Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8, and what to expect while I’m in the field

My name is Allie White and I have answered the call (Matthew 28:19-20, Act 1:8). I will be leaving in October of 2020 to travel to 11 countries in 11 months in order to share Christ with others through teaching, service, and prayer. The mission trip is called the World Race and is hosted by AIM (Adventures In Missions). In order to participate in this trip, I need to raise $17,700. I know it sounds like a lot but God can do great things. 

I’ve been interested in other cultures and how they work since middle school. I would watch the Asian dramas knowing that it’s all exaggerated, can you imagine someone basing everything they knew of us off of our shows? Anyway, so I went on my first short term mission trip to Arizona between my junior and senior year of high school back in 2011.  Five years later, I did it again. This time I went down to Mexico and did service projects for a Christian school. I loved every minute of it. The kids would come out and beg us to play with them during recess and offer us food that was way too spicy! I didn’t want to leave at the end of the week. There was so much more to be done. After I returned home, I started thinking, where else can I go to spread the joy and love of Christ? Missionaries came and spoke at our church and I wanted to go back and help each of them even if I wasn’t qualified! One missionary brought a small book with him that he felt God asking him to give to someone. That someone turned out to be me. It was a book all about different cultures and I read it 3 times in the first week I had it.

One day while I was scrolling through Facebook, I saw an ad for a world race. Assuming it was something like the show Amazing Race I clicked through to check it out. There I found the motherload. I no longer needed to worry about picking just 1 country to go to, I could go to 11 of them. I poured over the different routes looking for the perfect one. I even picked one out and started my application. After that nothing went right. I couldn’t get ahold of my missions’ advisor, the paperwork they emailed never came through, I was diagnosed as prediabetic, and after a month of getting nowhere I backed out, frustrated. Clearly, I had jumped the gun. I went ahead of God in my enthusiasm. I had looked for the perfect route for me, without asking God what he wanted me to do. After coming to terms with that I took a deep breath and I waited. Not very patiently, since I checked the routes every couple of months just asking God “what about this one? It looks fun. Or how about this one?” Two years later I had the urge to get on and check the routes. I had long ago stopped looking at them because I always felt disappointed when I saw what the routes were. Even as I logged on to the website, I was already counting on having my heart broken again. Then I looked over the only route for next October and it just felt right. I looked at it again to make sure and even asked “Are You sure God? This route doesn’t even go to Africa. I wanted to go to Africa to at least be in the same time zone as my best friend, who is a missionary in Sierra Leone. And what about Europe? This route is only on two continents, all of the others are on at least 3.” I felt the pressure in my chest as he told me I wasn’t going to Africa or Europe. So I put in my application again half hoping to be rejected so I could get a cooler more diverse route later. No luck. My application was processed in half the time it took the first time around and my interview was only 5 minutes long instead of 45 and I was in. My email is now full of paperwork to fill out and I’ve already met a few other people who are going on that same route next year.

I can’t wait to be able to share my love of Christ with all of these different people groups and learn something about their culture as well. Who knows, when I get back maybe I’ll take some missionary classes then go back to one of those places for good.

In my blog while I’m gone you can expect lots of overly detailed stories of what I’m doing or what one of my new friends have done. One blog every month will be dedicated to how that particular mission works, another monthly blog on the culture of the people in that particular region, other hopefully more frequent blogs about my adventures, and at least once a month commenting on the letters you all sent with me. Several other people going on the trip have already said they want to vlog the trip so any time I’m in one of their videos I’ll make try to be sure to put a link to it in my own blog. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so that you will get notified when I post. Join me on my journey because starting today I could post updates at any time as to how the preparation is going.