Meet J. D. Jenkins

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful J. D. Jenkins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with J. D. below.

J. D., thank you so much for making time for us. We’ve always admired your ability to take risks and so maybe we can kick things off with a discussion around how you developed your ability to take and bear risk?
I’ve always been a dreamer believing that all things are possible through Christ, despite the fact that the world will tell you differently. When you attempt to accomplish anything out of the ordinary, you do so at the risk of getting laughed at, made fun of and failing so many times that you want to give up totally. But, the thing is, you cannot succeed without risking shortcomings and adversities. My grandpa taught me a saying when I was young that has stuck with me all of my life. “If you aim for the stars, trust God and believe in yourself, you might just achieve greatness. And, if you fall short, you can still latch onto a cloud. Even if you only manage to grasp the topmost branches or a tall tree in your back yard, it beats sitting in a rocking chair someday when you are old and bragging about all of the things you could have done. And any attempts to risk the seemingly impossible surely outweighs not trying at all. Regret is perhaps one of the heaviest burdens people carry with them. When the Wright Brothers were jumping off of rocks with their homemade wing contraptions, their neighbors thought they had been dropped on their heads one too many times. But, look up in the sky today and tell me where air travel would be without their, “Crazy Dreams.” I have faced many difficulties in life and I don’t have a whole list of impressive accolades to show for a lifetime of effort, yet. I do believe however and refuse to give up believing that with faith in God and ourselves, we can all rise to remarkable levels through writing, singing, working or whatever it is we are gifted to do. My personal goal is to do my part to make the world a better place through writing, speaking missions and impacting human lives one heart at a time.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a lifelong Christian, family man, United States Air Force veteran, self-employed carpenter and Christian Author and Speaker who for nearly twenty years has been working towards a lofty dream. A series of events took place in the Great Smoky Mountains many years ago leading my beautiful wife Sherry and I to feel led to move there some day and begin a Not-for Profit, missions-based ministry aimed at creating jobs which honor God, ones that employees would love and where they can proudly know that they too are honoring God, helping others and providing for their families. Since 2012 my wife and I have been going to Honduras on Evangelical mission trips and together we have been there over forty times thus far. We are board members of Faith of a Child Ministries.  Our main mission on these trips is to introduce new believers to Jesus Christ and to help strengthen the faith of those who already know Him. We set up clinics in tents, schools, churches, soccer field and even cow pastures where we provide medical, dental, optical and auditory care. When we go on these trips, we do so with the intent of trying to be a blessing to others, yet we always return home feeling like we were the ones who were blessed. We always have the urge to do more and we can’t wait to return to experience the new best week of our lives. Self-published should have a dash instead of an equal sign.
The world today is hurting more than most of us have ever known and people need something to believe in. Sherry and I feel led to help people everywhere, not just in Honduras. Sure, we give to charities in the States, but our current daytime jobs limit our abilities to do what we really feel called to do and that is to work for God in missions full time. When 9-1-1 occurred I wanted to go help, but lacked the money to do so. Through the years my wife and I have wanted to go places to help the victims of fires, floods, natural disasters and in times of need, but we have often been unable to do much more than pray and send a few dollars here and there.
So, if our regular daytime jobs won’t make all of these things possible, then how are we supposed to start this big missions-bases ministry in the Smoky Mountains? We feel that being able to invest in tourist rental properties is one of many ideas in which we could create the jobs and the sky is the limit from there. But, it still takes initial capital to get started. In 2008, I published my first book, “God, It’s Just Not Fair.” We thought at the time, “Praise God and Smoky Mountains Ministry, Here We Come.” Well, I had no one to show me the ropes of the publishing industry and self=published through a company who did very little to help. We didn’t have the money for professional editing or advertising. Everyone who actually read the book loved it, but most of the world never knew it existed. In the beginning I spent hours and hours every day calling libraries and book stores all over the United States and arranging book signings, but long-story short, we didn’t achieve our big dream.
For a while I feel like I failed, but given time I picked myself up off of the ground, dusted off my computer’s keyboard and wrote a Trilogy of Books called, “All Tangled Up, Olivia”, “ll Tangled Up, The Journey” and, “All Tangled Up, Full Circle.” It was an amazing inspirational story full of emotion and adventure wrapped around the life of a character named Olivia who responded to a calling to go on a mission trip to a fictional town following the devastation of a pair of freak tornadoes. I self-published once more with Amazon’s Create Space and was convinced we were on our way. And, we just knew it would make a great series of movies too. The skies the limit you know. Once again we lacked the financial resources to properly edit and advertise and despite how much we believed in the trilogy’s success, it didn’t transpire.
Self-doubt and failure loomed once more, but after urging by many brothers and sisters in our missionary family I took a chance and wrote another book based on my own true story called, “Fried Pickles.” It’s an emotional roller coaster with nightmarish tragedies and wonderful blessings from the front cover to the back where the key source of strength has been faith in God. It’s very personal, yet everyone who reads it will feel like they are living and experiencing the story for themselves. The world today is not too kind at times and there are probably those out there who don’t even know me, who will not always act or speak as they should, but that is the risk I must take in order to accomplish the higher good. It took a while, but Sherry and I made the decision to proceed with making, “Fried Pickles available to the world.
We prayed and prayed, desperate for how to publish this book without repeating the mistakes of the past. God answered those prayed and the 4th of September 2023, TBN’s (the Trinity Broadcasting Network) Trilogy Publishing released my new book to the world. They made a thirty second commercial to Aire twenty times on TBN and it is available and being advertised all over the world through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and every site where books are sold. I have been doing everything I can to promote Fried Pickles through social media. Sure, I’ve lost a lot of sleep and I constantly fret as to if I’m doing everything right or doing enough, but I have to trust God. Just doing this interview seems to be an indication that we are on the right path. WE will also be starting a new on-line store soon offering Faith-Based clothing, home decor, etc. We pray that this all leads to not just high book and product sales, but book signings, speaking engagements, the whole Smoky Mountains Ministry, working for God full time and we can’t wait to see whose lives will be positively impacted by our efforts and the future plans God has in store for us, Fried Pickles and those who become part of our spiritual family in the years to come.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Thirdly would be to conduct yourself with honor. Louis l’Amour had a saying in one of his westerns that basically said, “There’s no stopping a man who knows he’s right and keeps on coming” No matter what a person does they have to know and believe what they are doing is right and for me, that means in the eyes of God. It doesn’t matter what you do, legally speaking of course, but in all you do, if you do it to the best of your ability it makes it fair to others, remains true to yourself and it can honor God. I can look myself in the mirror because I know that I tried to do things honorably all my life and treated others the way I’d like to be treated in doing so. When a difficult job needs to be done fast, fairly and correctly, people contact me and their trust makes me feel good.

Secondly, determination is a hard-learned quality that makes it much more likely for a person to achieve their goals. In Fried Pickles leads you on a journey showing some of the most difficult challenges and some of the most joyous blessings I’ve experienced in life. He revealed a miracle to me at one of the most difficult moments of my life and the remembrance of that event gave me the strength to overcome adversities later on in my life that nearly succeeded in crushing me entirely. Determination to keep believing no matter what has been a key factor into getting me to where I am today.

I know this in reverse order, but first and most important thing to me that has impacted my life is Faith in God. Without faith I likely wouldn’t even still be around int this world or if I was, I’d be a totally different person than who I am. Do you remember the old Aaron Tippin song that says, “You gotta stand for something or you’ll fall for anything?” Well, it’s true. The only way I have gotten through life without becoming hardened, cold and bitter, or down-trodden, sad and defeated is by my faith in God and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When the world and life has kicked me in the teeth and yelled, “Say Down”, “You’re a Loser” and You’re Gonna’ Fail.” I’ve always remembered John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. My faith has taught me that a God who me loves so much doesn’t view me as a loser, a failure or as someone who cannot accomplish good. Neither should I and neither should anyone.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
My parents taught me about honesty, integrity and the values of a good work ethic, but the most impactful thing they did was that they loved me. I didn’t have to do anything special to earn that love. They simply loved me for who I am and they made sure that I grew up knowing that God loves me even more than they did.

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