Jesse's childhood

Children wave good-bye as a visitor leaves the Good Shepherd's Happy Children Orphanage in Ghana, Africa. The Jesse Brooks Dormitory opened this month to provide a home for 40 boys and girls. The orphanage was built by Art Alive Ministries of Blacksburg. The age of four is a little young to know one's life ambition, but Jesse Brooks knew hers and told anyone who would listen that when she grew up she would be a missionary.

Jesse was living her dream with a rare passion when she journeyed with her parents from their home in Albertville, Ala., in June of 2002 to serve on a mission to Montana. She spent many happy days there helping teach Bible school and backyard Bible clubs and performing interpretive dances to her favorite song, I Can Only Imagine.

Jesse's life came to a tragic close on June 7, 2002, when the van carrying her home from Montana blew a tire and overturned multiple times.

"Jesse had so much passion for worshipping through drama. She always wanted to use the more powerful worship music to get across the message of Christ," said Tammy Brooks, Jesse's mother. "At 10 years old she wanted to make sure that everyone heard about Jesus."

Vince Tharpe, director of Art Alive Ministries, puts the finishing touches to a portrait he painted of Jesse Brooks. The portrait now hangs in the Jesse Brooks Dormitory at Good Shepherd's Happy Children Orphanage. The young woman's desire to be a missionary continues through the work of the Jesse Brooks Foundation. The foundation partnered with Jesse's home church, Solitude Baptist, and Art Alive Ministries of Blacksburg to build a new dormitory for the Good Shepherd's Happy Children Orphanage in Ghana.

Art Alive Ministries Director Vince Tharpe founded the nonprofit Christian organization in 1985. He combines his talent for chalk art with a multimedia presentation to teach Biblical truths through Bible stories such as Noah's Ark.

Tharpe returned to Aflao, Ghana, with Jesse's parents last Thursday for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Jesse Brooks Dormitory at the Good Shepherd's Happy Children Orphanage. The Blacksburg artist presented the family with a portrait of Jesse that will hang in the orphanage.

Vince Tharpe works on a chalk art drawing during one of his Art Alive programs that have taken the Blacksburg resident on 11 international crusades and over 600,000 miles to to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The children's home currently provides a safe haven for 40 boys and girls, ranging in ages from seven to 17.

The children attend a private school operated by Aflao Baptist Church, whose pastor, Wisdom Ameku, is the school's administrator and lives in the orphanage. Ameku will visit Tharpe in Blacksburg on May 12-19 to speak in local churches and schools.

Tharpe has seen the orphanage project grow beyond his wildest expectations.

It costs approximately $4,100 a month to operate the orphanage and the Jesse Brooks Foundation's main objective is to support it.

"This is our way of helping Jesse fulfill her dream to be a missionary," Tharpe said. "She is having an impact on the lives of children in Africa through the foundation started in her memory. Jesse has become Africa's youngest missionary through her family's foundation."