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We'd love to highlight what's going on with YOU! Please send an update of anything that you would like to share with us about your life. Send information with a picture or two to Kristy Swank at swankk@ma-kc.org. |
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The year was 1974. The setting, a small minister’s house consisting of four rooms: the kitchen, the front room, and two bedrooms. An unlikely location for a school, but this is where Maranatha Academy had its beginning, on the property of Full Faith Church of Love. That same year, two young students met, one in kindergarten, the other in first grade. This is the story of Jaren and Shelly (Jordan) Higginbotham. Jaren remembers that there were only 14 or 15 students in the grade school and though they all got along well, he and Shelly seemed to bond with each other, always keeping an eye out for each other, always ready to come to each other’s rescue! (You remember how traumatic snack time can be!!)
Jaren’s siblings also began attending Maranatha that first year and Shelly’s parents were very involved with the school and church. Shelly’s dad, Nick, served as an elder for thirteen years, which at the time had oversight responsibilities for Maranatha. He later served as senior pastor of Full Faith and worked closely with the administration of the school. Linda, Shelly’s mom, was the bookkeeper at Maranatha for 16 years.
Though they never dated in school, Jaren and Shelly were always very close and best of friends from the first moment that they met. After high school, Shelly attended the Discipleship Training School with Youth With A Mission, (YWAM), in Perth, Western Australia and then the School of Evangelism in Elm Springs, Arkansas. Shelly spent time traveling with missions groups all over Indonesia. While there, the group that she was with spent their time traveling through the jungle to find people groups that had never seen "white people" before. One village was so astonished at the white skinned people that the entire village took turns staring at them while they slept in one of their thatched huts. "At that point I knew I never wanted to be famous," Shelly teases.
After moving back to Kansas City, Shelly and her mom started the Australian Trading Company. They imported rugged outdoor gear from Australia. After several years, they decided to give something else a try and so they started Walls of Clay, a paint- on- pottery studio. "People make gifts from their heart at Walls of Clay and God has used the store more times than I can count as a meeting place for His divine appointments which, glory to God, gave me an opportunity to share God’s word as well as His peace, joy and comfort," Shelly says. While she still maintains some activity at the store, she is mostly a full time wife and mother, which has been her heart’s desire. "Shaping the lives of the children God has entrusted me with is the most important thing I have ever done," says Shelly.
While Shelly was working with YWAM, Jaren attended KU and majored in Accounting with a minor in psychology.
After KU, Jaren began working with Systems and Products Engineering, SPECO, which he is now also an owner of. SPECO is an engineering company started by Jaren’s great uncle and continued to be operated by his father, George. SPECO designs and engineers products mostly for the motion picture industry, specifically projection booth equipment that you would find in your local Dickinson, AMC or Cinemark theatre. While being a relatively small company, SPECO has managed to carve out a niche for itself and provides equipment to theatres in more than 60 countries around the world. During the time that Shelly was involved with missions and Jaren was beginning his career, they kept in touch, but didn’t see each other very often. In the summer of 2000 they both took a breath from their hectic lives. They started talking and spending more time together and then came God’s perfect timing. After spending more than 25 years getting to know each other, in the spring of 2001 they married and a year later their son, Nicholas arrived, followed by their daughter, Reece, in 2004 and then their youngest son, Blake, in 2005. Their lives are still a whirlwind, but they are doing it together! Now, all 3 of their children attend Maranatha’s elementary school and preschool. Jaren comments, "Besides the Christian education, Maranatha also excels at giving the kids an education in math, science, english, and history which more often than not easily surpasses that of the public school system. So, when push comes to shove and you’re trying to give your kids the best education you can in order to prepare them for the world, Maranatha is an obvious choice.
Nick and Linda, Shelly’s parents, highly reccommend Maranatha as they strongly believe in the values that the school teaches. This combined with the high-quality education their grandkids receive, makes them strong supporters of Maranatha. Linda volunteers in the grandkids classes as often as she can. Like the support that other Maranatha families receive from grandparents, Shelly recognizes that because of the help and support of her parents, their children are able to attend Maranatha.
Jaren and Shelly have special memories of their time at Maranatha. Jaren reflects, "After a few years in the little house as the elementary school, Maranatha tore the house down and built a gymnasium with class rooms around it. I remember the first year we used the gym for classes. A teacher by the name of Larry Goodnight was teaching math and science. He had a son named Marshall who was a very close friend. Mr. Goodnight would let us come into the lab after school and do homework. After our homework was finished, he would let us do science experiments. As a 3rd or 4th grader, getting to do science experiments that the much older kids got to do was really exciting and special. During those early years, there were so few students that virtually everyone was friends with everyone else. The high school kids were kind and friendly with the elementary school kids and all the teachers were more like mentors than teachers. I remember those early years as school being more like a large family reunion where everyone got along and everyone was made to feel special and important no matter their age, parent’s income, or anything else. It truly was like a large family that got along beautifully." What a truly amazing story of how the Lord orchestrated Jaren and Shelly’s lives, bringing them together at a very early age! Their lives have come full circle as now their kids attend Maranatha and their parents continue to be involved with Maranatha as well because of their grandchildren. |
