Get to Know: Laura Greenwell (Dir. Women's Ministry)

Uh today we're here with Laura Greenwell.

She is the women's ministry director and she started in January of 2002.

Laura, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great.

Awesome.

So as is tradition with the show, we like to start with some icebreakers just to get to know you and have a little fun.

So my first one for you.

What's your perfect Saturday look like?

My perfect Saturday is either a rainy day where I don't have to get dressed and I can just lay around in my pajamas and watch HG TV and relax.

Or it's either a beautiful spring or fall day where the temperature's not too hot and I can get outside and work in the garden or do something like that.

That's a perfect segue into my next question.

I knew you were a gardener and you loved working with flowers.

What's your favorite kind of flower?

Hydrangeas are probably one of my favorites.

Roses too, so there's really not too many flowers that I don't like.

Yeah.

When did you start gardening?

My grandmother on my dad's side lived down in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

And she was an avid gardener.

She had over 100 rose bushes.

And so I think I just grew up with the love of flowers from her and helping her work in her garden and everything.

Is there a flower you just can't seem to master and get to grow?

Well, recently I've had trouble with my roses because there's this thing called witch's broom, which is a airborne disease.

And before I'd never had trouble, but recently I haven't been able to grow roses, so it's kind of sad.

Oh, well, that is sad.

Yeah.

Well, let's let's get happy again.

I know this firsthand, and I can attest to this.

You are an excellent cook.

What is something that you absolutely love to cook?

I love to cook all kinds of things.

Let's let's reframe it.

What's your specialty?

What's something that if you're preparing dinner for someone or you have guests coming over, what's your go-to?

I love to grill out steaks.

So steaks and also bacon wrapped shrimp on the grill is awesome.

That's a a favorite of mine.

So that's good.

That's awesome.

Okay, so last one.

What's something that you've read recently that has really resonated with you?

It can be a book, a quote, scripture, anything.

I read Tasha Leighton's book, Look What You've Done.

And it's kind of an autobiography of her life.

And I met her in person when she came here to Christ Church a couple years ago and just really admire her and her story.

So I feel like her telling her story has been really impactful and just how God used her in different circumstances.

And then the music that she's singing and traveling and everything is just reaching a lot of young women for Christ.

Is there any one particular story that really stands out that you've just hung on to?

I think just her faith and stepping out in faith because a couple of times she was supposed to do one thing and go on road with someone and it didn't work out.

And at the last minute she decided just to go for it and do it.

And so just her being brave enough to step out into faith and trust God, not knowing what that would look like, moving across the country and traveling with Katy Perry and different people.

So it was just very interesting.

That is good.

Well, so talking about you now, let's go all the way back.

Where are you from?

I'm from Memphis, Tennessee.

Okay.

Lived here all my life.

My mom and dad are from Mississippi.

So they raised our family here.

What part of town did you grow up in?

Over near Kingsbury High School.

Okay.

We lived in the same house.

Uh we had there's five kids in the family.

Wow.

Went to the same school for 12 years.

And so just very um traditional, I guess, kind of normal.

No, that's nothing wrong with normal.

So tell me about your parents.

What were their names?

What'd they do?

My dad was Jimmy Ross Gay, and my mom was Carolyn Langston Gay.

They got married very young and started having children right away.

My dad's family owned a truck line down in Mississippi, and he was a diesel mechanic.

He worked for Roadway Express for a little bit, but then always went back to the family business.

And so we grew up on Saturday mornings going to work with him and riding in trucks and driving forklifts and working on the docks.

So what about your mother?

My mom, Carolyn Gay, she, like I said, married my dad very young, had kids right away, was mostly a stay-at-home mom while we were young.

She did help my dad with the business some.

So she was helping him, but she loved flowers too, just like me, and uh loved to cook.

So what you mentioned your grandparents earlier.

Were they in town or did y'all have to travel to see them?

How how much time did you spend with them?

My grandmother on my dad's side, uh, she lived down near Holly Springs, which is only like 45 minutes an hour most.

And we spent a lot of time down there with her.

My family had a cabin in Ashland, Mississippi on the lake, and we spent all our summers there swimming in the lake and fishing and things like that.

So fascinating.

So you have five siblings, one of five siblings.

So tell me about your siblings.

Who were you close with them growing up?

What were they what was that like?

Yes, we seven people grew up in a three-bedroom, one-bath house, little bitty tiny house.

And so I shared the room with a room with my two sisters.

And so, yeah, we're very close.

I have a sister that's four years older than me.

Kind of interesting fact, my mother and dad had six children.

Their first one died.

Four of them were born in May.

Two of them were born on the same day in May.

Wow.

So um, yeah, so that my sister's birthday was May 21st.

She just had her birthday, and my other brother's May the 11th.

And so a lot of May birthdays.

Yeah.

So where do you fall in the in the I'm the middle?

You're the middle, dead middle.

Yep.

I had a brother and a sister older than me, and a brother and a sister younger than me.

Wow, look at that.

Did you uh do you feel the middle child syndrome?

Yes, I love it.

I feel like the older ones get too strict, the babies get spoiled, and the middle one just gets to do.

You did exactly what you wanted.

Good for you.

Yeah.

Okay, so tell me about young Laura.

What were you into as a child?

Were you you were obviously begging to be in outdoors, it sounds like.

So can you kind of tell me about what you were like when you were younger?

I did love to be outside.

We played outside all day, every day, and a lot of the families on our block had multiple kids too.

There were about three families that had five kids and uh another, you know, the couple that had three or four.

And so our summer days would be just playing out in the backyard.

And I remember just playing house and making things and cooking with dirt and mud and sticks and just a very simple childhood.

Did you start cooking with your mother when you were younger, or was that later in life?

No, I did start cooking early on, and it's a joke with my family because my dad, having five kids, he could make something out of nothing.

And so I I'm a kind of a guru at that too.

Like if I have stuff in the refrigerator, I can make something out of the leftovers.

And so, and then my mom, when uh I got a little bit older, she would work some in the afternoon.

So I would cook for my family.

Wow.

What kind of things were you cooking at such a young age?

Well, it was pretty simple back then.

We had a lot of fish sticks and chicken pot pies and things that didn't require, you know, casserole that she would always make that had like ground beef and vegetables and biscuits on top.

So it was kind of like mass food that could feed a lot of people.

But that's I mean, that's impressive because I mean that I'm assuming this wasn't even frozen stuff.

This was your putting together chicken pot pie from scratch, more or less.

No.

Oh, okay.

It was the cheap old 99 cent Morton's.

Okay.

Still impressive.

I this was not a trait that I acquired until college.

So it's still impressive that you're young and doing that.

So that's that's great.

Yeah.

So moving on to a little bit older, what were you like in high school?

What was high school Laura like?

I was a cheerleader and very popular, very outgoing.

I had a lot of friends, loved to attend church activities and things like that.

So okay.

So talking about church, what is your testimony?

How did you come to know Christ?

I grew up in a small Baptist church in Memphis, and we went every time the doors were open, we went Wednesday night, we went Sunday night, Sunday morning, vacation Bible school, revivals.

We had a lot of revivals back then.

So um gave my life to Christ when I was probably about eight years old.

Wow, that's awesome.

So what were your aspirations in high school?

What did you think you were going to do with your life?

I thought I was gonna be a nurse, and that's kind of what I was leaning toward.

And I met Glenn in high school.

At the time, my friend Sharon and I, best friend, we went down to the Baptist College of Nursing for an orientation weekend.

And at the time, which I'm really dating myself because I I am old, but at the time you had to live in student housing to be a nurse.

And so I had told Glenn, uh, we were dating at the time, and I told Glenn that I was thinking about going into nursing school and that I'd have to live on campus.

You could not be married at the time.

Wow.

And like I said, it's a long time ago.

Things have really changed.

Yeah.

But he talked me out of it, and he was like, No, I don't want you to go to nursing school.

I want to get married.

So we ended up getting married, and I did not go to nursing school.

Do you have regrets about that?

Do you wish you had pursued that?

Not really.

I feel like I was saved a lot of uh hard work and yeah, so so instead of did you go to college or did you just decide to go get married then?

We got married, and at the time, FedEx was hiring a lot of people, and I had gone to some community college classes, but never in official college.

So I went to work for FedEx and worked for them for 18 years.

What'd you do with them?

I started out in customer service, and then I went to the tracing department with people customer support.

So you mentioned Glenn, your high school sweethearts, it sounds like.

So can you tell me the story of how y'all met and kind of started came together and eventually got married?

So I met Glenn when I was probably 15 or 16.

I was a cheerleader.

We dated a little bit, but not anything major at that time.

And just his personality really didn't jive with me that much then.

What was it about him that didn't what was well he was kind of a redneck?

Maybe a lot of a redneck.

And I just wasn't attracted to that.

And so then I we didn't date for a little bit, and he actually had started going to youth group at another church and had given his life to Christ.

And so I went to a revival.

My sister and I went on a Sunday night, and Glenn was there with a couple of his buddies, and I reconnected with him, and it was just weird.

I could really sense he was so different, you know.

I could tell that he was not the same person that I had met, you know, previously.

And so that Tuesday night, the they had visitation and they all came over to our house.

And so kind of the rest is history, but I just could tell how Jesus had changed his life and he was a different person.

So Jesus' blood washed away the redneck from Glenn?

Well, not all the way.

He would still say that he is a redneck and he can get pretty angry at times, but he's a sweetheart.

I yes, I can attest to that.

He is.

So you met Glenn, you got married.

When did children come into the picture for you guys?

Glenn's mother died when he was 16.

She was 36.

And he had a really, really rough childhood.

And I don't want to go into all of his story, but it ended up a couple years after we got married, when we were still kids, his three siblings came to live with us.

Wow.

And so we all grew up together.

So we didn't think about having kids right away because we were just surviving and growing, you know, they were going.

Supporting kids.

Yeah, kids supporting kids, kind of really what it was.

And so we all just grew up together.

And then a few years after they had moved out and everything, we decided we wanted to have kids of our own and weren't successful with that.

So we decided, you know, that we were gonna, you know, seek some fertility treatments, did that for a little while.

I ended up getting pregnant once and I miscarried.

Then everybody was saying, Well, oh, now you know you at least you can get pregnant, you'll get pregnant again, which didn't happen.

And both of us come from big families, we love kids, and so we decided we wanted to adopt.

So we pursued adoption and adopted Jacob when he was first out of the hospital.

He was born in Louisiana, and uh we got him when he was like three days old.

And so then we decided we wanted to do more adoption, checked into adoption when he was about four, and at the time they said, since you already have one infant, we wouldn't place an infant with you.

But if you wanted to do foster care and a child became available, you would have first, you know, choice.

So I felt like that would be a good option for us because even if a child was taken away, we would still have our own child and it wouldn't go back to childless, and so and it would serve the purpose of bringing more kids into the home because he was pretty spoiled after, you know, waiting so long to have a child, and then we spoiled him pretty good.

So we started doing foster care when Jacob was four.

We had a sibling set of three, two boys and a girl, had them for a little while, and then we found out about Logan, and he was another private adoption, and we were actually in the delivery room when he was born.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and that was very sweet.

And so then when he was two, we started doing foster care again.

And I was working when Jacob was born, still at FedEx, and then when Logan was born, my friend that I was working with, kind of a job share, she was pregnant.

And so Logan was had a lot of uh reflux and was just crying a lot and just wasn't happy at the sitter, and I was not happy leaving him.

And so I had this great idea, and I said, Gina, you know, why don't you let me keep your baby?

I'll quit work and stay home, and I can keep your baby, and then I can be home with mine.

And it worked out, and I ended up keeping Austin until he started kindergarten.

So Logan and Austin grew up together, about the same age, and then I was able to stay home and do foster care also.

When you miscarried, what did that do to your relationship with God?

Were you angry with him?

What was that emotion?

We had kind of stepped away from the church a little bit anyway, and it wasn't until we were going through the adoption home study and all that we we had started going back to church.

So I wouldn't say I was angry.

I was just kind of like sad and like, I don't know, just kind of like, are you kidding?

You know, this we waited this long and then this to happen.

So kind of forced me back to God, I would say.

It forced you back to God.

How do you think that shaped you in your perspective of God when you started coming back around and going back to church again?

I think it gave me a an empathy for other women who were going through that and maybe shaped my ministry because I could have that experience.

I had that experience.

So I feel like, you know, when God causes us to suffer for different things, that that's part of our story.

And so I was really, really sad, but he blessed us with children.

So it wasn't the end of the story, it was just how he used that part of our story to help other women, I believe.

So before before your first adoption and before you started foster care, did you have a heart for that kind of thing before?

Or was it something that it was just kind of like, well, this just seems the easiest path to having children?

Yeah.

What was kind of your heart behind that?

After we miscarried and uh going through all of that, I was having some other medical issues, and it was just like we wanted children.

I know some people, and I don't really under I still don't understand this, but some people, if they can't have their own biological children, choose not to, and that's okay.

But we wanted children, and it did not matter to us that he was our own, you know, biological child or they were our our own biological children.

And then I kind of started into that adoption in foster ministry and got to see the need and also that other people could adopt several children because when I went into it, we went into it.

I was thinking that if we'd adopted one, that's probably all that we could afford, and that would be fine.

And then we went to some support group meetings and started getting involved in the community, and I saw other families that were just like us that had multiples, and it really turned my thinking on that and gave us more joy and more purpose and that this was possible.

You kind of talk about that shift that you had after you started.

Where did your heart go as you started adopting and fostering more children?

I mean, did that bring you closer to Christ, being able to be a part of that process?

It did.

And as part of the home study process with uh one of the local agencies we were working with, you had to have a letter from your pastor and you had to, you know, be involved in church.

And we were already involved in church, but we went to a huge church and our pastor wouldn't know us from Adam.

So we had to make an appointment to meet with the pastor to talk about it and to get a referral from them.

And we met with the pastor's son-in-law, and it was kind of a turning point because we were kind of depressed and thinking, oh, we don't have children.

And he, like you were asking about our story, he heard about our story and he said, Y'all have been parents for a long time.

Might not have been your biological children, but you were able to parent Glenn's siblings, and you were able to help raise your nephew who needed, you know, parents needed some help.

So it was kind of like that is what God did.

And I didn't even really think it because when you're living in that, you don't see it from the outside perspective.

So kind of gave us a new lease on that too.

What's your perspective of foster care and adoption now that you want other people to know?

I want people to know that it is very, very hard.

It's probably the hardest thing you would ever do.

But if God calls you to do it, he will bless you and get you through it.

And I know that I always say that not everybody can foster, but everybody can do something.

So even if your heart is not into foster care, if you could come alongside a family or if you could donate to a family that's got a lot of kids, these kids, even with adoption, they all come from loss.

And even if it's a great addition for your family, it's still a loss.

It's a loss for that child, it's a loss for their birth mother.

So I have a lot more empathy for the birth mother and relatives because it is a loss.

And I've learned so much through trauma care and healing and different things like that that when a birth mom is pregnant with a child and she decides that she's going to place that child for adoption, she emotionally disconnects from the child and it causes a difference in the way their brains are wired.

And even though we got Jacob and Logan when they were newborns, they still have a lot of trauma and they have a lot of loss.

So that's just been a learning curve and you know, just trying to figure out how to best get them the services and care that they need to be emotionally healthy.

For parents and adults that are feeling that call, I mean, you've said it, it's very difficult.

It's the hardest thing they'll ever do.

What's your encouragement to them?

What word can you give to them for optimism?

I would say that if God is nudging you in that direction to follow through with it and that you will be blessed.

And I know a lot of people said when we had the children that we had is how could you give them back?

How could you lose a child after you've had them in your home for two years?

And I would say that he works things out, and some of it is very traumatic.

We did not have a real traumatic experience with that.

I have friends that that have, and it is hard when they have to go back, especially if you feel like they're going back to a situation that's not so healthy.

But trying to show Jesus love to those families and to even with your own biological children, you don't know how long you're gonna have them, right?

I mean, you could lose your child tomorrow and you just don't know.

So you have to just make everyday count and make every minute as, you know, as good as it can get.

It's a powerful word.

So we've we've talked about one aspect of the ministry that you're currently doing, but I think to get to what your actual job title is, I think we need to go back a little bit in your story.

How did you come to Christchurch?

What brought you here?

Well, I was I had quit work, like I said, and stayed at home with my kids, and we were doing foster care in between.

And we got Samantha, our last foster child, when she was six months old.

My husband's in an elected position, and they have elections every three years, and he's been in this role for like 30 years.

But when Samantha was two, it looked like he might not get re-elected.

And so I wasn't working.

We had four kids at home.

I was like, what are we gonna do?

You know, if he doesn't get elected and doesn't have a job.

So my niece was working here at the church, and she said, Well, we have an opening in the finance department, and so it really worked out well because I got to come to work here and worked for the CFO as an admin assistant, and they had childcare where Samantha could come.

And so she was raised by the lovely ladies down in the nursery, and I could see her playing on the playground, and yeah, so in your story, I can kind of see the way that God puts you in situations or gives you opportunities where he kind of massages your heart to be more empathetic towards people.

So, can you kind of talk about how you feel that God has massaged your heart to be more empathetic towards people?

Yes, I feel like God has given me love for children and moms and older women.

And so I feel like I feel really blessed to be in this role at Christ Church and the amazing women that I have gotten to meet over the years and are still meeting, from even loving on the babies in the nursery to the older ladies that are in hospice and different things.

It's just, I feel like I've really been blessed to be able to minister and to care for women of all ages.

How did you transition from working in finance to working in the women's ministry?

I worked in the as an admin in finance for many years and we were not going to Christchurch at that time.

And then at the time, it was a policy of the church that if you worked in the finance department, you could not be a member here because of confidentiality purposes, which was fine because, you know, and so then as our children got older into high school and they weren't really involved in church, our pastor passed away.

And so we were just, it was just kind of a natural fit.

And Scott Lees was working here at the time, and he wanted me to come to work in the community life area.

And so moving into that transition, I needed to know more, you know, be in relationship with the church members and all.

So it was just a natural fit.

And then we had a new pastor here.

And so it just all worked out that we moved our membership here probably 10 or 12 years ago.

What is it about women's ministry that you really find fulfilling?

I mean, you've been here for a while, you obviously enjoy what you do, and I would say that you do a fantastic job just based on what I've seen.

Let me rephrase that.

I know you do a fantastic job because I've seen what you do.

What is it about women's ministry that you love to do and has kept you here?

I would have to say a lot of that is the women I get to work with.

We have a great staff and we work super, super hard, but we also laugh and have fun and celebrate one another in good times and bad times.

So I feel like the relationships with my coworkers and with our church members really keeps me going.

And seeing new members come to church and women wanting to serve and volunteer and the new women that are helping, you know, at the retreat and the things, I just got some great, great friendships and mentorships that have really fueled my fire.

One beautiful thing that I've seen about the ministry that you do is the way that you're raising up the next generation of women leaders in the church and that you put such an emphasis on, hey, if you want to do this event, I need y'all to lead this event.

Because and it's not because you're disowning the responsibility, it's because you want to see other young women or just women in general prosper in the church.

Can you talk about that?

It does take a lot of people and it takes a lot of leadership.

And so that's what I want to try to do is, like you said, raise up the next generation because I don't foresee myself working 10 more years.

I don't know what God has planned for me, you know, but I want to leave a legacy and I want to leave a legacy of women that are leading and striving to do the same thing as bringing up other leaders, making disciples who make disciples.

So my last question for you is what excites you about the future of your role and Christ Church in general?

I think it is the young women that are in that are stepping up to be a leadership model for future generations.

We have some great women that I am so blessed to know, and I know that they are going to do a phenomenal job.

And with the women's retreat last year, Glenn was having surgery and there was a lot of things that I couldn't do.

And they stepped in and did a much more beautiful job than I could even do.

So it's just, you know, it's exciting to see the future of the Christ of Christ Church.

Well, Laura, on behalf of the congregation, I want to say thank you for all the work that you do.

I want to say thank you for the ministry that you do.

You do such an excellent job, and we can see your heart for women and foster and adoptive care children and their parents.

So on behalf of the congregation, thank you so much for the ministry you do, and thank you for sharing today.

Thank you so much.

I'm blessed.