There is nothing that brings more joy to my heart than being with children. That’s why I’ve become so involved in several children’s charities.
Hey, as far as I’m concerned, the two greatest sounds in the world are a child’s laughter and the splash of a mallard duck crashing into the water on a cool, crisp morning on the Louisiana bayou. It doesn’t get any better than that, Jack!
The absolute best part of my life is meeting a child and making him or her laugh uncontrollably. Thankfully, the Good Lord has blessed me with the ability to make people laugh and smile, especially kids. First comes their giggle. Then comes their belly laugh, when they start grabbing their stomachs and fall on the ground. Then comes their screams that they’re going to pee their pants. Hey, it works every time. It’s like magic.
When I meet a kid at one of my public appearances or at the grocery store, I tell him or her to look deep into my eyes.
“What do you see?” I’ll ask them.
“I see a bearded old dude,” he or she will say.
There is nothing that brings more joy to my heart than being with children. That’s why I’ve become so involved in several children’s charities.
“Hey, look deeper,” I’ll say. “You’re not looking deep enough into my eyes. Look again and tell me what you see.”
“I still see an old dude with a beard,” they’ll say.
“No, there’s a ten-year-old kid in there trying to get out,” I say. “He’s trapped inside a sixty-seven-year-old body!”
I can’t pass up an opportunity to make a child laugh and smile. Anything that has something to do with kids, hey, I’m all in. In 2013, I was asked to play the voice of Silas the Wise Old Okra on the Veggie Tales DVD called Merry Larry and the True Light of Christmas. I’ll admit that I was a little green at playing a vegetable, but it was a lot of fun. Hey, I ate so much stewed okra and tomatoes when I was a kid that I still slide out of bed every night.
The next year, I co-authored a children’s book titled Uncle Si the Christmas Elf. The idea actually came from Ashley Howard Nelson, who is Korie Robertson’s sister—and Ashley did most (that means all) of the writing. In the story, Santa asks Uncle Si for help and commissions him as an elf to make a special toy for a little boy who wouldn’t have a Christmas if Si didn’t help. You wouldn’t believe the get-up I had to wear!
Hey, I miss being a kid. I miss learning to ride a bike for the first time. I miss sliding down the stairs on pillows. I miss catching frogs, lizards, and fireflies (but definitely not snakes). I miss riding a roller coaster eight times at the country fair, and then asking my dad to “do it again.” I miss Trapper Keepers, pizza Fridays in the lunchroom, Saturday-morning cartoons, hide-and-seek, recess with my friends, and never having to sign a check or pay a bill.
When we’re kids, we can’t wait to grow up. When we’re grown up, we miss being a kid. As adults, we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life that we don’t have time to stop and giggle, tell a knock-knock joke, scream about someone sitting on a whoopee cushion, or laugh so hard that milk shoots out of our noses. Hey, there have been plenty of times when I wanted to go back to being nine years old, when my only worries were about whether or not my brothers put my hand in warm water while I was sleeping. There’s no doubt about it: if I had a time machine, I’d go back to my childhood.
Hey, my wife, Christine, would probably say that I never grew up. I still nap whenever I want. I drink iced tea whenever I want. A skateboard and pogo stick are my preferred methods of transportation. I wear Mickey Mouse pajamas and eat Fruity Pebbles for lunch. I watch SpongeBob SquarePants and Scooby-Doo. Hey, I’d much rather eat chicken fingers and French fries than filet mignon and asparagus for dinner—in fact, it’s what I eat six nights a week (Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, if you didn’t know).
Even after sixty-eight years, I’m still a kid at heart. I think that’s one of the reasons I have become so involved in children’s ministries and charities. There’s nothing that breaks my heart more than hearing about a neglected or abused child. I can’t imagine what would make an adult be so mean to a child, especially a parent who abuses or neglects his or her own kids.
According to the National Children’s Alliance, more than fifteen hundred children died from abuse and neglect in the United States in 2013. In that same year, children’s advocacy centers across the country served nearly 700,000 child victims of abuse and neglect. About 80 percent of the victims were abused or neglected by one or more of their parents. Child abuse sickens me, and it has to stop. Children are our greatest gift, and we have to make sure that every child is being loved and properly cared for.
I have been blessed by the Good Lord to be in a position to help charities and ministries financially. I like to focus on local charities that help people in West Monroe, Louisiana, and other parts of my home state, but there are exceptions. One of my favorite ministries is the Louisiana Methodist Children’s Home, in Ruston, Louisiana, where my good friend Phillip McMillan works. It serves thousands of abused and neglected children around the state, and I’ve made multiple appearances at fund-raisers and other events to help it raise money for its homes.
Another charity I have become intimately involved with is Homes of Hope for Children in Purvis, Mississippi. Its executive director and founder, Dr. Michael Garrett, is a survivor of child abuse. When Michael was young, he was abused both physically and emotionally.
When Michael’s mother became seriously ill and was unable to care for her three children, Michael and his two sisters were forced to live in foster homes; Michael was in the third grade. Family services separated Michael from his two sisters. His sisters were placed in a home with loving, caring foster parents. Unfortunately, Michael was not.
Often, older boys in the home beat him and shot him with a BB gun. Also, because Michael was overweight, he was constantly referred to as Tugboat. Michael’s foster parents kept him from visiting his sisters.
After spending a year in foster care, Michael’s mother was well enough to regain custody of her children. The day he left the foster home was one of the best days of his life. Unfortunately, their reunion didn’t last long. His mother was physically, emotionally, and financially unable to care for her kids, so Michael and his sisters were placed at the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home in Monroe. While Michael longed to be with his mother, he was happy that he was at least living with his sisters again.
Because of Michael’s past experiences in foster care, he was anxious about living in the children’s home. It was another new and unfamiliar environment. His first days at the children’s home were spent fighting back tears and worrying about his future. However, Michael soon realized that his new home was different. He lived on the same campus with his sisters, and they attended the same school and church. They were allowed to be a part of each other’s lives. Michael and his sisters were a family again.
Soon after Michael and his sisters moved into the children’s home, he realized they were surrounded by Jesus Christ’s unconditional love through the people that served in the ministry. They were living in a good, Christian environment with adults who genuinely loved and cared for them. Michael felt safe for the first time in his life. More than anything else, he was allowed to be a kid again.
Michael lived at the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home for seven years. While living there, God began teaching him vital aspects of the ministry. His guidance helped Michael realize, create, and develop his own vision for a children’s home for abused and neglected children—even as that very ministry was meeting his own needs. Before Michael graduated from high school he left the children’s home to live with Travis and Virginia Eaton, whose family he had grown very close to. With the continued support of the children’s home and his new family, Michael found himself in a truly blessed situation.
Shortly after Michael graduated from high school, he surrendered himself full-time to the ministry. He wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to ensuring that other children in situations similar to his own received the same life-changing opportunities he was given. Living at the children’s home afforded Michael a chance to escape the destructive cycle of abuse and poverty that is unnecessarily endured by so many children. After the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home saved his life, Michael wanted to make a difference in other children’s lives as well.
In 2006, Michael, his wife, Julie, and their infant son, Caleb, moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He started to put his vision for a children’s home into action. It wasn’t easy. Every time Michael hit a roadblock, he put his faith in God to make his dream come to life so he could help neglected boys and girls. God rescued him from the brink of failure many times. Michael spoke to churches and civic organizations across the South to raise money for his children’s home, and he applied for grants from foundations, charitable organizations, and corporations.
In July 2010, Homes of Hope for Children completed construction of a boys’ cottage on forty-two acres in Purvis, Mississippi. A girls’ cottage was built and opened the next year. Currently, Michael and his ministry provide a home for fifteen boys and girls who come from abusive and broken homes. In 2016, another home will open on their campus, bringing the total number of children being served to twenty-one. His long-term goal is to have six cottages to care for more than forty-two children.
After coming from dysfunctional homes, the children live in a stable, loving environment with other kids. Married couples live with the children in the homes. A licensed counselor works with the children to help them heal mentally and spiritually.
The kids who live at Homes of Hope for Children attend the same schools and church, and even take summer vacations together. The homes offer them long-term stability. The kids can live in the cottages until they turn eighteen. Once they graduate from high school, Michael places them in on-campus apartments, as long as they’re attending college or learning a vocation.
One of my favorite things about Homes of Hope for Children is the fact that they fight legal battles to get children out of a dangerous home or to keep them from going back into one. Michael’s ministry is a faith-based children’s home that partners with grandparents and other family members and goes to court to protect innocent children. This ministry is proving that a faith-based ministry can do everything for children that we currently trust the government to do. But this ministry does it better.
I can’t say enough about Michael and what he’s doing. I’ve fallen in love with his ministry and how far he’ll go to keep his kids safe. He had a very bad experience in foster homes as a kid, and he has taken a vow that he isn’t going to let that happen to the children under his care. He knows what it feels like to be neglected and abused. His children are going to be loved unconditionally, and their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs are going to be met. Hey, if that ain’t love, I don’t know what is, Jack!
I’ve attended fund-raisers for Michael’s charity and visited the homes on several occasions. I’ve met the children under his care, like Javier, Daniel, Julianna, Gavriel, and little Cameron, and they’re loving, happy kids. As you can see from the picture on page 170, Cameron and I are good buddies. The children under Michael’s care are a lot better off than many because they’re living in nurturing homes. The fact that so many of them are able to live with their siblings makes a world of difference in their lives. Children should never be separated from their brothers and sisters.
Hey, I only wish there was enough time in the day to help every ministry and charity that reaches out to us for help. We’ve been involved with dozens of great organizations, including Samaritan’s Purse, Christian Relief Fund, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the Wiregrass Children’s Home in Dothan, Alabama.
During the past few years, I’ve been amazed at how resilient children are and how much they’re willing to help each other. I wish adults acted more like kids sometimes, that’s for sure. The world would be a better place if we all slowed down, smiled, and laughed uncontrollably like a kid.
I’ll never forget meeting a ten-year-old boy named Mitchell Underwood in August 2013 during one of our appearances in Mountain Grove, Missouri. The young boy waited in line and brought me a bag of duck decoys to autograph. He told me that the decoys were going to be auctioned off to help pediatric cancer patients at St. Jude. I couldn’t believe a boy that young could be so selfless. I told him his good deed wouldn’t go unnoticed by the man upstairs.
I’m trying to be more like Mitchell. I think one of the reasons I try to be benevolent is because so many people helped my family when I was young. I grew up in a small log cabin in Vivian, Louisiana. The cabin was really rustic; we used an outhouse and didn’t even have hot water to take a bath. My parents, Merritt and James Robertson, had five boys, and I was the youngest. Jimmy Frank was my oldest brother, followed by Harold, Tommy, and Phil. I had an older sister, Judy, and then my younger sister, Jan, came along a few years after I was born.
There were nine people living in the log cabin, and most of our food came from the fruit and vegetable garden my parents planted every spring. My brothers and I hunted deer, birds, squirrels, and just about anything else we could eat. Our eggs came from the chickens on our farm, and the milk and cheese came from our cows. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, and there usually wasn’t much left over to buy groceries after they’d paid the bills. We only had enough money to buy the bare necessities, like flour, sugar, and coffee.
My family had some very difficult times when I was young, especially after we moved to Dixie, Louisiana. My mother was plagued by mental illness and spent a lot of time at the state psychiatric hospital. During one of the times she was hospitalized, my father was badly injured while working on an oil rig. He fell and broke his back and was forced to wear a plaster cast for more than a year. He couldn’t work, and his disability checks weren’t enough to pay our bills and feed us.
I’ll never forget how the people in our small community rallied around my family. They weren’t much better off than us financially, but they found a desire in their hearts to help a desperate neighbor. I’ll never forget finding baskets of eggs, bread, and canned goods on our back steps. We didn’t know who dropped it off, but the food meant we wouldn’t go hungry. On Christmas morning, the African American lady who lived down the road from us left a basket of oranges, candy, and other goodies for my siblings and me. She wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on Christmas.
Listen here, friend, it is our Christian duty to help others in need. In the Bible, the word charity almost always means love. In Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats, He says, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me’ ” (Matthew 25:34–36). Indeed, when we care for someone in need, we do the will of Christ.
Hey, help others as much as you can. Take care of the sick and needy in your community and contribute to charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, and the Salvation Army. Hey, don’t give away money you can’t afford to live without. If all you can donate is a few dollars every month, then only give away a few dollars. I’m sure if you take a hard look at what you’re spending your money on, you can find a few extra dollars for charity in your budget. If nothing else, put a shoe box on the counter and throw your loose change into it every day. I think you’d be surprised at how much is in there at the end of every month. Give it to your church or a charity to help those people in need.
If you aren’t able to give money, then donate your time and talents to battered women’s shelters, food banks, and churches. Volunteer to read to at-risk children or mentor kids at the Boys & Girls Clubs or the YMCA. You will be surprised at how much impact you can have on a young person’s life. Every kid needs a good role model. Lord knows there aren’t enough men being real fathers in the world today. Spend an hour or two every week mentoring a boy or girl who doesn’t have a good role model at home.
Now, you might be thinking, “How is giving my money away going to help me?” First of all, you shouldn’t be thinking that way. You’re doing it because it’s our Christian duty and it’s the right thing to do. But you might be surprised to learn that it can help you in more ways than you can imagine. There’s a lot to be said for helping a struggling family build a home, or helping a sick child go on a vacation to the beach or Disney World. It’s the most rewarding feeling in the world, and it might even inspire others to help as well. If we start caring for each other again, like our neighbors helped my family and me so many years ago, the world will be a much better place. For whatever reason, we’ve gotten away from loving and caring for each other.
Being charitable and helping others will give you a peaceful and restful heart, and there’s not a better feeling in the world than that, folks. Hey, if nothing else, it will make you realize how lucky and fortunate you are to have your good health, a roof over your head, food on your table, and clothes on your back. So often we take those things for granted, and don’t appreciate them. When we decide to help others in need, it makes us take a good look at our own lives. Only then will we realize how much the Almighty has blessed us. I know the Robertson family has been truly blessed, and I’m so thankful we’re in a position to help others.