Teena Myers

I dialed Tawanna’s phone number. Pastor Thomas, her husband, answered and handed the phone to Tawanna. They were out of town, so she asked me to call back the following week. Again, Thomas answered the phone. He gave me Tawanna’s cell phone number. For the next month, I played phone tag with Tawanna. Pastor Thomas was easier to connect with, so I called and scheduled an interview with him and, if she was available, Tawanna. The following week, I knocked on the door of Living Faith Christian Fellowship. Tawanna answered and told me I could interview both of them.

“My mother was eighteen when she conceived me in an adulterous relationship,” said Thomas. “A family member advised her to get an abortion, so she drank some stuff that was supposed to abort me. All it did was make her sick. My mother’s sister was childless and agreed to take me if I was a girl. When I was born, my aunt said she didn’t want a ‘nappy-headed’ boy.”

After giving birth to two more sons, Thomas’s mother told her sister that she might never have a girl, so she might as well take Thomas. Thomas’s aunt decided a boy wasn’t so bad and took him to live with her in Los Angeles.

“I called her Mommy, and she loved me as her son, but I knew she wasn’t my real mother,” said Thomas.

Thomas’s aunt, a devout Baptist, brought him to church every Sunday. While attending Sunshine Missionary Baptist Church, Thomas walked to the altar with tears streaming down his face. He doesn’t remember what brought him to the altar that day, but he never forgot what his pastor said: “Thomas, I’m gonna turn you into a preacher.” The pastor’s desire was thwarted when Thomas’s aunt moved her membership to Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church.

“I didn’t understand salvation until I was twelve years old and returned to New Orleans to visit my mother. She had stopped smoking and drinking beer. She read Revelation 21:8 to me: ‘But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.’ That was the first time I understood hell as a literal place,” said Thomas. “Later that day, I thought about the things my mother told me and asked Jesus to forgive my sins. I returned to Los Angeles with my aunt, but my mother had the greatest influence on my life.”

While Thomas grew into a young man in Los Angeles, Tawanna struggled to survive in a dysfunctional family. “I was a rebellious child,” said Tawanna, “always getting suspended from school for fighting. I believe a lot of it stemmed from my dad’s aggressive behavior. I could not stop him from beating my mother, so I took out my frustration on the students at school. My dad didn’t want my mother to go to church, but she brought us anyhow. Her faith in God was a lifeline that held her together through difficult times.”

As Tawanna entered her teenage years, her mother repeatedly told her, “If you give your life to the Lord, he will send a godly man to be your husband. If you don’t, you might end up experiencing the same things I do with your dad.” Their pastor often supported and reinforced her mother’s admonition.

By the time Tawanna was fourteen, the desire to be a proper young lady had replaced her aggressive behavior. One Sunday, her pastor preached a sermon about hell. “The Bible says the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord,” said Tawanna, “and the message about hell put the fear of God in me. I committed my life to Christ, and God filled me with the Holy Spirit.”

One day, Tawanna stopped to shake her pastor’s hand after a service. “Tawanna, what kind of husband do you want?”

“I want a minister,” said Tawanna.

“If God has to bring him all the way from Europe, he will bring a godly man to be your husband.”

The pastor’s declaration proved true. God had already brought Thomas back to New Orleans.

“I was sixteen when I returned to New Orleans,” said Thomas. “Every time we visited my mother, my aunt asked me if I wanted to stay, and I had always said no. She was shocked when I said yes.”

Thomas had strayed from God but dutifully attended the Church of God in Christ with his mother. Tawanna’s pastor preached a revival at their church that prompted Thomas to rededicate his life to God.

Tawanna smiled. “God used my pastor to prepare Thomas for me and prepared me to meet him in an unusual way. A prize in a box of Cracker Jack included a fortune that said, ‘You are going to meet a man named Thomas.’ Before the month ended, I met Thomas at a concert.”

“I almost didn’t go to the concert,” said Thomas. “I had been working in a cafeteria all day. The best clothes I had were the ones I was wearing, and I couldn’t find my comb. My mother reminded me that I had made a promise to play the organ at the concert and that I needed to keep my promises. I grabbed a fork from the kitchen drawer to tame my Afro and headed out the door. After the concert, I asked Tawanna for her phone number.”

“God connected us that night,” said Tawanna.

While Thomas and Tawanna were dating, God dealt with Thomas about ministry. “I had always felt there was a calling upon my life to be a pastor,” said Thomas, “but I didn’t want to force anything, so I fasted and prayed. One afternoon, I said, ‘Lord, I’m just a child. I can’t do this.’ That night, Tawanna’s pastor preached at my church. He opened his Bible to Jeremiah chapter 1 and read:”

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Ah, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.”

The scripture Twanna’s pastor read convinced Thomas God had called him to preach the gospel.

Thomas and Tawanna married and immersed themselves in ministry. Tawanna led the choir. Thomas became a youth pastor. Each of them taught a Sunday school class.

“I was initially licensed in the Church of God in Christ,” said Thomas, “but was denied ordination. My ministry had come to a stalemate. When I heard God was moving in a mighty way at an Assemblies of God church, we visited. We loved the service and discussed joining the Assemblies.”

“It was hard for me to leave the church where I grew up,” said Tawanna, “but Thomas prayed for me and committed the matter to God. I prayed until God brought my heart into agreement with Thomas’s desire.”

Thomas grinned. “At the Church of God in Christ, we felt like we were banging on a door that no one answered. The door was wide open in the Assemblies of God. I was licensed to preach when an assistant pastor approached me about a satellite church. I accepted oversight of the congregation and, six months later, became an ordained pastor.”

When a decision was made to close the satellite churches, Thomas and his congregation took over the expenses and continued the work. The congregation grew, and they rented a bigger building. They were forced to move to a temporary location in a Methodist church when a restaurant purchased their building. When Thomas learned that Living Faith Fellowship needed a pastor, he began negotiations to merge their congregations.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Thomas. “Living Faith was bankrupt, and the abrupt resignation of its pastor had left a lot of people bitter.”

“I was young and naive,” said Tawanna. “I was so excited about having a bigger church family. I wanted to hug and embrace everybody. I could barely get a handshake.”

“The next three years were difficult,” Thomas continued. “I used to read about the children of Israel in the wilderness and wonder why they were so hard to deal with. I saw the same things in my congregation and concluded that people are the same in every generation. But I learned to be patient and saw some of the most difficult people become the best Christians.”

“I began to seek God like I never had before and had a supernatural encounter,” said Tawanna. “It was my habit to pray after my children left for school. One morning, I noticed a book on my husband’s desk titled Ordinary Christian. I thumbed through the book to get a flavor of its message and then went to the sanctuary and said, ‘Lord, I don’t want to be an ordinary Christian. I’m not leaving until I know you better.’ As soon as I started to pray, a tingling sensation came over me, followed by a weighty feeling and uncontrollable weeping. I remember being on my back and thinking I was having a heart attack. I stood up to go to Thomas’s office and felt like I was wading through a pool of water. When I reached his office, my hand felt heavy and trembled so much that I had difficulty opening the door. I told Thomas what had happened, and he motioned for me to return to the altar. When I reached the sanctuary, I heard a voice say, ‘It’s me,’ and then I heard, ‘I am anointing you to worship me, to preach my word, and to be a better help for your husband.’”

I had intended to write separate articles about Thomas and Tawanna. As the conversation progressed, it became clear that I needed to write one article. Their lives exhibit God’s plan for marriage from the beginning of time. “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’” (Genesis 2:18). Clearly, God had prepared Thomas and Tawanna to labor together in ministry.