One Alabamian is headed to the international missions field, while three have returned home for retirement.
Amanda (Mandy) Dimperio of Birmingham has joined the more than 4,800 Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) workers sharing Christ in 163 countries and among 336 ethnic people groups.
Dimperio will use her media skills in La Paz, Bolivia. She will work closely with all the evangelism teams in Bolivia, using media to help start a church-planting movement.
Currently, Dimperio works in the media services department at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. She is a member of McElwain Baptist Church, Birmingham, and attends Travis Avenue Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas.
Dimperio received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Alabama-Birmingham. In July, she will receive a master of divinity with biblical languages degree from Southwestern.
Born in Alabaster, Dimperio is the daughter of Linda and Keith Cofield of Birmingham and Julio Dimperio of Artigas, Uruguay.
When Dimperio was 6 years old, her father packed up the car and moved the family from Alabama to Uruguay.
The road trip lasted 40 days. Dimperio saw rural South America for the first time.
“I saw how people lived in shacks and how the children played in the mud with animals,” she recalls. “The people looked so poor and needy.”
Five years later, she moved back to the United States with her siblings and mother.
She became a Christian her senior year of high school following a pizza party with her church youth group.
A few months later, she began to lead others to accept Christ as their Savior.
After college, Dimperio served as an IMB journeyman to Mexico City. The Journeyman Program is a two-year missions program for college graduates under age 30.
“It was during this time that I saw how God can work through so many different people and in different ways,” she said.
Dimperio said her experience in Mexico City helped confirm her desire from God to serve in career missions.
Looking back on her life, Dimperio believes God first planted the love of missions in her heart during her family’s first trip through South America. “It was there that I first saw how much people need the hope and security that can only be found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said.
Dimperio will go to the IMB training center in Rockville, Va., for orientation in August before going to South America.
Dimperio was among 45 people appointed by the IMB May 21 during a service at First Baptist Church, Norfolk (Va.).
Receiving the title missionary emeritus at the May 21 service were Betty Yoars and Hal and Carol Jacks.
Yoars served with her late husband, Ralph, in Hong Kong for more than 30 years. She retired April 1. The Yoarses spent numerous stateside service assignments in Alabama.
The Jackses were appointed as missionaries in 1965. They served in Indonesia until 1989 and in Sri Lanka from 1989-2000. They retired April 1.
Mrs. Jacks is from Lanett. Jacks once served as pastor of Wedowee Baptist Church. (IMB)
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