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HOW ONE GIFT MADE GENERATIONS OF IMPACT
She found love wrapped in a gift. Now she’s paying it forward.
By Doug Bender
Jasmine didn’t expect any presents for Christmas. She was only 8 years old, lived in extreme poverty, and suffered abuse and neglect from those who should have protected her. She had learned enough about the world to know that no magic sleigh would deliver her the love that she needed.
“It was rough,” she says. “It was not a good childhood.”
Jasmine saw her father once or twice a month and her mother was too caught up in the street life to take care of her daughter. Jasmine’s grandmother, Sarah, ended up raising her. But Sarah, too, was trapped by the same cycle of poverty and mistreatment that kept Jasmine from seeing hope for the future.
AM I GOOD ENOUGH TO BE LOVED?
“My grandma did the best that she could,” Jasmine recalls, “but being around my mom, her friends, and grandma's boyfriend, they were always stealing her checks, stealing our gifts, and all kinds of things.”
Jasmine’s mother struggled with addiction throughout her life. As early as Jasmine can remember, her mother used drugs and alcohol. This resulted in multiple stays in prison.
“I can remember all through elementary school, she was in and out of prison,” Jasmine says. “Middle school, high school, even when I was in college, she was in and out. She missed all of my graduations because she was in jail, prison, or some sort of correctional facility.”
This left a hole in Jasmine’s heart. As a young child she struggled to interpret the meaning of her situation.
“I struggled heavily with identity crisis and not feeling good enough because my parents weren’t there,” she says.
Jasmine can remember hearing the kids at school asking her, “Why don’t you have your mom or dad? Where are they? Don’t they love you?”
Her grandmother's boyfriend made her home life even more intolerable. He was violent and sexually abusive towards Jasmine.
A SIMPLE PRESENT GAVE HER HEALING
Something changed for Jasmine when she saw her name written on a card hanging on the Christmas tree at church.
“I remember the tree,” she says. “There was an actual tree that had a little angel on it, and my name was on it!”
The church invited Jasmine and her grandmother to a dinner. Other kids with a similar background to Jasmine’s also came. The church was filled with smiling faces.
There was a Christmas tree and presents—and one of the presents was for Jasmine. She hadn’t expected to receive anything for Christmas, but her mother signed her up to receive an Angel Tree gift. The church presented her with a pink sweatsuit with a matching top and bottom. But it was the present that wasn’t wrapped—the love it represented—that changed her the most.
“It opened my eyes,” she says. “It healed me in ways I didn’t realize I needed to be healed.”
By giving Jasmine a pink sweatsuit in the name of her mother, the church imparted something infinitely more valuable. They gave her a new identity. She was not an abandoned child. She was loved, and that changed everything.
The church continued to include Jasmine in their Angel Tree® ministry for several years afterwards. One year they delivered presents to her house.
“It was a nice lady who brought the gifts,” she remembers.
“She sat there as we opened the gifts. Had she not given me gifts, I honestly don’t believe I would have had any.”
“[The gift] healed me in ways I didn’t realize I needed to be healed.”
—Jasmine
READY TO RESPOND TO GOD
These acts of kindness prepared Jasmine to receive and respond to God. She remembers hearing a sermon while playing with her dolls under the kitchen table one day. Her grandmother was cooking. The television played in the background. A preacher shared about God’s love and invited viewers to commit their lives to Jesus.
“I remember him saying, ‘Say this prayer with me,’” she says. “My little self got on one knee under that table, and I quietly repeated what he said.”
Looking back, she knows it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to her and led her to that decision. She didn’t understand much of what the preacher said in that sermon, but the Holy Spirit prompted her to respond.
“I’ve heard the Lord talk with me throughout my life,” she says. “It was the Holy Spirit. He was always talking to me, guiding me, keeping me out of certain trouble. He was a parent that I didn’t have.”
THE GIFTS COME FULL CIRCLE
Jasmine chose a different path for her life than the ones her parents took. It came with many struggles and difficulties, but she always felt God’s guidance along the way. Jasmine was baptized and regularly attended church throughout her childhood. She and her grandmother even sang in the choirs at church. As she grew up and had children of her own, she sought more ways to serve God. Eventually she began her own ministry, New Nation Ministry, which provides numerous services and outreaches into her community.
This past Christmas, Jasmine’s children helped bring her story full circle. Jasmine shared with them some of her own story and the ways that Angel Tree helped change her life. They decided to pay it forward. They gave some of their own money to bless other children whose parents are incarcerated. Jasmine and her family want other children to experience the same love that she found through the program so many years ago.
“A prayer of mine is that God would touch the hearts of people to help children,” she says. “Children deserve a safe place to play and to learn and be tucked in at night. Angel Tree will absolutely help put them on that path. Angel Tree will give them a glimmer of normalcy and love and hope that these children may not have otherwise.”
The gifts that Jasmine received as a child were small, but their impact has spread to a whole new generation. Many times, churches, donors, and Angel Tree volunteers don’t realize how life-changing a gift can be for a child. But these gifts matter. And the love these gifts communicate can transform lives—both now and for generations to come.
“Angel Tree will give [children] a glimmer of normalcy and love and hope that these children may not have otherwise.”
—Jasmine
