Hey there!
My name is Whitney and I live in Auburn, Alabama. I grew up in the small town of Marbury, Alabama where cow pastures and cotton fields were about all you would find aside from the one little corner store gas station and a Dollar General. I have the most incredible family, two loving parents who have always supported me in everything I set my mind to, an older sister who always looked after me while growing up, and my twin sister who has grown to be one of my very best friends. I went to a small private christian school through ninth grade where I received an awesome background of the stories in the Bible. My sophomore year of high school, I went to the public school in Marbury, which was whole new ballgame to me.Then my last two years of high school, I went to a boarding school in Mobile, Alabama that challenged me with an academically rigorous curriculum and taught me that family is more than just blood ties, its the people who you can always count on to be there for you at 3am when you are stressing out over your AP Physics test the next morning and to walk three miles round trip with you to Winn-Dixie in the rain because your fridge only consists of a bottle of ketchup and a few Diet Mountain Dew. I am now a student at Auburn University (War Eagle!) where I am studying Pre-Pharmacy. I love teaching group fitness classes! I am also a server in a fine dining restaurant and I conduct research in a research lab at Auburn.
I grew up going to Sunday school and youth group, but when I went to boarding school in Mobile, I lost having a connection with a church. Also, I was faced with quite a few people at my boarding school who did not share the same faith in God that I did, a totally new concept to me .Growing up in the South, almost everyone you ran in to believed in God, even if they didn’t have a personal relationship with Him. I still believed in God, but I thought my faith was something I could do on my own without the support of other believers encouraging me. My first year at Auburn, I still felt that my religion was a personal things and something that I could go at alone. I would send up an occasional prayer every now and then, but I still failed to have a real relationship with Jesus.
Between my freshman and sophomore years of college, God began to radically change my life. I didn’t know it yet, but He was preparing me for incredible plans he had for me in the near future. I met some girls through teaching group fitness who encouraged me to come to a college service at Church of the Highland in Auburn with them. It is crazy how one decision can change your life. I had never felt God’s presence the way that I began to feel God after I began to surround myself with other believers! I realized that while I had always known God and believed in Him, I had always viewed interactions with God as a religion, but never as a true relationship. This realization changed me forever!
After I devoted my life to God and promised Him that He had everything, that I was no longer going to try to control things to go my way, God began a work in me that has left me forever changed. It no longer became tedious to read my Bible and spending time in prayer was not awkward, but just a conversation with my Savior and friend. I realized that Jesus accepts us just the way that we are regardless of how broken we may be when we come to Him, but He loves us much too much to let us stay that way!
As God continued to work in my life, I felt Him calling me to something that was beyond my “go to college, graduate, get a job, get married, and be happy” plan. I constantly prayer about what God wanted. if I just knew, then I would go, but I just couldn’t figure it out! Thankfully, one night at church, our pastor ended a message with saying that when we stop seeking our calling more than we are seeking God, that’s when God will reveal to us our calling!
Boy did I feel convicted. I had begun to care so much about my calling that I was neglecting my relationship with Jesus! I handed it over to God. One morning I was praying before class and I just felt God telling me one thing…GO. I didn’t know when or where or how long, but I had total peace in knowing that God was calling me to missions. After A LOT of prayer and consideration, God lead me to the World Race Gap Year. The minute I saw it, I knew it was what He was calling me to.
Throughout the entire process, I have felt nothing but peace in that I am right where I am supposed to be. God has already helped me overcome so many hurdles that should have stood in the way of me and this journey! I have full faith that He will help e over come this next obstacle of fundraising. Our God is faithful!!
