Editor’s note: The Bishop thought it’d be a good idea to learn about new seminarians before they graduate. Laurence Wainwright is the only postulant entering seminary in 2011. Read about this talented young man below.
He packed his bags and left Juneau, Alaska in early August to enroll at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Twenty-eight year old Laurence Wainwright spent 2010 working in Alaska before becoming a postulant in the Diocese of Mississippi which is his home.
As a child, Wainwright grew up in Gulfport, but moved to Hattiesburg during his adolescence. He attended Happening as a teenager and has always maintained an involvement with the Episcopal Church. He was a member at Ascension Church in Hattiesburg, and did youth work at both Ascension and Trinity Church while attending college at The University of Southern Mississippi.
“I started out as a music major at Southern, but after meeting several hearing impaired students and a professor who specialized in deaf education, I changed my major to Deaf Education.” Wainwright said.
Wainwright’s interest in deaf education goes back to a senior high school project that he did on American Sign Language (ASL). “I thought ASL was interesting then and it turned into a vocation.”
After graduating from Southern, Wainwright got his first job as a hearing impaired teacher at Key Elementary in Jackson. While in Jackson, he attended St. Alexis and still maintains his letter at the downtown Jackson mission.
During the summer of 2007, he also helped with Hurricane Katrina recovery work. He became the onsite coordinator for Mission on the Bay in Bay St. Louis.
The academic year of 2007 was spent the Brookhaven School System where he worked as an itinerant hearing impaired teacher, visiting several schools throughout the day. While in Brookhaven, Wainwright attended Redeemer Church where he served as the youth director for the parish’s EYC.
From Brookhaven, Laurence went to Baton Rouge where he spent two years working at the Louisiana School for the Deaf.
Wainwright’s uncle gave him a call to come to work at Catholic Communities Services in Juneau, Alaska, but when members of the deaf community in Juneau met Wainwright, they encouraged him to sign on with the University of Alaska as a behavioral health associate and parent educator. He also worked as an adjunct instructor teaching American Sign Language.
Throughout his education and work experience, ideas about ordination have always been in Wainwright’s mind. He was a part of the Bishop’s Mission Corp in 2008. For forty days, he lived in a Christian community which practiced the Daily Office Morning Prayer, Noonday, Evening Prayer and Compline along with the Holy Eucharist on Sundays and major feast days. He’s also participated in Camp Bratton Green and youth ministry throughout his life.
Wainwright says that he had a conversation with a cousin who was tutoring him which he remembers now as helping him get a handle on his vocation and discernment process. “She told me to consider the job you would do for free except that you’d get paid for it.”
Laurence says, “I am open to whatever God’s calling me to do. “ Currently that call is seminary. He says that parish ministry is what he is looking forward to; however, a ministry to the deaf is liable to continue to play a part in his life.
Finally, that line up in the front of this article about Laurence first being music major at Southern? Wainwright is a fantastic guitarist.
Some people just have too much talent, but this reporter isn’t jealous, just happy for the postulant and the prospects for the Diocese of Mississippi.
If you'd like to contact Laurence, email him at: wainwrightmaks@gmail.com
