By Lauren Johnson
Four Corners Ministries meets physical and spiritual needs in Africa and Alabama
Four Corners Ministries exists to communicate and demonstrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to unreached and under-equipped people groups. Headquartered in downtown Opelika, the ministry seeks to follow the Great Commission written in Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
In 2003, Jimmy Sprayberry, pastor of Mountain Springs Baptist Church in Wadley, and Paul Wilson, pastor of Wadley Baptist Church, founded the ministry together with the simple goal of engaging rural Alabama churches with God’s global mission of sending short-term mission teams to spread the message of the gospel to every tribe.
“The Four Corners story is a God story from the very beginning until present,” says Sprayberry.
That story began around 2002 when he went on his first mission trip to Venezuela to share the gospel and lay bricks for a school building. Sprayberry’s eyes were opened to the extreme physical and spiritual needs of people in other parts of the world.
“After that, God just burdened my heart to help the poor. That’s about all I could think about,” says Sprayberry.
The following year, he returned to Venezuela and the community that lived near and survived off the city dump. A team from his Wadley church, including Wilson, joined him. One night during this trip, Wilson believes God woke him up early in the morning. He grabbed a notebook and began writing out his thoughts and sketched a logo which would become the groundwork for the Christian nonprofit Four Corners Ministries.
“Four Corners was on my heart and my mind, really out of the Great Commission. We moved forward not knowing where this work would take us, but leaving the door open for us to work wherever He would call us,” says Wilson.
He and Sprayberry established the nonprofit in 2003 and began working with local churches to send out mission teams. In the beginning, Four Corners sent short-term missionaries to various countries in Central and South America, but the ministry was eventually led to focus its efforts on Africa.
After watching a documentary about the civil war in Sudan, Sprayberry prayed that God would give him an opportunity to minister to the persecuted Christians there.
“God answered that prayer with an invitation in November 2004 to go to Sudan,” he says. “On my flight, I met a Ugandan pastor who lived in Kampala, Uganda, and in 2007, through this friendship, Four Corners began working in Uganda as well as continuing to work in South Sudan.”
Arriving in Uganda, Sprayberry and others with FCM learned more about the 20 year rebel war led by Joseph Kony and the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). Kony’s soldiers ravaged northern Uganda, ripping families apart. An estimated 66,000 children were forced to be sex slaves and soldiers, and hundreds of children were orphaned. This led to FCM’s desire to establish an orphanage to care for children and share the love of Jesus.
During the process of searching for land and learning more about the culture, the ministry discovered an orphanage wasn’t the solution as it was custom for orphaned children to be taken in by other relatives. The ministry then discovered other ways to provide for the poor, sick and suffering.
In 2012, the ministry purchased 100 acres of land in the village of Kinene, outside the town of Gulu. Over the past 14 years, the ministry and Acholi people have come together to clear the bush, including unexploded landmines left over from war, and develop a comprehensive Christian community called Abaana’s Hope, which means children’s hope.
Today, this property holds a church, primary school, farm, medical clinic, four missionary houses, a guest house, a kitchen, the Living Stones Pastor Training Center and a building for the Life Beads ministry where 35 Acholi women handmake jewelry from paper.
Abaana’s Hope employs 140 indigenous men and women, feeds two meals a day to nearly 300 school children and employees, supports vulnerable women and their children, offers Christian education, trains African pastors and sends missionaries and college interns to share the message of the gospel while doing life with the Acholi people.
Instead of orphan care, the ministry supports struggling family units through the Child Development Program, which allows sponsors to support a child financially and provide for educational, physical and spiritual needs.
To cover administrative costs, FCM operates four thrift stores in Alabama. The newest one opened in Opelika next to Angel’s Antique and Flea Mall in 2025.
“We didn’t have a master plan, but our Master has a plan,” says FCM President Yancy Carpenter. “Looking back, it’s amazing to see what God has accomplished. We continue to see God’s great redemptive story unfold among the Acholi tribe and the many tribes of Uganda, South Sudan and Congo. We’ve witnessed lives raised from death in sin to life in Christ, and we’ve seen the multiplying effects of biblical discipleship spread across Uganda and into surrounding countries.”
Carpenter was first introduced to the ministry in 2006 after two Sudanese men whom Sprayberry met on his trip to Sudan spoke at his Sunday school class at First Baptist Church Opelika. This altered the course of his life.
“I was following Christ, but really my mind was focused on building my kingdom and achieving goals at Sysco – the American dream,” says Carpenter. “One of the men, Bullen, said, ‘Jesus has called me to go and make disciples of all nations, and even though I have nothing, I’m here to make disciples of all nations.’ He had already told us about growing up in the bush, eating roots and avoiding bombs being dropped on them from the Arab north, and I guess it never occurred to me before that there’s a lot of people in the world who don’t have access to even hear the gospel. The Great Commission isn’t optional. We’re all called, and whenever Bullen said that, I knew it was true for Bullen from Sudan, and it’s true for me in Auburn, Alabama.”
Carpenter and his wife, Joy, went with FCM on short term mission trips to Guatemala, Honduras, Sudan and Uganda, and by 2019, Carpenter quit his job at Sysco and became the president of Four Corners.
Since then, he’s seen the fruit of the various ministries at Abaana’s Hope. Through the Pastor Training Center (PTC), more than 100 African pastors have completed the three year training program. These graduates are building a network of gospel centered, Bible saturated, African led churches. PTC lead trainers are also branching out to train pastors in South Sudan, Kenya and other parts of Uganda.
The Living Stones Christian School has grown from two preschool classes to a full primary school with nearly 300 students in preschool up to primary 7 (7th grade).
In 2026, the ministry will send a new long term missionary couple, Faron and Nancy Golden, to serve at Abaana’s Hope alongside two other families including three Auburn University graduates, David and Jessica Hagins and Mary Kathryn Brake Opiyo.
“Whether serving right here in our neighborhoods or across the nations, our calling remains the same – to communicate and demonstrate the gospel of Jesus to unreached and under equipped people wherever He leads us, because Jesus is worthy of worship from every tribe,” says Carpenter.
