Living to Serve
Embedded Files
Abbie Lankitus
Team Cobb
Story Summary
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Traditionally in the Baptist faith, men are the elders, pastors and deacons. Women serve behind the scenes and are generally proud to do so.
That is Janet Scherer, 73, mother to First Baptist Church lead pastor Steven Scherer, who helps maintain the church’s calendar, co-teach the women’s sunday school class, lead Bible Drill for kids on Wednesdays and last week, organized a women’s Bible retreat.
Her daily schedule might include visiting congregants in the hospital, being a safe space for all women and never forgetting life’s little details — all while visiting her 96-year-old mother in a nursing home twice a day.
She felt called to “something special” when she was 16. “But then nothing happened,” she recalls. She graduated high school, went to college, married her husband John, moved to Kennett, Mo., and started having kids. But her first children, twin boys, died shortly after they were born. It rocked her world. It wasn’t until her 50s that she began to get into women’s ministry and realized that telling her story would connect her to the women she wanted to serve. “It’s not me, it’s the Lord,” she said. “It’s all heart—what I do—but it’s just what I do.”
Janet Scherer, 73, kisses the forehead of her mother, Juanita Shoults, 96, at the Heritage Nursing Center in Kennett, Mo. Juanita, who has dimentia, has been at Heritage since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and can’t feed herself. Janet visits her twice a day, every day.
Janet Scherer, second from right, visits Roberta Freeman, 90, with friends from their ladies Sunday school class at the hospital in Paragould, Ark. Janet had learned on the day prior that she was Roberta’s emergency contact. Janet leads her life in service to women’s ministry, doing whatever she needs to do each day to care for the ladies from First Baptist Church Kennett.
Janet Scherer, right, holds the hand of Roberta Freeman at the Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould, Ark. Many of the women Janet serves are widows, and their children have moved away from Kennett.
Janet Scherer, left, laughs at the ribbing she and Roberta Freeman give each other about being too old to live independently while at the Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould, Ark. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” they both said to each other.
Janet Scherer, right, prays for her friend and co-Sunday school teacher Terry Berry, 88, at Berry’s home after finding out that one of her brothers passed away. Janet has been in women’s ministry for more than 20 years after first being called to it when she was 16.
Janet Scherer prepares for the next women’s Sunday school lesson at her home in Kennett, Mo. Studying the Bible daily is normal for Janet and being prepared with commentaries and notes for the Sunday school lesson is especially important to her.
Spread across Janet Scherer’s kitchen table is her life. She prepares for the upcoming Sunday school lesson in the women’s class at First Baptist Church in Kennett, Mo. She keeps a calendar of church and the life events of congregants, plans a baby shower and keeps track of a daily scripture reading plan.
Despite her mother’s condition, Janet Scherer keeps an optimistic and loving attitude when visiting twice a day at the Heritage Nursing Center in Kennett, Mo. “It embarrasses me that she’s here,” Janet said about her mother, Juanita Shoults. “But it’s where she has to be. I don’t need to come twice a day. It’s by choice,” she said.
Pictures of her sons, their wives and her grandchildren cover Janet Scherer’s home. They all live in Kennett much to the delight of Janet and whom she prays for daily
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