Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqui Jackson.
Hi Jacqui, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
God started writing the story of Ignite Hope in an orphanage in a third-world country where my life began. I immediately went into foster care there and was then adopted into America by my momma and daddy. Two years later, they began a second adoption process for my sister, and that began a legacy that is both personal and professional in our family line. Our oldest two kiddos came through adoption and our younger two are biological. We have some spiritually adopted kids now as well (adult!) and through all of this the underpinning in God building my family has been prayer.
Ignite Hope – the child welfare organization that my husband and I founded in 2016, was birthed in our hearts after experiencing the spiritual void that many families experience when walking out of their own journeys in foster/ adoption and kinship care. As an organization, Ignite Hope exists to rescue At Risk kids from the nightmare of life without family. We firmly believe that there is a reason some kiddos are attacked from the womb and that is because there is a Kingdom Calling upon their lives.
The more we shared our story, the more families came to us who had been experiencing the same feelings that we had. We realized that there was a great need in this space, so we work to fill those gaps through Advocacy, Resourcing and Encouraging caregivers and organizations who are doing the heavy lifting on behalf of at risk kids domestically and globally.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh, my Word – No. It has been an uphill battle from the word go. We began Ignite Hope after returning from a life-changing short-term mission experience in East Asia working with Special Needs children living in an orphanage. You can never un-know what you now know! When I was four months pregnant with our fourth child – super high risk – my husband felt God telling him to take a leave of absence from his work in order to begin this ministry. So we jumped off a cliff and had just enough money to keep the house and the insurance until three weeks before that baby’s due date. We were terrified but walked it out in obedience. God is faithful and good. He has kept a roof over our head and has given Ignite Hope favor in many ways. In just over five years, we have been blessed to have impacted almost 100,000 individuals globally with our devotions, articles and our first book (God’s Got This – 5 -star rated on Amazon). That’s just Jesus because it all began with exhausted Jeff and Jacqui in the basement in Kennesaw, GA.
Currently, we are hoping to take what we’ve learned about Strategic Prayer and Advocacy in the public square and within the Church to those who need it most – the Organizational and Ministry leaders who work daily in this space. So that means scaling to capacity to meet the growing need. So we’re in the middle of an important Fund Building effort so that we can have those strategic positions filled with the right team members, so that the impact once we launch our online prayer training is as great as it can possibly be for kids at risk. The undertaking feels big and kind of scary – but just like we did in 2016, we’re just trying to do the next right thing – and asking God to bring the people who can partner with us as we aim to grow!
As you know, we’re big fans of Ignite Hope, Inc. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Ignite Hope’s key distinctive is Strategic Prayer. Because I am a former foster child, an adult adoptee and an adoptive mama – I live in the space in which I work. Because of how I am wired – it isn’t easy for me to compartmentalize my private life from my professional life – so what you see is what you get.
I am an extrovert, a communicator and a Latina – so when I speak to someone over coffee or speak to many at a conference – I am pretty much the same girl. My passion for Jesus and Justice and Kids – is just a part of me – professionally and personally.
I am grateful that because our team is based across the US, we all work remotely so I am able to be present for our kiddos – but that also means the home is the office.
The best but most difficult thing I’ve had to learn is how to put boundaries in place so when I’m in my Ignite Hope Mama Bear role advocating in legislative circles, connecting with child welfare professionals or testifying in court – I’m fully present. Likewise, when I’m Mama Bear at home – I have to be fully present for homework, worship time, family fun nights and all the other things that come along with parenting.
How do you define success?
Wow – For me in the space of Child Welfare and At Risk Kids – it would be to work myself out of a job! At any given time in the last decade, there have been around 120,000 kids immediately available for adoption through the US Foster Care System. If one family in every third church in America adopted through this system, every current waiting child would have a home! God didn’t call governments to care for kids – His original design was the family.
If Ignite Hope’s clarion call to the church to step into this space of marginalized and At risk kids as heeded – the families called to bring kids into their home through fostering/ adoption/ or kinship care would be a working reality. Our goal is then to support these families in prayer and tangible needs.
Success would be watching the Church step into these messy spaces and support each other. Supporting the teen mom, the single parent, the exhausted foster or adoptive family.
And It can happen! This is one global epidemic that has a solution readily available – we just have to be available to meet that need!
Contact Info:
- Email: info@ignitehope.online
- Website: www.ignitehope.online
- Instagram: ihope4orphans
- Facebook: ihope4orphans
- Twitter: ihope4orphans
