Erwin to retire Dec. 31, leaves legacy in Baptist publications

Janet Erwin says if she had stepped straight out of her role at national Woman’s Missionary Union and into retirement, she doesn’t think she would’ve handled that very well at all.

“I’m a Type A person, and that had been my life for 12 1/2 years,” Erwin said of her busy role as editor of WMU’s Missions Mosaic magazine and various other publications.

So what she stepped into instead of retirement became a big blessing for Alabama Baptists — for the past two years, she has served on the TAB staff, first in an executive editor role assisting Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Davis Rash, then as copy editor helping with TAB’s weekly print edition.

“Janet was so kind to join our team just as I was stepping into the editor role,” Rash said. “She and I worked together on the missions field as I was starting out in editorial work right out of college. She became a great mentor and friend, and we kept up with each other through the years.”

The two met while Rash was serving a two-year IMB missions term at the Caribbean Christian Communications hub in Hollywood, Florida.

Erwin and her husband, Monte, served a total of 19 years with the IMB in the Caribbean and in Latvia. Erwin says she enjoyed serving the Caribbean and that working with Latvian women was one of the “sweetest times” of her life.

But when she got to WMU, she found a new way to work out her missions call.

“I will always have my missionary call,” she said. “There at WMU, I was able to tell the story of the missionaries. And we do that at TAB too — we tell their stories.”

When she retires Dec. 31, she’s looking forward to a new season of “missionary life” in which she can invest in a variety of community ministries.

“I never would’ve imagined all the twists and turns the journey would take,” Erwin said. “But I’ve been blessed.”

Rash said the staff and readers at TAB are the blessed ones.

‘A blessing’

“Janet’s willingness to come alongside our team while also in her own transitional season headed toward retirement was a blessing to me personally and a great benefit to the overall TAB team,” she said. “She has contributed greatly to the work produced by TAB and will be missed, but we are excited for her in this next season.”