Dear Brother Joseph and Young Foundations,

This is our first time turning in "Jesus Jars." Our children, Amelia and Levi, have been working very hard lately, so I wanted to tell you a little about where most of this money came from.

At the beginning of summer, we noticed our neighbor's plum tree was loaded with fruit that was just falling off and rotting on the ground. My husband asked the neighbor's if we could pick the fruit, and they agreed. He had the idea of making the fruit into jam, which at first I wasn’t too crazy about. Jamming is a bit of work that includes cleaning and preparing the fruit, boiling it, stirring it again, boiling it again, stirring, and pouring very hot liquid into hot jars...and boiling again. However, once we got our first batch of plum jam going, another wonderful idea struck my husband. He thought that if we sold what we canned, we could turn the money into Young Foundations to go toward the work of the Lord! He then had me and the kids hooked on the idea.

We're a family of six, our oldest is five years old, but we were determined to see the idea go through to completion. About a week later we all went out to a local farm to pick berries. We got about half-bushel of berries. However, I didn't realize how quickly they needed to be cleaned and stored, so I procrastinated a couple of days. By the time I was ready to get them cleaned, they were already rotten. It was very frustrating, but we were still determined.

So, we all loaded up again and headed back to the berry field. I took some pictures of the kids at work. While we worked I told them the parable of the rich man and his three servants he left money with. I explained each servant to them, what they did with the money he left them, and their Lord's opinion of their work at His return. They were very excited to be typed with one of the wise servants in the story.

After about 30 minutes, Levi started getting a little pokey. I kept telling him to get to work so I could take a picture of all he had picked. As the time wore on, he got slower and slower (grant it, he is four-years-old.) But just before we finished up, I told him that he was going to get his picture taken with an empty basket if he didn’t hurry up. I also told him that I was planning on giving the picture to Brother Joseph, and then I asked him if he wanted Brother Joseph to see his empty basket. He said "No!" and he sure got to work. As you can see in the picture, he gathered a whole lot of berries in about fifteen minutes with his mind set to the task

We picked more plums, black berries, blueberries, peaches, and pears. Actually, the neighbor that we got the plums from, though not a Christian, felt led to pick and donate over a half-bushel of peaches to us. He didn’t even know what we were doing with them at that time.

We sold must of the jam to Message believers, but we went door-to-door as well. It really surprised me how many people were happy to support our work.

It's been a wonderful experience, and I just love teaching my children to love supporting missions. We invested about $40-$50, and we made a little over $200. Our family has a burden on our heart to help out in any way we can, and this had been a very fun way to do so.

God bless you all! We love you!

In Christian love,

The Vaughn Family