Jim Jacobson

Jim Jacobson, "President and Founder of Christian Freedom International, has assisted the persecuted church in many restricted countries around the world. He has faced personal danger to deliver Bibles to underground churches in China, care packs to families in the brickyards of Pakistan, and medical aid to refugees in the war zones of Burma.

"Mr. Jacobson has testified and conducted briefings before Congress, the White House and the State Department on behalf of Christians who are persecuted for their faith each year.

"At the invitation of First Lady Laura Bush, Mr. Jacobson participated in The Dialogue on Burma, a roundtable discussion conducted during the September 2006 U.N. General Assembly that allowed activists and government officials to speak openly about the severe humanitarian crisis that has plagued Burma for decades.

"Before founding CFI, Mr. Jacobson served as a policy analyst in the Reagan White House, a political appointee in the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, and was a senior legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate. He is also Vice-President and Co-Founder of the National Right to Read Foundation, an organization dedicated to phonics-based reading instruction in elementary schools throughout America.

"Mr. Jacobson has also been a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has appeared on numerous television programs, including 60 Minutes, Fox News, and The 700 Club.

"Mr. Jacobson is a graduate of the University of Michigan. He and his wife Karen have four children and have been married for more than 20 years."

Burma

"Jim Jacobsen first visited Burma at the encouragement of Faith Whittlesey, US ambassador to Switzerland, whom he had met at a human rights conference. On that trip to Burma, Jacobson says, “I fell in love with the people. I was impressed by the Christ-like character of the Karen people. They take their Christianity seriously and live very decent, moral lives...

"Whittlesey asked Jim, who had worked in the Reagan Administration and was a former legislative assistant to Senator Gordon Humphrey, to “spearhead a program to assist persecuted Christians.” In 1983 he launched CFI as the U.S. branch of Christian Solidarity International, which is based in Switzerland. The CSI-USA board had an “aggressive vision,” Jim says. It wanted CFI to be privately-funded and independent of the U.N. or E.U. “This step was and is important in that it allows CFI to go to places without the permission of international treaties, etc,” he adds. In 1995 the Board commissioned Jim to make CSIUSA self-sufficient...

"In June [2003], Jim, his wife and four children moved from Washington D.C., where the hot air comes from politicians, to the border of Burma, where the oppressive heat comes from both sun and tyrants. But you can’t judge the enormity of the challenge by his voice. Jim is excited, hopeful, and ready for “radical expansion.”"