The Nelson Family

June 2009

Jeff & Ann Nelson

Jeff serves as Director of Ponderosa Student Ministries & Ponderosa Bible Camp.

Jeff also serves part-time as the Family Pastor and an Elder at Wills Valley Community Church in Fort Payne, AL.

Our family journey began when we were married in September of 1987.

The Lord began blessing us with children right away and has continued to do so every couple of years!

When J.T., our oldest, turned 4 years old, the Lord called us to become a homeschooling family.

We have just completed our 15th year of homeschooling and we have 2 in college!

The next adventure the Lord called us to was to become a "Quiverfull" family. At the time we found out we were expecting our 5th child, Kristin, we were unsure if we were ready for more. After all, Jordan was only 6-months-old at the time! The Lord took us to His word and showed us that He opens the womb and He closes the womb and that He considers children a blessing and a reward, and that He desired to bless us more! We believe at that point He called us to give up birth control and to trust Him to be our "family planner", and to trust Him for the size of our family.

About a year later, the Lord spoke to our hearts again while attending a Missions Conference at our home church, Shades Mountain Bible Church, in Birmingham, AL. We felt the Lord calling us to become full-time missionaries. We began to actively pursue where God would have us serve. We enjoyed an 11-day missions trip to Kazakhstan during this time, where we helped lead a week-long Vacation Bible School. During that year our oldest son J.T. finished second grade and was "finally" able to attend Ponderosa Bible Camp as his Dad had done for so many years growing up.

It was through this process that the Lord confirmed our call to serve here at Ponderosa!

Being obedient to the Lord's call on our lives meant we had to take some GIANT steps of faith...

we sold our house, paid off all our debts, cut up all our credit cards,

gave up Jeff's position as Vice President and Director of Operations

of one of the largest landscape companies in Birmingham

(including the nice paycheck, bonuses, company truck, and health insurance!).

All this to become "faith-supported" missionaries, which means "raising support" by asking friends,

family, and churches to make a monthly commitment to supply our "income" so that we can do the work of the Lord,

and then living from month to month on whatever donations the Lord prompts people to send.

We were approved to join the staff at Ponderosa in November of 1997, at which time we began our support raising journey! Because of the desperate need for additional staff that year, we moved to camp that summer (1998), in spite of the fact that we had not finished raising our recommended support level. We are still working on raising support.

We continue to trust the Lord each month to meet our financial needs!

God is good and He continues to show us His faithfulness! He has not let us go hungry and He

has provided a camp house big enough for our family!

What a journey we are on! We can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next!

Our passion is winning kids and youth (including our own!) to Christ!

Favorite quotes:

"The Bible calls debt a curse and children a blessing. But in our culture

we apply for a curse and reject blessings. Something is wrong with this picture."

By Doug Phillips, Vision Forum

"We choose to live simply so others may simply live."

Briarwood Missions Conference

Gratefully serving the Lord,