05-04-2025
Local missionaries bring faith, hope to African village
Apr. 5—Ty Batchelor and his wife, Sally, of Decatur, were about to adopt two boys from the east African country of Uganda a few years back.
"I didn't even know where it was on a map," Ty told the Decatur Kiwanis Club during their meeting Thursday at Doubletree by Hilton Hotels.
"When Sally and I got there, I fell in love with the people," he said.
The people they met were not easily forgotten nor were their needs.
Later, back home, he was sitting in Sunday school wondering how he could get involved. So, he went to Lawson Craig, a fellow church member at First Bible Church in Decatur, and asked how they could make an impact.
"We needed to know how to get plugged in, how to make a difference," he said.
They formed a group to make the trip to Uganda and did so, the first time in 2009.
He didn't know much more about the country than the picture he had of a giraffe.
"We had a plan of going to various ministries and finding a way that we could get plugged in," he said. "We visited 12 ministries in seven days. Every night we would sit around the dinner table and say, 'That is a great ministry but it's not for us because — fill in the blank.'"
The next day they had one last meeting scheduled but the group canceled. Ty was crestfallen.
"I have taken 12 people from Decatur to Uganda to try to get plugged in and we have done nothing," he said.
Then, their driver told them he had a guy they needed to meet.
"Next thing I know, I'm sitting in front of Pastor Peter and he has a ministry called Africa Renewal Ministries. He sat down before us and laid out a vision for how to create leaders to transform Uganda, and it starts with the kids."
This ministry seemed great. No caveats.
"When he laid his vision out, God just placed it on our hearts and said this is where we need to be involved. We asked him, what do you need?"
Pastor Pete said they needed training on how to teach the Bible to pastors who did not have formal theological training.
So, they set out to do that.
"We brought people who could do it," he said. "We started the mobile Bible school, and over the past 12 years we've trained about 2,000 pastors in how to interpret the Bible and how to teach that so it doesn't get distorted in a Third World country."
He said the very first place they were supposed to set up shop and move forward was a village called Kutovu, Uganda.
"It was a dusty, dirty little village that had no hope," Ty said. "It was just a dark, dark place. Their life path was such that if they got a couple of years of school that was great, but they were going to dig in their gardens for the rest of their lives."
And so, the villagers subsisted. That is what their parents had done and their parents before them.
"So, this small group in Decatur started on an adventure and said we don't know what we are going to do but we are going to try to do something," Ty said.
They started a sponsorship program through Africa Renewal Ministries and there are 300 sponsored kids. People give about $40 a month for each child.
"It has been just an amazing story of God's redemption in this little village," Ty said. "Today, when you go to this village, there is joy, there is hope and this village is sending trainers out into other villages."
Greg Garner and his wife, Lesley, also members of First Bible who joined with the mission trips two years ago, had their own story to share about some of the improvements made at Kutovu, including a new, clean well, a dormitory and plans for a new school.
Greg told the story of Pastor Karen. She wanted to introduce the children she and her family were caring for and housing at their home.
"On day two we were asked to meet the children that were living with and supported by Pastor Karen and her family in a small area between two buildings," Greg said. As the children emerged and continued to emerge, he thought the line of kids would stop, but it didn't. It just kept swelling.
"I was completely amazed," Greg said. "I counted 63 children."
Lesley told The Decatur Daily some of the children's parents live too far from the village, some were abandoned and some have an unsafe home life, so they stay with Pastor Karen and her family.
"I could not understand the willingness and heart for God that it takes to make this sacrifice," Greg said. "During this trip, Morse, Pastor Karen's son, laid out a vision to further develop the school and a dorm for the girls and boys who were living with Pastor Karen. It was agreed that the dorm was a top priority and through the commitment of a lot of people, the funds were raised and the dorm was completed."
When he returned in 2024, he learned that Morse had been killed in a motorcycle accident.
"This was devastating to the school and village along with Pastor Karen and her family," Greg said. "Morse had become the leader and visionary of the school as well as overseeing all the construction."
But Greg said others are stepping up to continue Morse's vision. He said the school has grown to 497 children and more than 300 sponsors. They are in need of a new building, which will consist of four classrooms and office space. They plan to update the space where the girls had been before moving into the dorms, Greg said.
Their new goal is to raise $15,000 to complete the area around the dorm plus bedding and an additional $67,000 for the new primary school and office space.
Since the inception of the project, some of the students have gone on to become doctors and lawyers, but some have gone on to trade school or other professions, Ty said. But all are being trained to become leaders and Christians. And, so, too, they will train other Christian leaders and everyone will be lifted, he said. That first visit back in 2009 put a light to the fire.
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