➺feature by KATIE EUBANKS
Equally yoked Devon and Jacqueline Loggins fulfill their calling at Methodist Children’s Homes of Mississippi
D
evon and Jacqueline Loggins met in prison — well, sort of.
He likes to joke about it. “It’s the security answer for all my passwords: ‘Where did you meet your spouse?’” They both were social workers at D. Ray James Prison in Folkston, Georgia. “Maybe on the second day, I walked past this lady,” Devon says. “I never saw her face, just the back of her. She was standing at a table doing something. And the Holy Spirit in me just went, ‘Wow.’ “When you work in prisons, you can either date your coworkers, and your career will probably go downhill — or you can just marry your coworker. That’s what we did.” Jacqueline says she and Devon were “equally yoked,” and not just spiritually. “We speak the same trauma language (because of our work),” she says. “When people get married, they talk about having a lot in common, but (with us it’s) across the board. Our families, our degrees…” They had another thing in common, too: They weren’t sure they saw themselves staying in prison work. “(Devon) was the one who initially focused on children (when we thought about changing careers),” Jacqueline says. “We were serving young men coming into prison at 17. It wasn’t 30 (years old) anymore. (We thought) ‘There’s got to be a way we can reach them at an earlier point’ … Even before delinquency.” Besides wanting to reach young people earlier in their lives, Devon also just wanted to work somewhere else, he says. “When I first started working in prisons, I was excited. You could tell people what you did, and they’d be super interested in it. And I was making a lot of money. But I was miserable. Now I know it’s because it wasn’t my calling,” he says.
Something that would shake up any kid Looking at inmates’ records, Devon says, “they all either had childhood trauma or had been in foster care.” He and Jacqueline both could relate, in different ways. 26
APRIL 2020 ❘ Mississippi Christian Living
“When people get married, they talk about having a lot in common, but (with us it’s) across the board,” said Jacqueline Loggins, right, of herself and her husband, Devon. The Logginses minister to children at Methodist Children’s Homes — she as a therapist and volunteer, he as CEO.
Devon is quick to say he was never abused or neglected as a child. “In fact, I was the spoiled baby,” he says. But as a 7-year-old growing up near Kilmichael with nine older siblings, he did go through something that would shake up any kid: “I found out that my mother and father were really my grandparents, and that those nine older siblings were my aunts and uncles — except one was my mom. I remember moving back to Chicago with (my mom) and butting heads, because I saw her as my sister.” Jacqueline had four sisters and one brother.
For five years, she was in foster care — but only with her brother and one sister. Nobody was willing to take all six siblings together. “There was always in the back of my mind, ‘Where are they? Are they safe?’” she says. “I became maternalized, taking care of my younger sister and brother. And trying to be obedient so nothing would happen to split us apart! It changes your whole life.” She and Devon didn’t know it, but their experiences were preparing them to make an impact on hundreds of children in the future.
