After waiting a while to let the VanLandinghams get “settled in,” I was pleased to learn Thomas’s story, which includes that of his lovely wife, Ana. Thomas is the Student Pastor for 9-12th graders at Clarke-Venable Baptist Church of Decatur, having come on staff August 19, 2019.
Thomas Kendall VanLandingham was born April 28, 1990, to Mr. and Mrs. Philip and Mary Ford VanLandingham, both from Copiah County.
The baby of the family, Thomas has two older sisters, Pamela Rackley, married to John Rackley of Columbia, and Emily Smith, wife of Austin Smith, from Hattiesburg. Thomas’s father ran the Copiah County Co-op and other co-ops around the state, while his mother worked for the Mississippi Department of Employment Services.
The family lived in Crystal Springs then Ellisville when he was a baby, moved to Quitman where he attended kindergarten through the seventh grade, then attended North Pike Middle School in McComb for the eighth and ninth grades, finishing up his tenth through twelfth grades at Hazlehurst, where he graduated from Copiah Academy in 2008, his parents’ alma mater. He graduated in 2012 from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Arts and science in history. He is now working on his Master of Divinity at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Thomas had Christian parents and grandparents on both sides. Though his maternal grandfather had passed away in 1969, Thomas knew and enjoyed his grandparents Catherine Ford and Mr. and Mrs. Lamar and Jean VanLandingham. He spent weeks with them all in the summers. He told me, “My family was built upon intentionality, spending time with one another.” He feels that is something that has helped him in his ministry, to be “present in the moment” concerning whomever he is with at the time.
His ministry is the result of the fact that, having been converted at the late age of seventeen, he was still “on fire for God,” when he entered college. He went on mission trips, then began ministry in his home church in Hazlehurst before being led to his present position in Decatur. When I asked how he stayed “on fire,” he told me of the importance of “surrounding yourself with the right people, having a strong support system.”
Thomas shared that “I was a little bit of a handful growing up, but I was in church every time the doors opened.” He told me that everyone probably thought he was a Christian, though he had not had a conversion experience. All throughout school, junior high and high school, he said, “I always knew something was missing. I just did not feel satisfied.”
He told of when he was 17, in the summer of 2007, when his church took members on a mission trip to the Coast to help with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina. One night, a leader spoke to the group and said, “If you are looking for joy, direction, purpose, you need to listen to me.”
“I knew that was what I needed, and I gave my life to Christ,” Thomas said. “Only Jesus can give us the hope we are looking for. He called me to Him. I remember calling my parents that night. They were overjoyed!”
He was baptized on June 12, 2007, and a year later landed in Tokyo as an intern with a missionary for a two-month summer term. The next summer he did the same for three months. He led a mission trip back there later and still enjoys having friends there. Ana has made two visits there.
While in Japan, Thomas climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji, a six-hour hike at night, in order to see the sunrise early in the morning.
He commented, “Seeing the sun rise on top of Mt. Fuji was a reminder to me that God is interacting with us, with people you meet, the places you go and see, the beauty! Stop and look, He’s definitely always at work!”
When Thomas moved to Starkville to attend Mississippi State University, a young lady, Ana Lea, and her family moved to Hazlehurst and began attending his home church, the First Baptist Church. He remembers meeting her when she was still in high school on July 4, 2013, on the steps of the church. In June 2015, they began dating, and they were married May 5, 2018.
Thomas says of his wife Ana, “She’s my rock. She’s definitely my support system. It’s nice when you marry your best friend.”
Thomas and Ana love to watch sunrises and sunsets together, especially on his parents’ back porch, where he proposed to her. He shared, “Sunrises signify renewed mercies and graces of God,” which to me recalled the scripture in Lamentations 3:22-23, “…His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness.”
Thomas continued, “Sunsets tell us to lay your burdens down, cast your burdens on the Lord.”
Ana and her baby sister Alina had been adopted from Romania when she was 3 by Mr. Bryan Lea and Mrs. Susan Welch, after which she had surgery to correct a heart defect. She played soccer at Copiah Academy and was graduated from there in 2015. Today she runs 15 miles a week!
Thomas shared that Ana was saved in her early high school years, and with her earthly adoption experience, she thinks of herself as having been adopted into the family of God. She graduated from Mississippi College December 2019, with a Bachelor of Science in elementary education and teaches kindergarten at Scott Central Elementary. She has been hired to teach that grade at Newton County Elementary in the fall. Thomas commented, “She’s hands-on with kids, invested and definitely extroverted.”
Thomas worked for Enterprise Inc., in Jackson from March to December 2014, and for the Rankin County Cooperative in Brandon from December 2014 to August 2016. That year, he began serving as youth minister at the First Baptist Church of Hazlehurst, continuing there for three years. At some point, Thomas and Ana realized God was calling them to go somewhere else. They just prayed and waited.
He says, “I never put out a resume, never sought to leave.”
But Bro. Billy Williams called him in June 2019 after a friend recommended Thomas. They came to Clarke-Venable in July, when he spoke at the church before being voted in as student pastor of the high school young people. The VanLandinghams moved here in August.
He spoke of how readily the community welcomed and accepted them, and of how he was so grateful for being surrounded by strong families, young ones with children and older people with long marriages, of people with stable Christian histories.
Thomas shared, “It is the best experience for Ana and me, serving here in this church and community, which is like no other, with a man like Bro. Mark leading us. Decatur is home and is a great place to have a family.”
The Rev. Vincent told me, “Thomas and Ana have been an awesome benefit to the high school ministry at Clarke-Venable… Their attitude about serving is so much like Jesus. They are truly blessings from the Lord to this Church and community.
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon! You may contact L. Agnes Russell at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
