Sponsorship Highlight: Tucker Family

Five years ago John and Will Tucker traveled to Zambia for the first time. They each met 24 boys at Camp LIFE that began a ripple effect not only in their own lives, but also in their family.

After arriving back home John and Will shared this powerful experience with their family. Since this first trip in 2007, all of the Tucker boys and their mother have traveled to Zambia to experience Camp LIFE and meet the children whose lives are being changed by the gospel of Christ and HIS work through Family Legacy. They have all been compelled to make a lasting impact in the lives of the children they met by sponsoring them through Family Legacy’s Father’s Heart Program. The Father’s Heart Sponsorship Program transforms the lives of Zambian children and families by meeting comprehensive needs to facilitate lasting change.

Through sponsorship, transformation happens not only in the life of the child, but in the lives of the American sponsor. The Tucker family has found that child sponsorship changed the way they live day to day and has given them a new eternal perspective. Ellen Tucker, the boys’ mother, can look back and see how and where the changes took place.

The transformation has been gradual and different every year. Because the children we cared about and met could have everything taken care of with a $40 a month sponsorship, our family initially compared everything we did to that $40 amount. Everything we bought was scrutinized. We found we could give up many $40 dollar items in a month: one night of eating out for our family, cutting some things out at the grocery store, a little more laundry because we had a few less shirts, doing things around the house so we didn’t have to pay someone else for it. Cutting down these things allowed more and more kids to be sponsored.

God eventually led the Tucker family to let go of some of the things of this world, and replace them with treasures of the heart. A cabinet that once held treasures like wedding gifts and china now holds family photographs and pieces of art the Tucker boys and their sponsored children have made over the years.

Our favorite new treasures are many unforgettable memories: memories of the girls we sponsor at the Tree of Life taking a shower for the first time and then wrapping up in a brand new towel; Memories of the faces of our girls at the Tree of Life Children’s Village looking at the closet and saying, “Mine? Are you sure those clothes are mine?”; Memories of the girls’ faces when we told them they now had 4 brothers that would look out for them; Memories of when we took our “family picture”, a mother and her seven children. These are our new treasures, treasures of the heart.

The Tucker family now realizes the inherent truth of the old saying, “The best things in life are meant to be given away”. They stepped out in faith and traveled to Zambia to serve orphan children. They fell in love with those children. They came home, told their children’s stories, and made sacrifices to make sure these children were sponsored. And now they have seen the eternal results. They have seen transformation in their Zambian children. They have lived the transformation in their own lives. They believe that the Lord will continue to dramatically impact the Tucker family, the families involved with Family Legacy, and the orphans of Zambia.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” Matthew 6:19-21