UK Law Student Follows Her Passion, Takes First Mission Trip to Haiti

September 7, 2016

Driven by her passion to serve others, Whitney Wallace, a second-year law student at the University of Kentucky College of Law, completed her first mission trip this summer.

In August, Wallace hopped on a plane for the first time and traveled to Haiti for 10 days. She set out to serve at the Sonlight Academy in Port de Paix, Haiti, with three women from Southland Christian Church. Sonlight Academy, a Christian and English immersion school for kids in grades K-12, was started by Norma and Roger Alexander 30 years ago on the living room floor of their first home. Today, the school has grown to enroll over 350 students and has added a Bible College. Wallace and her team had the opportunity to help teachers set up for the upcoming school year. They painted classrooms, organized the bookroom, painted desks, helped prepare lessons, and decorated the classrooms.

“The people of Haiti were friendly and appreciative of what we were doing for them," said Wallace. “It was an absolutely eye-opening experience to go and serve them.”

But, the first-time missioner’s most memorable moments came later in the journey when she experienced the House of Hope orphanage firsthand. During her visit, she learned that over 80% of children living in Haiti orphanages are actually not technically orphans. Instead, these children have been abandoned by their parents. Seeing and interacting with the children left the biggest impact on her.

Wallace plans to travel back to Haiti for missionary work in the future. She looks forward to serving people in need of educational, spiritual, and economic guidance, and hopes to focus on helping children in the orphanage and hospital during her next visit.

“I have always had a passion to serve the underprivileged and overlooked,” said Wallace.

After law school, she hopes to continue following that passion with a career in public advocacy.