A 10-year-old Missouri girl sells flowers to benefit Operation Christmas Child and Children’s Heart Project—and sow seeds for the Gospel.
Jaci Snowden loves flowers.
“Flowers make me feel close to God,” Jaci said as she cut colorful zinnias in her backyard garden for a bouquet. “They are His wonderful masterpieces created in Christ Jesus for a purpose.”
For 10-year-old Jaci, part of that purpose is to grow beautiful flowers, arrange them into delightful bouquets, and sell them to raise support for two Samaritan’s Purse ministries that are particularly special to her—Operation Christmas Child and Children’s Heart Project.
Jaci Snowden, 10, sells bouquets out of the back of her grandfather’s pickup truck together with her sisters to raise money for Samaritan’s Purse projects Operation Christmas Child and Children’s Heart Project.
When Jaci was 6, she learned about Operation Christmas Child and set up a hot chocolate stand in her front yard in Republic, Missouri, to buy items to fill a shoebox and to give the $10 donation for processing and shipping. She packed a single box. The next year, she expanded her stand to include lemonade and raised enough money to pack 10 boxes. Twenty more followed the next year. But Jaci wanted to do more. “Why don’t we raise money all year long?” she asked her mom, Brooke. “The more money we raise, the more we can accomplish what Jesus said about taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”
It sounded like a good idea, but they would need to do something other than sell hot and cold drinks to bring in more money. So, they prayed—and God gave them an unexpected answer.
A New Garden
Brooke distinctly recalls the Holy Spirit prompting her to start a garden and then sell the flowers they grew to raise money for shoeboxes. But planting flowers wasn’t something she felt comfortable doing. “I kill house plants,” she laughed. Brooke also didn’t think she could add another thing to her already busy life, which included homeschooling Jaci and her three other children—Finley (8), Ruthie (6), and Colt (4). She’s also an in-demand photographer. However, convinced a garden was what God wanted them to do, she embraced the idea.
Brooke (left), Jaci, Ruthie, and Finley Snowden work on crafting bouquets.
“God takes you to your weakness because He can be glorified,” Brooke said. “He takes you to something ridiculous that you think is absolutely not for you and, if you say yes, He will show up.”
Brooke’s husband, Seth, and her father built flower boxes in the backyard, and she and Jaci studied flowers and began planting seeds. Now, just over a year later, their garden boasts nearly 30 different varieties of flowers, and it has become a sanctuary for prayer.
“I wake up in the morning and the Lord calls me here so I can be with Him,” Brooke said. “And watching my kids work in this garden is very much them walking in the will of God. It’s beautiful.”
For Jaci, the garden represents a place where the Gospel can grow. “We plant seeds for flowers to grow, so that we can plant seeds for the Gospel in children’s hearts through the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. It’s important for children to learn about Jesus so they can have eternal life.”
Jaci, Ruthie, and Finley display their specially crafted bouquets.
The Flower Sisters
When the flowers bloom, the cutting and arranging begins. Jaci sees similarities between making a bouquet and packing a shoebox.
Jaci sees packing a shoebox to be much like making a bouquet with the “wow” toy similar to the focal flower.
“You have a focal flower in a bouquet and that’s like your wow item in a shoebox,” she said. “A sunflower is like a soccer ball. And you’ve got your filler flowers, which is like school supplies and coloring books, and you’ve got your foliage, which is like your essential stuff in a shoebox—a toothbrush, a washcloth, a cup. It’s very much the same thing if you think about it.”
Jaci, Finley, and Ruthie, dubbed the Flower Sisters by Brooke, each have their own role in the garden. Ruthie is the official “de-leafer”; Finley waters and weeds; and Jaci arranges. The girls sell their bouquets from the back of their grandpa’s pickup truck during the week and on Sunday mornings at their church. Last year, they raised over $1,200 and packed 62 shoeboxes with the proceeds.
Jaci and Finley promote Operation Christmas Child at their flower stand.
A New Mission
Last year, Brooke discovered that Children’s Heart Project is part of Samaritan’s Purse and started reading about it and watching videos with Jaci on our website. Jaci was immediately interested in the program because it arranges critical congenital heart surgery for boys and girls living in countries where such operations are not available. It struck a chord with Jaci because she underwent heart surgery when she was five months old and again when she was three years old to close a hole in her heart. Oxygen-poor blood was flowing the wrong way, which could lead to heart failure and other complications.
Seth and Brooke comfort Jaci after one of her heart surgeries.
“I believe God healed me so I could make an impact in this world,” Jaci said. “Children with heart defects live every day saying, ‘Is this the day I’m going to die?’ I want to help get them out of that fear so they can live a happy, normal life.”
Jaci now splits the proceeds from selling flowers between Operation Christmas Child and Children’s Heart Project. This year she raised over $4,000 for the two Samaritan’s Purse projects.
A Joyful Meeting
Earlier this fall, Samaritan’s Purse surprised Jaci and her family with the opportunity to meet two heart patients from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. For weeks, she carried around pictures of Khangai, 10 months, and Ananda, 14 months, telling her friends and church family about her opportunity to go to Cleveland, Ohio, to meet them. The family’s September road-trip vacation couldn’t come soon enough.
Traveling over 700 miles in a minivan, the six Snowdens finally arrived at the home of Children’s Heart Project hosts Rex and Lois Raper for the long-awaited meeting. When mothers Zaya and Amara came outside holding their babies, the Snowden family overflowed with excitement. Over the next two days, they delighted in connecting with one another as families who shared similar heart-surgery scars.
The Snowden family meets Mongolian mothers Zaya and Amara, and their babies, Khangai and Ananda.
When Ananda and his twin sister, Ayalgun, were just five months in utero, Amara learned that one of them had a heart defect and began to worry. Their July 4, 2023 birthday, while a joyous occasion, was quickly clouded with Ananda’s health concerns.
“He was weak. He kept crying. He couldn’t calm down and didn’t stop when nursed like other kids,” said Amara, now the mother of three. “He had no idea what was ‘happy.’”
Ananda’s oxygen saturation fell below 40 percent before they were able to get him to a Mongolian hospital for his first heart surgery—similar to Jaci—at three months old. The surgery proved to be a temporary fix but more complex surgery was needed. This, however, was not available in Mongolia.
Jaci delights in connecting with fellow heart surgery patient, Ananda.
Amara made the difficult decision to leave behind her two other children for a season so she could get help for Ananda at Cleveland Clinic through Children’s Heart Project. An interpreter named Chuka traveled with her together with another mother, Zaya, and her child.
Khangai was Zaya’s firstborn so she had no other experience to draw on when she learned when he was two days old that he had a heart defect. Her mind raced with questions: Why has this happened? What did I do wrong?
Zaya and Amara both wore strings of Buddhist prayer beads when they traveled, placing their faith in the religion dominant in Mongolia.
Four New Hearts
But each day they were in the United States, Chuka led the mothers in Bible studies, using The Greatest Journey discipleship materials, originally designed for Operation Christmas Child shoebox recipients.
When they got to a lesson that asked if they wanted Jesus in their lives, Amara and Zaya both prayed to receive Him as Savior and Lord. The date was July 18, just 11 days before their babies were scheduled for their heart surgeries. As they approached that difficult day, they removed the Buddhist prayer beads from around their necks and prayed to the one true God, through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Khangai’s surgery was successful, but afterward, he couldn’t stop crying. Both the medical team and his mother didn’t know how to make him stop, so Zaya turned to her newfound faith. As she began to pray for him in Jesus’ Name, she said, “He became calm. I thought, God is really working through my prayers!” And slowly her head knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ began gaining strength in her daily life.
Amara and Ananda (left) and Zaya and Khangai enjoy listening to Jaci read.
As Amara waited for Ananda during surgery, she sensed the Lord’s presence: “I felt God was walking with us. He was working through our prayers.” When he finally came out of the operating room, his former meager cries were replaced with healthy ones, and he soon began to play. With adequate oxygen, he started crawling, to the delight of Amara, the Rapers, and the Snowdens alike.
Early in her discipleship times with these women, Chuka began praying that Zaya, a gifted vocalist, would learn to praise God by singing “Amazing Grace.” Her prayers were answered when Zaya began to learn the song in Mongolian and then in English.
“I was lost and now I’m found,” Zaya said. “When I got here, I didn’t know I was lost, but now I’m found and my boy had surgery on his heart. Life is like new. The words are very true for me. When I sing this song, John 3:16 comes out. God gave his one and only Son for us.”
Faith Like a Mustard Seed
Jaci delights in the fact that she is a sister in Christ with these two Mongolian mothers. She gifted Amara and Zaya with mustard seed necklaces like the one that hangs around her own neck.
“As Flower Sisters we plant seeds in the ground, and we also plant seeds in hearts,” she said, “seeds of the love of Christ and we want them to blossom and grow.”
Jaci created handmade cards for each of the mothers with a heart scar on the front. She also included the words of Matthew 17:20 (NIV, paraphrased): “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing is impossible for you.”
Jaci presents her handmade cards to the mothers.
Brooke quickly chimed in with her own blessing: “As the mustard seed, may you grow fast in good, fertile soil.”
Jaci then told them, “Yesus khairtaishuu,” which is “Jesus loves you” in Mongolian.
“Meeting them was just a miracle,” Jaci said. “I will be praying for the babies. I want them to be strong and courageous. I want them to be kind and gentle. They may not remember this day because they are so young, but I hope to be an inspiration to them.”
New Stories to Tell
Khangai and Ananda are among over 1,600 heart surgery recipients sponsored by Children’s Heart Project over the past 26 years. Director Cindy Bonsall emphasized, however, that this means far more than 1,600 lives changed. “It’s like a New Testament miracle in each village through what happened to one little child.” Family and community members all witness firsthand the power of God and many choose to put their faith in Him.
Zaya and Amara plan to start attending the same church in Ulaanbaatar for ongoing encouragement in their new faith. And Children’s Heart Project will continue to walk with these families as Khangai and Ananda grow. Zaya is determined: “I have to raise my kid in God’s Word.”
(Left or right:) Chuka, April Johnson, Amara with Ananda, Rex and Lois Raper, Zaya with Khangai, Cindy Bonsall.
As the Mongolian mothers returned home with their healed babies, Brooke’s advice to them was simple: “Tell their stories and let them marinate in how faithful God was to them.”
National Collection Week is Nov. 18-25, 2024. Join the Flower Sisters and pack a shoebox!
