Someone asked me to write about Josh Burton, and I was glad when he consented. I’ve enjoyed his leading worship music with his guitar at Epic Life Ministry in Newton, but I knew him before that, when he coached and taught at Newton County High School a few years ago.
Joshua Allen Burton was born Sept. 18, 1980 and was reared in Decatur. Josh remembers being on a roof as a child, while his father roofed a house. Besides working in construction, Mr. Burton was also a dairy farmer before becoming a mail carrier here in Decatur. Josh’s mother Nancy just retired as secretary of the Decatur Methodist Church, after 33 years.
Polly Burton, his sister three years older than he, was born three months premature, and has been a special needs child her entire life. She evidently had a profound effect on both Josh and Naomi, their older sister. Naomi is married to Jason Walker and teaches Special Education at Starkville, while Josh is in his sixth year at Neshoba Central Middle School, also teaching Special Education classes as an inclusion teacher.
Through the years, he claimed, “We were country all the way.” His sister Polly also loves music. As he was growing up, she would rock on the bed and sing country songs while listening to the radio. He recalled, speaking of his relationship with his sister, and the things they shared, “She kept me grounded.”
Josh studied in Newton County Schools from first grade through graduation in 1999. He played baseball and golf in high school, while also singing in choir and show choir. Ms. Gloria Harms, music director at both the Methodist Church and Newton County Middle and High School was, as Josh told me, “a big influence on me.” When she had eighth grade tryouts and he did not show up, she sent someone to go get him. He also remembers singing the song “Teach Me, Lord,” and playing the part of Jonah in a play at the Methodist Church when he was about eight or ten years old.
Receiving a presidential scholarship from East Central Community College to play golf, Josh sang in the college chorus, and made both the special group, Vivace, and the Collegians, before transferring to Mississippi State. He earned his B.S. in Physical Education in 2005, with an emphasis in Kinesiology, doing “Cardiac Rehab” as his internship.
That was all well and good, but he went right back to roofing houses, before taking a part-time job filing papers with Carleton Oil Company in Union. But the Lord was leading. Josh discovered he could qualify as a mental health technician for Central Mississippi Regional Center in Newton, where he served for three years. He then took the “alternate route” to get his teaching license and became a Newton County High School world history teacher, while also coaching baseball and cross country, for a year.
At this point, Josh switched to teach at Newton City Schools, where his friend John May had formerly taught a handicapped class, in Special Education. John told him they needed someone for the severe and profound handicapped class. Josh realized, “Polly prepared me. She went to school until she was about 18. She started out in Newton for some reason, and I ended up teaching in Newton.” He taught there five years, from 2009 until 2014, before moving to his position now at Neshoba Central Middle School.
I asked about his journey with God, and he told me of being sprinkled as a baby, being confirmed in the Methodist Church, with Mr. John Blount being a “great mentor” for his confirmation. He said he was “always a Christian growing up,” but out of high school and in college “I thought I could do life on my own with the Lord close by when I needed Him,” though, thankfully, he never strayed far from his Christian roots. When Josh was almost 21, he picked up the guitar and learned to play. For a while, Josh played and sang in bars, and at weddings and parties, but now he sings and gives his Christian testimony whenever an opportunity arises.
In March 2012, Josh met April, sister of his friend Mitch Davis, and they were married Jan. 10, 2014. Josh is thankful for his wife, who has helped him draw closer to the Lord. She had been attending church at All Seasons in Forest, and that church has become an important part of Josh’s life also. The worship music there, Pastor Lott’s teaching, the ladies at Newton where he was teaching telling him, “You are a man of God,” all caused him to say, “I want to live up to that.” One night, during a special time with the Lord at All Seasons, “I asked Pastor Lott to baptize me.”
Josh explained, “Those special ladies helped motivate me to do more and more for the special needs kids. They believed in me, which ultimately led me to believe in myself, and learning to be a strong advocate for those kids. Those kids truly made you see life how God designed it to be. It’s not always roses and butterflies, but if you work hard enough, you might get to witness a rose bloom and a butterfly get its wings.”
April Christine Davis, child of Gus and Gina Davis, was born Jan. 10, 1974, in Slidell, LA. April has two brothers, Mitch and Gus, and a sister, Michelle, who is Rev. Luke Way’s wife. (By the way, April and her sister Michelle Way look a lot alike, so don’t think, if you see Josh out with April, that something bad happened to the Way’s marriage, as some have thought when seeing Josh and April together!)
April has been married before and has four children, Lauren, Anna, Alexia and Shot (named after his grandfather, “Shot” Stribling). Lauren is a Philadelphia policer and has two children, Jackson, 8, and Emmett, 5. Anna is studying at Delta State to be a dietitian, while Alexia is in the ninth grade, and Shot is a seventh-grader. The younger ones live with April and Josh and attend Neshoba County Schools.
April’s father is Catholic, and her mother raised Baptist, but they did not attend church in Louisiana. When they came to Mississippi, she went to church with her mother’s family. When she was nine, she professed her faith in Christ. “I always talked to God. I knew He was there and that He watched over me.”
April went to East Central Community College, attaining all the pre-requisites for nursing school, but never applying to nursing school until years later. In 2011 she graduated from East Central with honors, while caring for her family with small children. She now works at the Mississippi State Department of Health as a Registered Nurse.
While pregnant with her second child, April had dreams about the health of her baby. When Anna was two and April saw a lump on her arm, she said, “I knew it was cancer. God had revealed it to me in those dreams.” After being disbelieved by the E.R. doctor and the pediatrician, an orthopedist told her it was cancer. On Mothers’ Day 2000, they checked in to St. Jude where she was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a very aggressive cancer.
Right after Anna began treatment, while staying at a Ronald McDonald House, little Anna woke up early one morning and called out to her mother, “No more cancer!” April asked her how she knew, to which Anna replied, “Jesus told me!” April prayed over her all the time, many people prayed, and she told me, “I knew God was going to heal my baby.”
Caught in its earliest stages, they were able to remove the tumor with all the cancer. Doctors at St. Jude said the cancer was dead, it had not spread, and they called Anna the miracle child. Faith such as that, back in 2000, has continued to be a blessing to the Burtons today, as they continue to trust God to lead them and teach them.
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
