As children of God, we are created in His image. Part of that image is our need for community. Our triune God exists in community with Himself forever, and we are created to require the same. Yet the world often whispers that we can ‘do it on our own’ – that we can pull ourselves up out of any hardship we may find ourselves in. Despite knowing that this is not true, it is easy to fall into this mindset. Jacob and Jessica Watson found their family stuck in this trap from 2014 to 2021.
Jacob and Jessica Watson both grew up in rural Indiana and were raised in Christian homes. Both Jacob and Jessica had fulfilling childhoods and good relationships with their families, but never took the step of making faith ‘their own.’ Jacob and Jessica were high school sweethearts who got married in 2003 while Jacob was in college. They began building a life for themselves near their family in Indiana. As they settled down, their family began to grow. They had BayLeigh, Rylan, Aubree, and Keelin – turning their family of 2 into a family of 6.
Things began to change in 2014 when a job opportunity opened for Jacob in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Through much prayer, Jacob and Jessica decided to say ‘yes’ to this new chapter and moved their family to a new state. As they settled into their new home, they began to notice a few things about their new community. “The community was hard to break into,” remembered Jessica. They were met with tight knit families and church denominations with dynamics they did not understand, and they heard phrases like “you ain’t much if you ain’t Dutch” pop up time and time again. While everyone seemed friendly enough, they struggled to find their social niche, make new friends, and church attendance became just a box to check every week.
The Watsons recall how this season led them to turn inward. They became incredibly close with each other and as a family unit. While this bond with their children was incredibly positive, it meant that they did not have any outside support – it was the Watsons against the world.
Around this time, Jessica discovered that Jacob had privately been struggling with a porn addiction. Jacob vowed to be better, but they were both managing this challenge alone. Despite this hurdle, they eventually fell in with some neighborhood families, and it seemed like they might have finally found a group of friends. Unfortunately, this group enabled poor habits, and both Jacob and Jessica began an unhealthy relationship with alcohol in the name of belonging and coping. They did not share the struggles they were experiencing with their newfound drinking buddies, nor did they have any close church groups or friends to confide in. They simply dug their heels in and decided they could fix this problem themselves. Jacob and Jessica became experts in the exhausting exercise of projecting the image that they had everything together.
Privately, Jacob and Jessica were desperate and broken. This marked the beginning of a season of growing distance between them. This reality took a toll on the whole family. Jessica and Jacob became increasingly dependent on alcohol, and Jacob secretly fell back into porn. Eventually, they reached a breaking point when Jessica discovered that Jacob had relapsed. They sat down and were honest with one another. They had come to a point where they only had two options – make a drastic change in their marriage or agree to get a divorce. They had come to the end of the line. They could no longer try to solve all their problems on their own. The only way they could make a change was by inviting God to take control of their relationship, their family, their home – everything.
Jacob and Jessica also acknowledged that their drinking was a problem. They decided to quit cold turkey. Jessica remembers the looks of shock and confusion on her children’s faces when they came into the kitchen to find both her and Jacob pouring all their alcohol down the sink. Jacob knew he needed more than just willpower to quit his porn habit. Desperate, he reached out for help. God led him to a group of men who had struggled with the same issues and could walk with him on the road to recovery. These men opened Jacob’s eyes about the importance of men investing in godly community and accountability.
God began moving in the Watsons’ hearts, and the way their family understood church began to change. Weekly attendance shifted from a box to check to a place where they were partners in kingdom work. At Chapel Pointe, they finally found the faith community they had long desired. Their kids got involved with Sunday School and Youth Group; Jacob and Jessica joined a small group that they eventually trusted enough to be vulnerable with; and they had the support they needed to bring their faith into every aspect of their home life.
As the Watson’s invested in the church community that Jacob and Jessica had prayed for, cracks began to appear in their children’s lives. When they had moved to Michigan, Jacob and Jessica had enrolled their children in the local public schools. For years, they had been completely satisfied – their children happy and successful. This all started to change when their oldest daughter, BayLeigh, entered high school. At her first parent-teacher conference, Jacob and Jessica sat down with one of BayLeigh’s teachers, and they could see on the teacher’s face that they could not recall their daughter. Jacob and Jessica walked away from the meeting feeling troubled. This meeting, combined with friendship tensions that went unaddressed by teachers in Rylan and Aubree’s lives, led them to reevaluate the school options available to their family. They took a hard look at their children’s school experiences as each child moved from the safety of elementary and middle grades into the larger arena of high school. They were left with the realization that while all of their children were good students, they were all quite introverted and were not on either extreme of academic achievement. They were simply floating through each class, under the radar, unnoticed.
As their family’s involvement in church grew and deepened, God began to nudge Jacob and Jessica toward Christian education. While Sunday School and Youth Group had positive impacts on their children, they couldn’t ignore the growing unease they felt about their children’s academic lives.
Then COVID hit in the spring of 2020. They went into survival mode. Jessica mentioned, “We quickly learned we were not cut out to be a homeschooling family.” Their children, previously social and lively, became reclusive, barely even leaving their bedrooms. This, coupled with their previous concerns, made them realize that the school they once loved was no longer meeting their family’s needs. They could see that their children needed a community that supported them educationally and spiritually. Jacob and Jessica considered the nudges they had felt to consider Christian education. They began to pray for direction and wisdom as they considered their options. They heard positive things about schools like Hudsonville Christian and Unity Christian from parents of their children’s teammates.
They continued to hear positive things about Unity in particular as they invested at Chapel Pointe. They had built enough trust and rapport with their small group that they felt safe to share the heartbreak of watching their children change and fail to thrive. As the 2020-2021 school year came to an end, they decided to research Unity in earnest for their oldest two children. Jacob commented, “It took me a few weeks to actually call the school. I know where my kids get their introversion from.” When Jacob called the main office, he was given Julie Essebagger’s email address. A few emails later, they were on a tour with Julie and immediately knew that this was where their children would be attending in the fall. They sat down with Jerry DeGroot, Unity’s Principal, and were moved when he opened their meeting with prayer. They could tell something was just different here. However, at the end of their visit, they were dismayed to learn that while there was an opening for BayLeigh – a rising junior, they would be placed on a ‘hold’ list for Rylan – a rising freshman.
They began praying that the Lord would make a way. They were delighted when they received a call a few weeks later that there was a spot for both their high school students in the coming school year. Things began to change for both of their high schoolers. The adjustment was a challenge, but there was fruit beginning to grow. Bible class was intimidating at first for both BayLeigh and Rylan. But Jacob loved getting to come home and help them study for their Bible tests and quizzes. It was a joy to be able to lead and support his family in faith after all these years.
Change is hard, and the beginning of the year was marked with anxiety. BayLeigh and Rylan faced their own assumptions about Christian school students and frustration with their new classmates’ assumptions about public school students. Taking Bible classes for the first time also posed a daunting new challenge. But through the support of family, church, and caring teachers at Unity, they found a new home where they were known and cared for. Despite the growing pains, both BayLeigh and Rylan ultimately had a successful year.
BayLeigh was particularly impacted by Mr. Dan Landstra. She appreciated how he related the topics in his Bible classes to real life. Rylan loved Mr. Brian Mast’s approach to teaching science. He would come home talking excitedly about the experiments Mr. Mast used in class to demonstrate new topics. Jacob and Jessica had to laugh when their son took a liking to Mr. Mast because on their very first day at Unity, Mr. Mast had been the bus driver who picked up BayLeigh and Rylan. On the ride home, he ended up taking an unexpected turn, and both Watson children texted their parents saying that they had been ‘kidnapped by their bus driver.’ In the end, Mr. Mast was simply dropping off another student just a little farther down the road, but Jacob and Jessica had a good laugh at the antics when they got home.
After seeing the success their oldest two children had at Unity, Jacob and Jessica made the decision to enroll their second two children, Aubree and Keelin, in Unity for high school as well. Keelin, who also attended Hudsonville Christian, is a freshman this year and is excited to follow in his older siblings’ footsteps. Jacob and Jessica are so thankful that their four children have found meaningful Christian community in their teens rather than waiting until their 30s like their parents did. They see the value this has added to the formative years of their lives.
As the Watsons reflected on the path they took to Christian education, they urge other families who might feel the ‘nudge’ to pray. “Pray, pray, pray about it – especially if you are on the fence,” encourages Jessica. At each stage of Jacob and Jessica’s journey, making the right decision to invest in faith community came after abundant prayer and seeking God’s path. It is wonderful to see the impact that the body of Christ can have on a family when we walk together through the hardships of life. We are grateful to the Watsons for allowing God to use their story for His glory.
Written By: Kayla Rearick