Compared to other families I knew growing up, my family was not your typical family. My mother Esmeralda is from a family of twelve and my dad Shawn is from a family of ten, so big families were normal for us. I came from a family of eight, which includes my dad, mom, Darryl, 24, Maria, 23, me, 19, Payton, 16, Milik, 14, and DeVonte, 11. My parents have been married for 25 years. My parents were foster parents and have always had a heart for family. My older brother, sister and myself are biological children from my parents. My younger three brothers were adopted. Despite the diversity in my family, we had an average life growing up. Like my father, Darryl, Maria, and myself were sent to catholic school and attended church service weekly as a family, all except my father. My dad always worked hard to provide for his family and would do whatever it took to put food on the table. We would have dinner together every night. As we got older and our schedules got busy, we made sure to at least have Sunday night dinner.
In 2003, we had moved to the South Hill area of Spokane, we were members of a Catholic Church. Though we appreciate the things we learned at the Church our lives did not match the Scriptures. I went just to please my mother. Our lives were not in line with the Bible. The older we got the more vocal we got about things. Our love for one another was so hidden behind our hateful words and the physical pain we caused one another. As siblings, fights are bound to happen and feelings are bound to hurtful words that we knew would tear each other down, and if that didn’t cause the hurt we wanted we would throw blows at each other. My parents fought a lot as well. As a child I always thought their fight would end in divorce and or one of them never coming back after they stormed out. In my lifetime I had never seen my parents kiss, hold hands, or even hug.
As time went on we inevitably all grew up, and one by one we entered the teen years. As we all entered the teen years we faced new things to experiment with as we each tried to find ourselves. Some of us siblings have experimented with marijuana and or alcohol. We did whatever we wanted to do, we hurt ourselves and caused emotional pain within the family. On the outside we had it together but on the inside we desperately needed God.
God used the sport of football to help us see our need for Him. My youngest brother, DeVonte, played football on the same team as Jaxon Peacock which was the son of Jermaine Peacock a disciple of Jesus from the Spokane Christian Church. Jermaine had three kids (JP, Sophia and Jaxon) all close in age to my younger siblings. Our families became close and was the beginning of becoming really good friends. My brother DeVonte would hang out with Jaxon, Payton would hang with JP and I would hang out with their daughter Sophia.
My parents were reached out to to study the Bible and invited to church at the end of the football season by Jermaine and Stefanie Peacock. They attended worship services in fall of 2009 and really connected with the message of Jesus Christ and enjoyed learning how the Word of God could actually apply to their lives. They were impacted by how genuine the people were. The rest is history. My mom really saw her need for Jesus as she studied the Bible with the women in the Church, she wanted her family to experience this same fire that God was stirring up in her. I saw my dad change before my very eyes as he studied the Bible with the men from Church. My parents, my younger siblings, and myself continued to attend the Spokane Christian Church and study the Bible. July of 2010 my Mom made Jesus Lord of her life and was baptized. A month later my Dad was also baptized into God's Kingdom. For the first time in my life I witnessed my parents standing in our kitchen in each other's arms and kissing one another. Their love and patience for one another had grown so much. I noticed their love for God grew as their love for God grew. Another month later I started to study the Bible and was also baptized into Christ. At the same time my then fifteen year old brother, Payton, also started studying the Bible.
December of 2010 my older sister Maria and her then fiancée Marshawn visited the Church, Jermaine asked Marshawn to study the Bible. Marshawn and Maria met with the Peacocks, were moved by the love of Jesus Christ and within a month they were both baptized into Jesus and were married a short time after that. It was all God, we were all able to move forward in our family because of Jesus, forgiveness and healing truly had occurred in our family. A month later they would have their second daughter and give her the name Nevaeh Rachelle; heaven spelled backwards and my middle name. Only God could have made that happen.
Since then, my family has had the opportunity to spur one another on to grow in our relationship with God and to remind each other of the sacrifice that was made for all of us in Jesus. I have witnessed my parents prepare to study the Bible with people and be eager to lead a small group devotional. I have been given the opportunity to study the Bible with women and see them get baptized into Jesus. I was given the opportunity to be a councilor at the North West Teen Camp and see my brother Payton, who attended the camp, be cut to the heart by the Scriptures and lessons and make the choice to study the Bible and seek after the kingdom. He came back from the camp still zealous about his decision, studied the Bible and was baptized in July of 2011.
My parents being new disciples themselves were now not only parents of adult disciples, but now parents of a teen disciple. There was definitely a lot of changes but with that we have grown closer and supported one another on our walk. We look to God for our strength daily.
A few weeks after Payton was baptized my family attended a family reunion of my father’s side of the family. My dad invited his uncle, who had come up from California to attend the reunion, to church. My great uncle came and brought his wife and one of his grandsons, who lived outside of Spokane. His grandson, David was so moved by the service and the love he felt from people at the Spokane Christian Church that he started studying the Bible and in November 2011, he was baptized into Christ. David’s sister, my cousin has recently started attending worship service and has also started studying the Bible.
We continue to have opportunities to reach out to our family and share our faith with them. I had the chance to go down to the Tri-Cities and see my mom’s family. The Spokane Christian Church is praying and planning to plant a church of like-minded disciples in Tri-Cities which has opened up opportunities to talk about it and tell them about the future planting. Many of my family members were interested in checking out the church once it gets planted.
God continues to bless our family and continually uses us to spread the Gospel and shepherd people into his glorious family. All glory goes to God!
by Amber Mackin
Calendar 
10th ANNIV!
