A few years back, Betty Ogwang quit her job at the hospital in Uganda, drove her motorcycle into the bush and stayed there.
She opened a little clinic and takes chickens, corn and beans as payment when the people can afford it. And when they can’t, she treats them anyway.
Thanks to Sulphur Springs Baptist Church, Trussville, in St. Clair Baptist Association.
“We were able to help pay for her to get training as a nurse aid, and now we help fund her work,” said Don Minyard, a member of Sulphur Springs Baptist. “Once when we were there on a trip, we found her outside saving a man’s life who was dying of malaria. She had him hooked up to an IV that she’d bought with her own money.”
So Minyard asked her — if we bought you a motorcycle and gave you $400 a month, what could you do? How many times could you go into the bush?
She decided to go and stay.
“And thanks to people giving generously, we support her,” Minyard said.
The church supports a lot in Uganda.
It started before Minyard and Sulphur Springs Baptist even knew each other.
“Back before I joined the church in 2007, I was part of a group supporting seminary work in India,” he said.
Then he found out that the seminary had gotten so self-sufficient it was sending the money on to help war-torn Uganda.
“We thought, ‘Whoa, where’s our money going?’ So we decided to do due diligence and find out,” Minyard said.
And what they found was Anthony Ogwang — Betty’s father — who was helping hundreds of fellow Ugandans, winning them to the Lord and grouping them into churches.
“People were coming in and living around the city where he was, and he was using the money to feed them,” Minyard said. “We were excited about how the funds had been used to do the Lord’s work.”
So he decided to keep on helping. And then he joined Sulphur Springs Baptist, led by Pastor Bobby Shipp. “It’s a little church — only about a hundred people — but it’s a little church that does a lot,” Minyard said. “We rival some of the bigger churches with shoeboxes (Operation Christmas Child) and have strong gifts to Lottie Moon (Christmas Offering).”
So when Minyard introduced the church to the work in Uganda, they immediately got on board and fell in love, said church secretary Cindy Roper.
“You can give money all the time, but when you have a hands-on way to help, it sparks the congregation’s interest in a big way,” Roper said.
Since 2007, Sulphur Springs has helped to collect thousands of dollars, shoes, eyeglasses and toys for the people of Uganda.
Minyard takes a team every year with a dentist, a doctor and others who can help out in a place where war victims have had their teeth broken off by the enemy, where children have never worn shoes and people die from simple infections.
He and his teammates also have set up a way for people in the United States to sponsor orphans there, as well as the families who take them in.
“Seventy orphans and families are being fed and clothed and are going to school thanks to these sponsorships. It’s a privilege that we get to be a part,” he said. “It’s really Third World there, and we can see our money go a long way to help. But most of all, we want to see people come to the Lord.”
And it seems they are, Minyard said.
Anthony Ogwang — who is supported in part by Sulphur Springs Baptist and came to Trussville to meet the church recently — has seen 38 churches come from the first one he planted. Some meet under trees, seven meet in adobe buildings and one — named after Sulphur Springs Baptist — meets in a brick building.
More than 150 people meet at the Ugandan Sulphur Springs church — a larger congregation than its namesake.
“A small church can do a lot, can give a lot and see a lot happen,” Minyard said. “You just have to know where your blessings come from.”
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