We at the Pikes Peak church of Christ in Colorado Springs, Colorado, would like to commend our sister, Barbara Bagwell, for her diligent work in our World Bible School program.
Barbara has dystonia as a result of encephalitis contracted at the age of four years old. As a result, she has no use of her left hand and limited use of her right hand. Her hearing and speech were also affected. Despite these challenges, Barbara has never let her health deter her from anything she wants to accomplish. She obtained a BS degree from University of Northern Colorado and worked a full-time job for eight years. After her job was phased out, she looked for volunteer work but couldn’t find anything she felt would be rewarding. Then, one day, “something compelled her” to volunteer her services for the World Bible School program at Pikes Peak church. She grins now and says, “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into!”
Barbara knows the working of the Pikes Peak program from beginning to end and does all their computer work. How does she accomplish this with no voluntary movement in her hands? Her response would be, “With my foot and mouth, of course.” She operates the computer mouse with her foot and types with a mouthstick between her teeth. This is a piece of doweling with plastic molded on one end to fit her mouth and a sticky substance on the other end so it won’t slip off the keys. The work she does includes typing new Students’ names and addresses and assigning teachers with the initial lesson. She does this for our 42 teachers, sometimes processing as many as 400 names a month. She prints the address labels for each Student and is a WBS teacher too, sometimes receiving as many as seven lessons at a time.
When we receive returned lessons, she verifies all the information and often needs to make changes. She makes sure the next lesson we send is the correct one. For all the handling of the answer sheets and booklets, Barbara uses her mouthstick to pull papers out of the envelopes. She places the address labels on the envelopes herself. How does she do that? She uses an unsharpened pencil to start peeling back the corner of each label. She then uses her lips to finish taking off the label and stick it on the envelope. At the first workday we had after Barbara took over this seemingly daunting endeavor, she told the WBS Coordinator excitedly, “I love the work I’m doing. I haven’t felt like this since I lost my job. It’s so fulfilling!”
Editor’s Note: Barbara has written her own life’s story, about which you can enquire at bagwell_barbaraj@comcast.net. As might be imagined, she has suffered many setbacks. At one point, she was deeply depressed and felt like giving up. It was care for her World Bible School Students, especially Heather, that renewed her resolve to live with purpose. She wrote, “I thought, ‘Heather needs me right now. If I’m not there for her, who will be? In fact, all my Students are counting on me. They need me!’ What precious words for me to think about. They gave my life new meaning. God put me on this earth with a purpose in mind, and I knew then
my work with WBS was part of His purpose.” God has worked powerfully through Barbara, as her next story illustrates.
Barbara’s Heart-Felt Joy
Amos Alemi grew up an orphan in South Sudan, Africa. In 2016, when war broke out there, he was forced to move to Uganda as a refugee. He signed up online for World Bible School courses in June 2018 and I adopted him. He did the lessons faithfully but seldom made comments, which made me wonder if anything was getting through to him. So I was quite surprised when, six months later, he told me he knew he needed to be baptized. This launched a quest for a Follow-up Partner to baptize him. Eventually, in February of 2019, Amos found a preacher to baptize him—along with at least three other young men he had taught.
Amos knew he wanted to be a preacher. We began a search for a preaching school. He decided on the Nairobi Great Commission School in Nairobi, Kenya. In January of 2020, he said goodbye to his children and traveled to Nairobi just in time for school to start. Amos and I kept in almost constant touch. He told me when he was to have exams and how he did on them. In turn, I promised to pray for all he was going through. He always made A’s. Even with school, we made time for some long chats, through which we grew close to each other. He was always a great source of encouragement to me and said I was to him as well.
Fast forward to 2021. In September, Amos went on a two-week mission trip in Kenya as part of his school requirements. During that time, he taught and baptized at least nine young people. Not only that, Amos went on other mission trips in different parts of Kenya where God used him, and many souls were brought to Christ. His zeal for God and his love for the lost know no bounds! On November 20, Amos graduated with several honors, one being at the top of his class. He has since returned to Uganda and has been reunited with his children. Amos has big dreams for the future. He wants to go back to Sudan and to the Congo on mission trips. He also hopes to build a church for a new congregation. Amos has given me many reasons to be very proud of him, and he has truly given me heartfelt joy.