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Farmer’s Wife Becomes Evangelist
Attending her first Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting, Minnie heard a preacher
read from the Bible, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He continued, “Thou hast in love to my
soul… cast all my sins behind thy back.” 1 John 1:9 and Isaiah 38:17. Then Minnie
heard the preacher asking, “Can God tell a lie?” No, Minnie responded, certainly not.
God will do His part, the preacher was explaining, which is to forgive our sins. Then we
must do our part, which is to believe that we are forgiven. Jesus has purchased our sins
by His blood, the minister pointed out; therefore after we confess them, they are no longer
ours. If we are still troubled by those forgiven sins, that is Satan bringing them up to try
to discourage us.
At last Minnie Sype grasped the assurance that God had forgiven her. The peace and
joy that entered her life with that understanding she never lost, in spite of severe trials.
Life was worth living from that day forward in a new and richer way.
Furthermore, this assurance of God’s love and salvation must be shared. True, there
were compelling demands on Minnie’s limited time and scarce money. Her domestic
responsibilities increased as children were welcomed into the farm home: Ross was born
in 1889, followed by a second son, James, in 1892. However, a real burden for souls
rested upon Minnie Sype’s heart. Because she had earlier longed for Christian help, she
vowed that other people would not lack such assist-ance and encouragement as she
could supply.
She recognized that her first mission field was her home. She loved to observe
Sabbath on the farm, making preparation on Friday and attending church with the
family on Sabbath morning.
Important as Minnie’s family ministry was to her, she looked for ways to reach out to
others as well. She and her husband found the seven-mile drive to church gave them an
excellent opportunity for distributing literature; they saved their church papers and
dropped them off in mail boxes along the way. Ross and James liked to save their Little
Friends to leave at homes where there were children. The children’s interest grew to the
point that they sometimes climbed in to attend Sabbath school with the Sypes; the
buggy was fairly bulging by the time it reached the church.
Minnie Sype was ingenious at time management. She so efficiently organized her
many household duties that she could devote Thursdays to missionary work. Some
Thursdays she visited the sick. Other times she sold Adventist books; the profit
provided postage stamps for missionary letters—the Sypes had no money for this
purpose—while the books and papers took truth right into people’s homes. Again, she
might make sunbonnets to sell to provide literature for the rack by her door. If detained
at home by company, she kept quilt-blocks ready, that she might spend time on these
while chatting; the quilts and comforters were sold to support mission work.
On rainy days Minnie wrote missionary letters, enclosing a tract, a poem that she had
clipped, or whatever she thought might turn a person’s mind toward God. As a result of

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