Biography: Mary Gaines-Bernard
BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Mary grew up in a large musically talented family. Mary (Gaines) Bernard is the 6th of 7 children born to Mary and Andrew Gaines. Mary can’t remember a time when there was not music around her or the echoes of someone in her family singing somewhere in the Gaines house on Parker Hill. Singing has always been a part of her existence. The Gaines family attended (Grant A.M.E.) in Roxbury, where Mary sang many solos. Often times she would find herself singing harmonies to the songs of the day with her sisters on the back porch of their home. Little did she know she was sharpening her vocal skill for what was to come.
Mary and her sisters were known around the Boston area as the “House Rocking, Show Stopping Gaines Sisters”. As a teenager she joined the college band “Osceola”, and performed in and around the New England college circuit as well as many military bases.
Later she moved to Los Angeles where she joined her sister Donna Summer as one of her background vocalist's.
Mary has recorded, traveled and performed all over the world with her sister, as well as having done many television shows, specials and award performances. Along this journey, she began to understand that God had planted her there for a reason. Though some might not look at doing the Grammy's or The Jay Leno show as ministry, Mary looks at those things as an open door to reach the lost with love, and a gateway to the unsaved to pray and talk to people who would otherwise never set foot in a church. Mary believes that all believers are called to be salt and light. Mary lives by the words of her former pastor, Jack Hayford who encouraged her to “Bloom where you are planted”. That is her mission in life. To display the fragrance of the presence of God and His love to whom ever she comes in contact with, in essence to “Bloom where she is planted”.
For many years Mary, her husband Gerardo and family had a prison ministry where they traveled and ministered the love and salvation of God in almost every California prison as well as spending much time ministering in the Los Angeles county jail's psych ward which was an amazing experience for her.
Mary has done many conferences and special events with the prison ministry as well as in the churches she has attended throughout the years. She feels that one of her main gifts is teaching and encouraging the body of Christ to believe God,
As a member of the Church on the way, Mary served on the worship team. She also sang with “New Song Gospel Choir” directed by Rose Stone. Mary believes that the training and direction that she received through her many journeys, was all a part of the preparation for doing her first CD. This labor of love, “You Made It” which been a long time in the making, was an inspiration from God alone.
She and her family currently live in South Florida, where she teaches a women's bible study and sings on the Calvary Chapel Ft Lauderdale, worship team, where she has been serving for the past 7 years.
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