At first glance, Evangelist Sharon A. Jackson and her husband, the Rev. Ronald Jackson Sr., seem like any ordinary couple.

They live in a beautiful home just off Country Club Road, their two youngest children attend Valwood School, they are both ordained ministers and they own their own company, South GA Solar Power LLC.

But life for the Jacksons hasn’t always been easy. In fact, Sharon said, it’s been an adventure.

Both born and raised in the Philadelphia, Pa., area, Ronald and Sharon grew up together in the same church. They both eventually married other people and had families of their own. But after Ronald’s wife died of heart problems and Sharon’s marriage ended in divorce, the two were brought together.

“Through trials and life and divorce and the death of my wife, the Lord brought us together,” Ronald said.

“Then the Lord blessed me and gave me the opportunity to be in the presence of and in love with such a supportive man,” Sharon said. “When he asked me to marry him, he said ‘Would you marry me? I don’t have any money and I don’t have any houses or land, but I do promise you an adventure.’ It’s been an adventure ever since.”

The two have been married for eight years, and between them, they have six children. Their three oldest sons are married, and they have seven grandchildren total.

The Jacksons moved to Valdosta on Aug. 15, 2007. Ronald, an engineer, and Sharon, a photographer and entrepreneur by nature, were ready to take on the world.

“I came with my suit and tie on and my portfolio with all of my engineering stuff,” Ronald said. “Then the Lord was like, ‘Look at him, look at him. I’m going to send him another way.’ I came loaded with what I thought I was going to do, but the Lord had me come another way.’

The first of the Jacksons’ adventures in Valdosta was living in their new home without any of their belongings.

“(We) didn’t know how we were gonna do it, but when you trust the Lord, he makes a way,” Ronald said.

The Jacksons used a rental service to ship their belongings from Philadelphia to Valdosta, and three days after they arrived here, their belongings hadn’t arrived. The family didn’t have furniture for nearly three weeks, and the moving company told the Jacksons that they owed double what they were originally supposed to pay.

“… I asked the Lord to please work this out because we were sleeping on the floor,” Ronald said.

“The one thing that we learned from being here (was that) we found out those three weeks that we could live without that stuff,” Sharon said. “The only things we had was what was in our suitcase and the goodness of the people that owned that house. They let us go wash our clothes.”

After their belongings arrived in two separate shipments, it was revealed in the contract that the items were supposed to be delivered by Sept. 4. The Jacksons received their belongings on Sept. 6, so the contract was voided.

“We did not pay a penny to move from Philadelphia to Valdosta. The Lord took care of that,” Ronald said. “It let us know when the Lord sends you somewhere you know it’s him. He made it real evident that he took care of this for us. It gives you a great appreciation for your furniture. The Lord brought it all back, and we didn’t pay a penny. That’s amazing. So I said, ‘Lord, you are definitely in this to send us down here.’”

Then the next adventure happened for the Jacksons.

The economy went bad, and the housing market crashed. The couple had problems with their employment and practically became homeless.

“We went to a couple of people’s houses. We stayed with them for about a month, then we went to Intown Suites for a week or so until all the money ran out,” Sharon said. “We had no family (here), don’t know nobody, but we knew the Lord. Our children were wonderful through it all. They thought it was an adventure. I thank God for our children because they never complained. When we were in Intown Suites, they thought that was the best time.”

The Jackson family moved into the New Horizons shelter when they had nowhere else to go.

“I didn’t sit in the parking lot and cry,” Sharon said. “When we went in, we understood that we belonged to the Lord, and he was going to take care of us even there in the shelter.”

While in New Horizons, the Jacksons began ministering to the people there. Ronald started prayer groups with several other men in the shelter.

While living in the shelter, their children also continued to go to school at Valwood thanks to the help of financial aid. But then life in the shelter and life at Valwood began to merge.

“There’s a program that Valwood has where they have the children from the shelter go to a camp,” Sharon said. “The kids, they (were) already at Valwood and they wanted to be camp counselors. The staff and faculty didn’t know we were living in a shelter.”

When it came time for the kids to go to camp, the director of the children’s program at the shelter reached out to the Jacksons. They didn’t want the kids to go through any ridicule with them living in the shelter and attending Valwood.

“(The kids) said, ‘We don’t care,’” Sharon said. “So, they would be on the bus with all the other children from the shelter. Then, when they get off the bus, they would be the counselors. The Lord has really blessed us.”

Ronald was getting ready for prayer on a Monday morning at the shelter when he heard something.

“The spirit whispered to me, ‘When you’re ways please me, I will lift my hand and cause you to walk into a job,’” Ronald said. “Just like that.”

That same day, Ronald and Sharon were driving on Cypress Street, trying to sell light bulbs, when he saw a sign. He backed up and saw King Moving and Storage. He went back to New Horizons to get ready for a job interview and he got the job.

“The day that the Lord blessed him with a job, I got a call,” Sharon said. “I was in the library because we didn’t have computer access at the shelter … I got a call from South Georgia Medical Center and they had two positions that they thought I would be good for. We got the jobs the same day.”

After both of the Jacksons began working, they began trying to find a new home for their family.

“We tried at least 20 times to get into a house,” Ronald said. “We tried Habitat for Humanity. As much as we tried, the application just didn’t go through. We tried to get a mobile home and just couldn’t close that deal. But then the Lord told me in prayer again … ‘I’m going to give you a home. I’m going to give you a house, but I’m going to require one thing from you — prison ministry.’”

Shortly after, their pastor at Morning Star Baptist Church, where they serve, asked if they were interested in prison ministry.

The Jacksons began serving the county prison twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays. Ronald works with the male prisoners while Sharon works with the female prisoners.

“When we said yes to prison ministry, the opportunity to purchase a home (happened),” Ronald said.

Now the Jacksons live in a beautiful home on Williamsburg Drive and have started their new company, South GA Solar Power LLC.

While South GA Solar Power isn’t the first time the pair has worked together — they owned several businesses while living in Philadelphia — they enjoy it.

According to the company’s Web site, www.sga-solarpower.com, they “educate (their) clients by providing them with the latest renewable energy technology, energy star rated products and advance solar power products.”

Just last week, one of the Jacksons’ clients, Z.T. Wilkins, invited the community to visit his Hahira home to showcase the first custom built solar powered system in the area.

“I studied for a whole year and then we started our business in 2009,” Ronald, who already has 28 years experience in engineering development, said. “With the new president, the new agenda, the State of the Union address, we wanted to go into green energy and renewable energy. So we moved into this new arena and studied and started providing services. It’s been moving slowly but moving forward ever since.”

When the Jacksons moved into their new home, their electricity bill was around $345 a month. Now it’s only around $165 a month by using some of the products that they offer their clients.

“We have certain products that we use that we also sell,” Ronald said.

While their new business keeps them busy, according to Ronald, their main goal is always ministry first.

While the couple serve at Morning Star Baptist Church, they also serve CrossPointe’s men’s Bible fellowship.

“You have to support your community. It’s like the old phrase, ‘It’s a poor frog that doesn’t praise his own pond.’ You don’t do nothing for your community, you can’t blame anybody when it goes down,” Ronald said.

“We’ve had major testimonies since we’ve been here,” Sharon said, “stacks of major eleventh-hour breakthroughs, and it is just awesome. You try to outdo him in prayer, and you can’t outdo him. It’s awesome to see the Lord work. We give the Lord glory for everything.”