Nena Jackson

Nena lives in Charleston, South Carolina and is a wife to Scott and mom to four grown children. She spent twenty years in the financial technology industry working for financial institutions around the the United States until she became an author in 2011 when she published her first book, Toes in the Sand. This book shares the story of unwavering faith that Nena received from the Lord to pursue a dream of leaving her career during the economic crisis in 2009 and move to Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2011, Nena also entered into full-time ministry and joined the staff of Church of Our Saviour on Johns Island, SC. Through this role she became very involved in the Alpha Ministry, a tool that offers people the wonderful opportunity to explore Christianity. In 2013 she became the Alpha Director for St. Michael’s Church in downtown Charleston, a church that has been running the Alpha ministry for over twenty years.

During this same timeframe, Nena became a co-founder of a ministry called ‘Fruit That Lasts’ with Kristi Smith. Fruit That Lasts is a ministry whose mission is to teach children in a fun way to understand the fullness of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit through lively fruit tree characters, Franny Fig and Pom Pom Pomegranate. One of the coolest things about Nena Jackson and Kristi Smith is that they have been best friends since first grade. When they were in elementary school, they consistently created such a ruckus in one of their classes that their teacher made sure they weren’t in the same class together the next year. It was this kind of playfulness that was the breeding ground for many of Franny and Pom Pom’s misadventures.

Although living in different states and collaborating on a book series might seem difficult, Kristi and Nena found scheduling time to write over the phone worked best for them. While the books in their five book series, Fruit That Lasts, are truly a representation of each woman’s creativity, they have their specialty areas. When it’s time to turn the rough draft of each book into poetry, Kristi takes the lead, and on administrative tasks, Nena steps in. Collaborating on this series has been challenging at times, but so much fun as well. Over a period of five years, Kristi and Nena saw their dream come to life in the pages of this series.

Kristi and Nena have also written a Vacation Bible School curriculum together and have taught it for the last two summers in Kenya, Africa. There they worked with the children of The Home of the Good Shepherd and co-authored a devotional on the fruit of the Spirit called Kingdom Kids Create: Kenya. Their work in Kenya has been very fulfilling and has allowed them to see the fruit of their labor, as the orphans at the home have embraced both the characters and the message of the Fruit That Lasts book series.