The Pepper Family
Larry Pepper was on a trajectory. He was a NASA flight surgeon who was good at his job, active in his church, involved as a dad—and possibly headed for space. But God had better plans. As Larry thought more and more about his life and its eternal significance, he felt God saying, “You’ve committed everything to me except your job.”

“I was beginning to see the world through God’s eyes in terms of lostness,” Larry said. “For me, that meant seeing if I could use my medical skills in a way that had more kingdom impact.”

So more than two decades ago, he, his wife, Sally, and their three children packed up and moved to Africa—first to Uganda, then Lesotho and Tanzania.

Today, Larry serves as a doctor in a Baptist hospital, working alongside local chaplains, evangelists, pastors, and churches to bring physical and spiritual healing to the communities around them. Sally is also hard at work, training women in discipleship and evangelism and empowering them to engage others with the gospel. Together with their Southern Baptist partners, the Peppers are seeing the light of the gospel break through the darkness like never before.

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