By Katie Ginn
Growing up in a Baptist church in Oklahoma, Kristen White knew all about missionary Lottie Moon – who served in China for 40 years and died starving, giving her food away to Chinese children, in 1912.
If that was missions? “I was like, ‘I don’t want anything to do with that,’” Kristen recalls, laughing.
Still, as a high-school senior, she felt the Lord calling her to ministry, specifically “to train and equip God’s people for acts of service.” When she told her church, the music minister said, “I would bet money that what you end up doing in ministry, you haven’t even heard about yet.”
He was right. It would be seven years before Kristen heard the word “mobilization.” Today, she has mobilized thousands of people to preach the gospel of Jesus among the nations.
For the past nine years, she’s been doing that as chair and professor of international studies at Belhaven University in Jackson. But long before then, God had to give her a heart for missions.
‘Babbling like a 2-year-old’
In Kristen’s office at Belhaven’s Billy Kim International Center, colorful student-drawn posters fill the walls. Hats of all kinds adorn a hat rack. Miniature flags represent each of the countries Kristen has visited – 60 and counting.
It was during her own college years that missions finally clicked for her:
“I took a course (that) helped me understand God’s heart for the nations,” she says. “In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham, ‘I will bless those who come from you’ (and ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’). We’re blessed to be a blessing.
“And prior to that, I thought missions was only in Acts, and some trips that Paul took. Understanding that that’s the theme that connects all of scripture was the aha moment. Finally, I understood my purpose.”
The following summer, in 1997, she visited East Asia. After graduation, she spent two years there, teaching English and learning the local language – as best she could, anyway.
“I had found a lot of my worth in how I performed in school. And now (I was) babbling like a 2-year-old (trying to speak the language),” she says. “You feel like, ‘I’m not good at anything anymore.’ (But) my third semester there, moving into my second year, was probably my best.”
She started expanding her “bland” palate and enjoying the local food; the people she met were amazing; and one moment stood out:
“I had a Christmas party at my house, and I was playing the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir in the background. They were singing ‘Happy Birthday Jesus,’ and I heard a little girl ask her mom, ‘Who is Jesus?’ And her mom said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never heard that name before.’ That’s when you realize, this is why I’m here.”
From Asia to California to Jackson
Kristen (second from right) with Belhaven University graduates.
When Kristen returned to the States in 2000, she went to seminary in California with a plan to head back overseas after getting her master’s (two, actually – one in theological studies and one in intercultural studies).
While she was in seminary, the school asked her to serve on their short-term missions sending team. Meanwhile, she started studying how the U.S. state department trained people for overseas work.
“I thought, ‘Oh, surely we in the church can do this too,’” she recalls. The church was on point, training people to teach the Bible, but she was discovering the much-needed additional element of equipping people to engage different cultures.
That became the focus of her master’s thesis – and her new career. She started as an adjunct teaching intercultural communication at California Baptist University, while also mobilizing 400 students, staff, and faculty for missions each year.
She loved it all. But she wanted to be in the classroom full time. She wanted to train more “kingdom professionals,” meaning both future missionaries and those who simply have a heart for the nations, as we all should.
So she completed a doctorate and started applying for teaching positions in her field at Christian universities. She got a call from Belhaven and was asked for a phone interview.
Kristen had always worked for Southern Baptist institutions. Belhaven was Presbyterian. She prepared accordingly. When the interviewer said, “I just have one more question,” she thought she knew what was coming.
Then he said, “You know Belhaven is located in Jackson, Mississippi, right?”
Culture shock, community, and cancer
Kristen has lived everywhere from Oklahoma to East Asia, San Francisco, and southern California – but the hardest move of her life was relocating to Mississippi, she says.
“The first three years were challenging. I had been here about three months, and a colleague said, ‘You really won’t be accepted into the community until you’ve been here 12 years.’”
Not to mention the fact that Mississippi has fewer passports per capita than any other state. For globetrotting Kristen, that was culture shock.
“But after three years, when the Lord made it clear to me He had not left me here, He had kept me here, I began to build community,” she says. “I’ve initiated relationships that go beyond the obligatory birthday party.”
She and her neighbors got to know each other during COVID and still meet over a fire pit once a week to this day. Kristen also builds community through a book club and a women’s fantasy football group. “Each week, as we compete against one another, we meet for coffee or lunch and pray for one another,” she says.
Meanwhile, at Belhaven, Kristen teaches courses like intercultural communication, world religions, and current global trends. But again, not all of her students are future “missionaries” in the traditional sense.
“Some of my favorite students are my global studies minors. Maybe they’re creative writing majors, and they’re thinking about how to write characters that are really true. Well, you have to understand culture. You have to understand we’re (all) going to talk differently, think differently.”
Another way her classes defy expectations: Those colorful posters on her office walls are her final exams, she says.
“You have to, in 20 minutes, draw out what you’ve learned, and then get up and explain it in front of the whole class, and integrate the books you’ve read, the key themes. If you can do that in a single poster, you’ve got it.”
She knows a class is going well if she herself is continuing to learn, grow, and gain new insights. The same could be said of her life outside the classroom.
“I was diagnosed with breast cancer (in) 2023. That spring semester, my students … realized I was human,” she says. “And then there was a real crucible: Does Dr. White really practice what she preaches?”
The first thing God asked her to do when she was diagnosed? Thank Him for it.
“But that was because I’d gone on a journey starting seven years prior when He asked me to thank Him for (my mom having early onset) Alzheimer’s. It took me a year. Myself, my sister and my dad all got to a place where we could thank God for that.” Kristen’s mother, Pat White, passed away in 2018 after an eight-year battle with Alzheimer’s.
Kristen underwent many surgeries but is now cancer-free and will be on medication for the next several years in order to stay that way. She also believes she’s a better professor now – her struggles have made her relatable. “I’m a fellow sister in Christ with my students.”
‘Trust that God is using it’
As a single woman, “I’ve initiated relationships that go beyond the obligatory birthday party,” said Kristen, pictured here (in back) with her neighbors.
Kristen will turn 50 in February, and she has never been married. She’s a lot more content with that now than she used to be.
“The 30s are probably the hardest. That’s when, for me, I suddenly discovered I was single. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a desire to be married at one point, because there was. You pray through that,” she says.
“The 40s have been a lot better. What I consistently focus on is, singleness is a gift. There are pros and cons to both (singleness and marriage). I have amazing friends who are married and have kids. But my married friends are constantly telling me all the things they’re envious of.”
For those struggling through singleness or any other season, she says, “Trust that God is using it” – however short or long it turns out to be.
Just as Kristen couldn’t thank God for Alzheimer’s right away, the gratitude might take a while. But “we constantly need to position ourselves to thank Him for where we’re at now,” she says. “There’s a refiner’s fire in that.”
Travel tidbits
Kristen (far right) on the “Sound of Music” tour in Austria in 2007.
Her most recent trip: A country she’s never visited, in western Asia. “It’s a scouting trip to send students,” she says.
Favorite place she’s visited (besides her two-year stint in East Asia): Southern Germany or Austria. “The hills really are alive with the sound of music. Yes, I have been on the ‘Sound of Music’ tour. It’s fantastic. It’s the only place I’ve wanted to see in all four seasons.” (And by the way, the vast majority of Kristen’s travels are for missions, “but I can also enjoy a good vacation in Italy,” she says.)
Before sliced bread: When she lived in East Asia, “I remember the day sliced bread showed up in the grocery store. Prior to that, you had to cut your own bread.”