Jan Greenwood: Confidently Trusting and Obeying
Stacy Burnett
Not too long ago, I met Jan Greenwood for breakfast at Corner Bakery, and we enjoyed some quality girl time together. After a delicious breakfast and lots of laughs, we got into the interview. Getting the chance to sit down and talk with her was such an awesome experience. Proverbs 16:9 says that “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” That is definitely true for Jan. After hearing her incredible life story, I was amazed at all the intricate ways God has worked in her life to get her to where she is today.
WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD LIKE?
I’m an only child and was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, but I really grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Both of my parents were Christians, and I grew up going to church. About the age of nine, I walked the aisle at Second Baptist Church, professed Christ as my Savior and soon after was baptized. I remember my daddy taking me to my very first Communion. I attended youth group all through high school and loved it … it was a blast! I was a cheerleader and on drill team. I had a pretty traditional upbringing.
DID YOU EVER GO THROUGH A REBELLIOUS PHASE?
I’ve always been strong-willed and independent, but overall I was a good kid.
SO, WE WON’T FIND ANY DIRT ON YOU?
Not much … I never did drugs or any of that. My parents put the fear of God in me, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.
DID YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENTS?
I did. My dad worked hard to provide for all my extracurricular activities, often working two jobs. In high school, I took dance lessons and was in an all girls dance troupe. I loved to dance! And I can’t remember them ever saying, “We can’t afford for you to do cheerleading or dance.” As I look back on it now and think about the cost of providing athletic shoes for my boys, I realize, “Wow, my daddy really worked hard to provide for me!” And of course, my mom has always told me that I can do anything I put my mind to.
WHAT DID YOU DO AFTER HIGH SCHOOL?
Mark (my husband) and I met our senior year in high school. We were voted cutest couple of our senior class. We dated our entire senior year, but broke up the summer after we graduated and went to separate universities. We never really stopped being attracted to one another, so by the end of my freshman year, we were back together. Then Mark transferred to my university, the University of Central Arkansas. I graduated with a business degree with a marketing emphasis in just three years, because I really wanted to get married. We got married in June of 1983 and immediately moved to Abilene, Texas. Mark finished college at Abilene Christian University the following year.
YOU HAD A DEGREE IN BUSINESS AND MARKETING … YOU PROBABLY WANTED TO GO TAKE ON THE WORLD AFTER COLLEGE.
Yes I did! That is so funny, because I came out of college thinking I was going to have this fantastic job, but then we moved to Abilene, and my first job was as a receptionist at the Pastoral Care and Counseling Center. At the time, I didn’t even know what “pastoral care” meant; I just knew they did counseling. I didn’t really want to work there, but I took the job. Of course, I laugh about it now, because I feel like a lot of my life is pastoral care and counseling! When I look back on it, I can see it was God’s plan for me to be at that counseling center. I still use what I learned there every single day.
HE WAS PREPARING YOU, YET YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT.
Who knew? Nothing is wasted. Everything becomes preparation. I spent three years there while Mark was entering the management program with Wal-Mart. In 1986, he was promoted, and we began making yearly moves. We moved from Abilene to Brady, Texas, where Mark was a co-manager of a store. I took a job in a dentist’s office filing insurance claims … which is also very funny because later we owned an insurance agency.
HAD YOU HAD ANY KIDS YET?
No, we didn’t have kids for seven years … we waited a long time. Actually, we waited five years, and then we had trouble, so it delayed us a couple of more years.
Then we moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Mark worked at a Wal-Mart in McKinney, and we lived in Allen. I was hired by a nonprofit consulting firm. I traveled a lot and consulted with Christian nonprofit organizations … I was able to put my marketing degree to use! I worked there three years.
Next, we moved to Houston, and I was hired by Clinique Cosmetics. I was a trainer and traveled around the Houston area training at the counter. While we were in Houston, we had our first baby. When Ashley was born, it totally transformed our hearts and changed our priorities. We decided we wanted to be able to spend more time with her, so we both resigned our jobs and returned to Abilene where we opened an insurance agency that Mark built from the ground-up.
DID YOU WORK AT THE AGENCY WITH MARK?
Not at first. When we moved to Abilene, I became the Executive Director of Junior Achievement, a nonprofit organization that teaches business entrepreneurship skills to students. I raised money to fund the program and recruited volunteers who would teach kids about business and how to make a living. I did that for about three and a half years, and then I had another baby. After I had John, I left Junior Achievement and joined Mark at the agency. In 2001, Mark got his catastrophe adjuster’s license and began to travel during storm season.
DID YOU ENJOY WORKING AT THE AGENCY?
I did, but it wasn’t always easy. We had another baby and eventually another baby, all while I was working full-time. When I had our fourth child, I went home and became a full-time mom. It was definitely a learning season. During that time, so many things were difficult, but my character was being formed … a lot of selfishness and immaturity was broken off. I’m grateful we were so invested in our family and committed to our marriage.
WHAT WAS YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE LIKE?
When we returned to Abilene, we began to focus more on our spiritual life. We found a local church and got involved in small group ministry. We made great friends and began to experience the joy of a church family. As we began to really seek God, we wanted to know more about the Holy Spirit. Mark began reading books about the Holy Spirit and sharing them with me, and, ultimately, we both received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Once that happened—once we began a pursuit of the Holy Spirit together—it completely transformed our lives. We started attending a tiny Spirit-filled church. And then a year later, we began attending a church planted by Trinity Fellowship of Amarillo. My education in Spirit-filled living happened in that little church in West Texas. Because I was there and willing to serve, somehow I became known as “pastor.” It’s amazing to me that no matter where you go, God will plant you if you let Him.
Then in 2004, things started shifting for us. Mark went on a mission trip to a tribal island in the South Pacific to help establish a local Bible college. While on the trip, he saw some land that was being evaluated for the development of a resort that, if built, would help fund a Bible college. On the flight home, the Lord spoke to him and told him it was his resort to build. We spent a lot of time in prayer and conversation and thinking about all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, but we both knew it was God’s plan, so we began to prepare.
Over the next year and a half, we liquidated our personal possessions. We sold our businesses and rental properties, gave away furniture, had a huge garage sale and resigned our leadership positions at the church. We planned to work through the hurricane season and then head overseas. We bought an RV and moved from a 3,000-square-foot, 5-bedroom home into a 37-square-foot RV. We left Abilene in August of 2005.
THAT WAS JUST SIX YEARS AGO!
Yes! We travelled around the United States for about a month just sightseeing and waiting for the hurricane season to pass. We were in South Carolina the night Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. The next day, we headed to Mobile, Alabama, and eventually settled in Biloxi, Mississippi, right in the heart of the devastation. We lived and worked in the area for several months. Mark was working catastrophe claims every day. During this six-month period, something changed in our hearts. We realized pretty quickly that we weren’t going to the South Pacific … that God had released us from that assignment.
BUT BY NOW, YOU’D GIVEN AWAY OR SOLD EVERYTHING YOU OWNED. ALL YOU HAD WAS IN THAT RV. HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Pretty much everything we owned was in that RV, and it was a confusing time for us. But we had some very good friends who pastored a church in Denton, so we decided to drive to the Metroplex and visit our friends and wait until we heard what God was saying to do next.
We left Biloxi three or four days before Christmas 2005 and celebrated Christmas in the RV in Denton. In early January, we rented a house in Lantana and enrolled our kids in school. We’d been in the house about two months when Mark got called out to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for an adjusting trip … and he ended up being gone for a year!
So here I was in a new city. We had just put our kids in public school for the first time ever. My mom was dealing with significant health issues, and I had to help her relocate from Arkansas to the Metroplex, which took several months. We bought a new house. We moved the family from Lantana to Flower Mound. It was one of the most stressful years of my life!
HOW DID YOU AND YOUR FAMILY END UP AT GATEWAY?
We walked in the doors of Gateway Church at the end of January 2006. We never thought we’d attend Gateway because we had come from a small church. We wanted to be involved and serve, and I didn’t think there would be a place for us at Gateway. But we knew about Gateway from our Trinity Fellowship connections, and we’d heard they had great worship and teaching, so we decided to visit.
Like so many people, the very first time we walked in the door was a memorable experience. That Saturday was the weekend they were announcing Project 114 (the capital campaign). We saw videos of what the new church and the children’s ministry was going to look like. And as I was watching the videos, I began to weep, and I was thinking, “Why am I crying? What is my problem?” But while I was weeping, the Lord spoke a word to me about our future at Gateway. Just a moment later, Mark leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “This is where we’re supposed to be.” God had spoken to both of us at the same time!
SO, WHAT LED TO YOU COMING ON STAFF HERE AT GATEWAY?
I met Pastor Mary Jo Pierce and started volunteering with the Prayer & Intercession Ministry. Several months later, she called to tell me there was an opening in the women’s ministry and asked if I’d be interested. I applied for the job … and didn’t get it! I was very disappointed, but it helped me realize that the passion I had to lead women was still there.
A couple of weeks later, the Women’s Ministry called and said, “We have an intern position available. We know it’s not the position you were applying for, but we think you’d be really good at it. Would you consider taking it?” It wasn’t a hard decision. I just wanted to be in a place where they were encouraging and ministering to women, so I said, “Yes.”
Over the next four years, I went from a Prayer & Intercession Ministry volunteer to a Women’s Ministry intern, then to a part-time administrative assistant, a part- time events coordinator, a full-time events coordinator, until I was promoted to ministry coordinator. And now I’m an Associate Pastor. I have served in almost every position in our department.
Along the way, all I did was listen to God and obey. I’m acutely aware that He brought me here, and He positioned me. I’m also acutely aware that He can send me home, because I’m not here of my own strength. So that’s my journey—my crazy journey!
YOU WERE DIAGNOSED WITH STAGE 4 BREAST CANCER IN 2009. DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT A LITTLE BIT?
I’ve never been one to practice very good self-care. The 18 months prior to my diagnosis were some of the most stressful months of my life. I didn’t have a local doctor. I wasn’t getting my mammograms. During that time, I scheduled my mammogram three separate times, and all three times, I cancelled my appointment. I was taking care of everyone else, but I wasn’t taking good care of myself.
One day in 2008—I can clearly remember the day—I was in my office, and I sat down in a chair at the conference table. I had this shooting pain in my hip that was so intense; and for a couple of weeks, every time I’d get up and down, it would hurt. I thought I just had a soft tissue injury. It would get better and then worse again. It got to the point where I couldn’t wear high heels, and I was kind of dragging my leg a little bit.
It was also during this time that I was planning to go on a mission trip with Pink (Gateway Women) to Egypt. One evening, I limped into the kitchen, and my husband said, “Jan, if you do not go get that taken care of, you’re not going to be able to go to Egypt.” That was enough to get me to the doctor, because I was going to Egypt. I got into the orthopedist, and two days later went in for an MRI of my hip.
A week later, the MRI results were in. The doctor opened his computer and showed us the MRI, and when he got to the portion of my hip where there was a problem, he showed us that the tissue was soft and expanding and indicative of a tumor. We just looked at him. Then he said we could do some additional tests. Mark and I were both very calm.
On the following Monday, I went to the hospital for a bone scan. While I was having the bone scan done, the nurse casually said to me, “So have they found your source tumor?” And I just paused … not only did I just find out that it was for sure cancer, but it was in two places! She said, “Oh yeah, it’s hardly ever bone cancer,” she continued. “It’s almost always a metastasization. When was the last time you had a mammogram?”
They picked me up off the bone scan machine and took me down the hall to breast radiology and did a mammogram. Then they took me to another room and did an ultrasound. Five minutes later, the radiologist came in and told me very directly, “Mrs. Greenwood, you have breast cancer, and it’s metastasized to your hip. We need to get you to an oncologist.”
That’s how I found out. It was all within a few days. The tumor in my breast was very small, and I hadn’t detected it at all. It was aggressive and fast-growing. Within a week, I had an MRI, a bone marrow biopsy, a biopsy of my hip, a needle biopsy in my breast, a PET scan and a port put in. Within a few weeks of my diagnosis, I began chemo. I have now completed 19 rounds of chemotherapy, had a lumpectomy and had a full round of radiation therapy.
DURING THIS TIME, DID YOU ASK GOD TO HEAL YOU?
It was after my very first round of chemo that Mark and I went to a Habitation service. We were sitting off to the side. Everyone was worshiping, and I was tired. I remember just sitting down, and then Mark sat down beside me. I closed my eyes and had a visitation with God like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. When I closed my eyes, it was as if I entered a room where Jesus was. I saw Him and had a conversation with Him. I was really kind of disrespectful. I remember saying to Him things like “Are you like the story in the Bible? Are you hard? Do you harvest where you don’t plant seed? Are you fickle? Is this punishment?” I was being very confrontational. He didn’t respond to that, but He did let me vent. And when I ran out of steam, I grew silent. Then I said, “Are you going to heal me?” And He responded, “I Am.” And when He said, “I Am,” I knew He wasn’t saying He was going to make it easy. I realized I was about to face some real battles, but He told me His name and His character. I’ll never forget it. He was reminding me about who He is, and it gave me a place to anchor.He spoke to me His name…“I Am” … and I knew that He was saying, “No matter what, Jan, I am sufficient.” I believed He was going to heal me, and He did … I have been cancer-free since October of 2009. Now, whenever I say, “I Am” … in whatever form … it has power on it, and it gives me so much strength. And because of that, I have a confidence in my relationship with Him that I’ve never had before.
