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Called By God
reading such a letter and the enclosed tract on the Sabbath, one woman resolved to keep
the Sabbath day holy. Another woman who was at the point of giving up her Christian
life, after reading Minnie’s letter and an enclosed poem, was sent to her knees to renew
her hold upon God.
To a newcomer in the neighborhood Minnie Sype arranged to give her first series of
Bible lessons. When the woman asked that the studies be changed to the evening so
that her husband could attend, the entire Sype family presented the lessons. Mr. Sype
sang and prayed, Mrs. Sype taught the content, and the children helped by sitting still;
their mother even paid them a few pennies for assisting in this way. The couple accepted
the truths presented and shared the good news with others.
When Mr. Sype took a heavy load of grain to town, making for a slow trip, Mrs. Sype
would go along to sell Signs of the Times magazines and small books to people in homes
by the road. She was exuberant as she found ways to serve her Master, who had given
her freedom and joy.
Another means of service that occurred to Minnie was that of canning a plentiful
supply of f ruit to store in the cellar; thus a stranger never needed to be turned away
from her door. As she and her husband entertained travelers, they talked earnestly with
their guests about Bible truths. Sometimes a guest would later write to ask questions or
request more literature. Since Minnie’s ability to visit other people was limited, she
trusted God to bring to her home people who were thirsting for the water of salvation.
She genuinely liked her life on the farm. She enjoyed raising chickens, milking cows,
working in the garden, caring for her family, and doing missionary work. She especially
wanted to minister to her parents and siblings. (Over the years of praying and witnessing,
Minnie saw three of her sisters become Seventh-day Adventists. Much later her father also
accepted Adventism.)
A little daughter, Anna, was born in 1898, completing the family of Logan and
Minnie Sype. Soon afterward an illness caused Minnie to spend time at the Nebraska
Sanitarium, which together with Union College was operated by the Seventh-day
Adventists in Lincoln. Little Anna went along with her mother. When Minnie became
an outpatient, she arranged for a community woman to watch the baby at certain hours;
then Minnie studied at Union College while continuing therapeutic treatments at the
sanitarium. Thus she returned home better prepared than when she left for the life work
that, unknown to her, lay ahead.
Soon after Minnie and Anna returned home, Mr. Sype took employment that
required the family’s moving to the Higby mining camp near Sheridan, Wyoming.
Against a backdrop of breathtaking mountain beauty, the Sypes found themselves
among people many of whom seemed to be without hope or an experience with God.
Although existence in a miner’s shanty was quite different from life in the pleasant Iowa
farm home that Minnie had just left, she focused on the work God made available to
her. When cholera attacked the infants in the camp, mothers relied on her bedside care
and wisdom.

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