Far from home

By Cara Warfield

Sophomore Jacquie Ackerman says she’s grown up tremendously in the months since coming to Anderson a year ago. That’s because while other students lean on their parents for financial support, Jacquie is putting herself through college. As her friends go home on the weekends for a free meal and a little TLC, Jacquie might go a month without talking to her parents. And while trying to balance her double major and her social life, Jacquie has agonized over the safety of her family and friends in Haiti.

Having grown up in Haiti where her parents, John BA ’75 and Jodie (Gross) Ackerman BA ’76, are missionaries with the Church of God, Jacquie admits that she was both homesick and sick with worry during the country’s violent uprisings earlier this year. “It would almost have been easier to be down there and know exactly what was going on,” she says. “It’s been especially hard since I haven’t had a lot of contact with my parents.”

However, her parents and younger sister, Jessica, weathered the chaos unscathed by staying home more often and by avoiding dangerous areas.

“You just have to live with the idea that you’re living in an insecure place,” John said, describing the frequent robberies and kidnappings. “There are many places we know are safe. But toward the end of the coup, there were so many roadblocks, we didn’t even attempt to get out.”

Despite Jacquie’s concerns, she remained calm, trusting her family to use good judgment. “I think I have a different perspective because I grew up with it,” she says. “In this one house we lived in, we were robbed 12 times in four years. We came home and were like ‘Oh, look. TV’s gone. We’ve been robbed again.’ You just deal with it.”

The Ackermans also deal with the dirt and poverty that plagues the country. In spite of these circumstances, the Ackermans plan to live in Haiti indefinitely because they believe this is what God has called them to do. Even Jessica, 12, plans to return to Haiti after she attends AU. John and Jodie met at AU and later decided to put their gifts to use as missionaries in Haiti. John runs a medical clinic and Jodie has done everything from working with women’s groups to teaching kindergarten.

Because of their Church of God roots, the Ackermans journey every summer to Anderson, Ind., to participate in the North American Convention of the Church of God. This year, they were especially eager to find relief from the pressures of Haiti and to visit Jacquie, whom they hadn’t seen since Christmas.

As Jacquie has witnessed, being a missionary involves sacrifice and faith. She is prepared to offer both as she, too, aspires to become a missionary.

“I declared political science as one of my majors, and I’d like to get involved in peace studies,” she says. “I feel like there’s a need for me to be other places when I graduate. If I went to Israel and Palestine and tried to help the people there, that would be something. I want to work for peace and international relations — ideally for the United Nations. I guess it’s hard to know where God is calling me, but I just want to take my desire to help people and go with it wherever it takes me.”