It doesn’t seem like it has been that long, but the Rev. Mark Vincent has been pastoring Clarke-Venable Memorial Baptist Church since June 2004. My family had only been here since 2000, and now it is 2017. Where does the time go? I am thankful that in the small town of Decatur, Mississippi, it does not take long for it to feel like home!
Rev. Mark J. Vincent, his wife Janine, and children Chelsey LuAnn, Monica Janine, and John Mark, settled right in that first year; but it was the next year in August of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, that they proved themselves to be God’s servants to the church, the town, and the surrounding area. This week, I want to spotlight the life and influence of Mrs. Janine Vincent. Next week I will concentrate on Bro. Mark, especially since we have just learned of his having been elected as president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention!
Sheryl Janine Howell Vincent was the only daughter, with both an older and a younger brother, of Gary and Jimmie Dee Howell of Semmes, Ala. She was born in Mobile, Ala., at the same hospital where her future husband would be born nine months later. The same doctor delivered them both! The family moved to Agricola, Mississippi, between her sixth and seventh grade years, when she met Mark Vincent and his sister LuAnn.
Janine became close friends with LuAnn Vincent, who was one year older. After competing and winning the Jr. Miss pageant, LuAnn enrolled in the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus. The next year, 1980, Janine also won the George County Junior Miss title, a full scholarship to the “W,” and graduated from George County High School in Lucedale with highest honors.
Janine’s friendship with LuAnn led to her marriage to LuAnn’s brother Mark, one year younger than Janine, in a way different than you might imagine. It was after LuAnn was tragically killed while driving back home from the university, that Janine and Mark were drawn together, through time and circumstances, as both dealt with their grief. They were married three months after Janine graduated in 1984 with a bachelors. Mark graduated from Mississippi State the next year with a Bachelor of Business Administration. She later earned a Certificate of Ministry and Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Anyone meeting Janine Vincent, even for the first time, will feel her love for people, possibly realizing that her love comes from a deep experience with her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. She had an extremely unique experience as a child, only to realize when she was a young adult that she had actually been born again through that experience.
When Janine was seven, she would “babysit” at her aunt’s house, helping with the baby. There was a poem — a prayer I also grew up praying — on the wall of the baby’s room, that she spent a lot of time pondering. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
One night Janine was staying with her aunt, when her mother, because of a family emergency, ran down to get her. As they ran back in bright moonlight, Janine remembers looking up, thinking of that prayer, and “praying for the Lord of that poem to help me and save me.”
Later, while a student at MUW, she attended Mount Zion Baptist Church, and heard the pastor preach on Nehemiah building the wall. She went forward, joined the church, and was baptized. Her mother and grandmother came up from the Coast to see her baptism, bringing her deceased grandfather’s Bible and his Sunday School book. The last lesson he had taught seventh grade boys was on Nehemiah building the wall. Janine really appreciates God speaking through the legacy of her grandfather at a time so important in her spiritual life.
After their marriage, while they lived and worked in Agricola, Janine served in the church in various capacities. After they moved to Texas for Mark to pursue his seminary degree, she served in the church there, and in Charleston, where he pastored before they moved to Clarke-Venable Baptist Church.
Fillling educational needs
When they first came here, it did not take long for Janine to be called on to volunteer at the Newton County Elementary School. There was a need for an English-as-a- Second Language, or ESL, tutor, and Janine had been trained in that capacity through the Baptist Missions Board.
She told me that this tutoring opportunity caused Bro. Mark and her to see the need and to start an ESL after-school program at the church, for Spanish-speaking students and students-at-risk, with most of the students being from Chunky. After nine years of the program operating at Clarke-Venable, the Lord moved Chunky United Methodist Church and other people to cooperate and form an ESL after-school program there in their home community.
When Katrina devastated so much of the South in 2005, Mrs. Janine Vincent immediately began coordinating and supervising the collection, organization, and distribution of it
ems donated to be sent to people on the Coast. I remember that time, and how she and Bro. Mark spurred everyone on to do their best, with both of them giving their all, leading and encouraging the church in the same efforts, for a considerable amount of time on that great project.
Her work at the school with ESL, and at the church — on the Women’s Ministry team, teaching two-year-olds in Sunday School, and assisting with the Empowered Children’s Choir — and the very public demonstration of her love, skill and training during the Katrina situation caused people to see how valuable her services would be in the position she holds at the present time. Janine works in the Newton County School District in the areas of publicity, drop-out prevention, and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), and as the district’s parent liaison.
Janine says, “The connection between classroom and home is vital.”
Bro. Larry Reed, who has worked with Ms. Janine at the school for 11 years, had this to say about her. “She is a servant, with a tender heart for people, especially children. She is a woman of prayer.”
He spoke ofher skill in performing her duties at the school, then said, “One particular thing she did for me as a man and as a dad was open that door for involvement with the schools.”
Bro. Larry was one of the first who became active in Watch Dog Dads, a program she started that brings fathers into their children’s school experience.
Her office contains school supplies that the students know they can ask for when they are needed. She also collects school uniforms and supplies for homeless families. I have not begun to speak of all the things she does at church, at school, and in the community. I just know that anyone who has become acquainted with Mrs. Janine Howell Vincent would know that behind Brother Mark is this good woman!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell or 601-635-3282.
