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 We are all familiar with these words but, not so well-known, the concluding words of the Declaration of Independence reads, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  Fifty-six signatures of great patriots follow these profound words. These were the American heroes to the core!

 And what did they get for pledging their lives, fortunes and honor for our country? 

·      Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

·      Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

·      Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

·      Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy.  He sold his home and property to pay his debts and died in rags.

·      Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.  He served in Congress without pay and his family was kept in hiding.  His possessions were taken from him and poverty was his reward.

·      Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

·      At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwalls had taken over his home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire.  The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt.

·      Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.  The enemy jailed his wife and she died within a few months.

·      John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying.  Their 13 children fled for their lives.  His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste.  For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.  A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.  Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifice of the great Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. These great men were not wild-eyed, rebellious ruffians.  They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security…but they valued liberty more!

 So… this July 4th, as we celebrate our freedoms with family and friends,

take a few minutes to silently thank these founding fathers

who paid such a great price for America’s freedom?

 Freedom is never free!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.