How did this all get started? Where do I begin? Well, my name is Jennifer Bacak. I come from a pretty cool family (the Seay family). I am immensely grateful!

Several Christmases ago, my mom and dad decided our family was going to raise money for the Child Survival Program. My Mom’s life work is at New Life, a pregnancy Crisis Center and adoption agency in Houston. (Two of our kids have come from New Life.) She has given all she has to babies, born and unborn, and their mothers, so it was not hard for my parents to connect to this work. They gave us $50 and told us to make more money with that seed money. At the end of the year, we would collect our money and send it to a Child Survival Project. We did. The first year, we did a measly little hot chocolate stand on a cold day at the mall, and raised a tiny sum of money as a family. But it was exciting! God moved in our hearts for this cause.

In the last several years, God has grown us as a family through our involvement with Compassion. I have been changed as my super cool brothers (Chris Seay, Brian Seay, and Robbie Seay) have been all over the world, sharing the Gospel and meeting the needs of the poor, as scripture tells us to do. Chris works with Living Water and Compassion while he pastors, writes, and speaks; Brian works for Compassion fulltime, and Robbie partners with Compassion in his music career. Those of us who have been at home listening to their stories and seeing their pictures have been turned inside out. I can’t believe how ignorant I have been. How selfish. I’m ashamed of how little I have known or cared about what was happening across the span of an ocean.

Honestly, the more I learned, the smaller I felt in my ability to be His hands and feet to them. I’m a mom. I have a house full of little ones. I can’t go. Not now. Not like my brothers can. But Compassion is already there. They are doing what needs to be done, chipping away at poverty, one child, one family at a time. They are sharing the Gospel with each and every one of them. They are meeting their medical, physical, and spiritual needs in the midst of an AIDS crisis, a Food Crisis, and the earthquake crisis in Haiti. All I need to do is support what they are doing. You can too.

We got our $50 again last year and the bigger dream of Run for Compassion was born. (I had no idea what I was getting myself into!) We were the most clueless race directors ever, but God used it and we raised almost $4,000 for the CSP! Here we are again this year, a little more experienced, and our goal is to raise $8,000. Will you join us?