Missions emphasis at UMHB changes student’s life

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor graduate Kacie Kripner works full-time with Villages of Hope-Africa, training short-term teams and leading them while in Uganda.

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BELTON—During the annual missions emphasis week at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, missionaries from around the world travel to the Belton campus to introduce students to the missionary lifestyle. For some—like Kacie Kripner—it plants seeds that ultimately change their lives. 

umhb kacie kripner400Kacie Kripner of Villages of Hope-Africa with a friend.As both an undergraduate and graduate student at UMHB, Kripner took part in missions emphasis week. She attended a few seminars and visited the exhibits missionaries set up inside the student union.

“I got to meet missionaries and be encouraged by that,” Kripner said. “It really opened my eyes to what was happening around the world, because all I really knew at that point was what my youth group had done.”

Kripner participated in youth mission trips to Mexico and around the United States, but she didn’t have any experience with global missions.

“It was another seed that was planted in this journey,” Kripner said. “And it continued to grow in me.”

While she was finishing her master’s degree, Kripner received a job offer she had been dreaming about since she was 5 years old.

“I got hired by Sea World as an animal trainer,” Kripner said. 

Life-changing trip

Two years into her dream job, Kripner went on a trip that changed her life.


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“I thought I was only going on a short-term mission trip with Villages of Hope-Africa,” Kripner said. “But the Acholi people of Uganda broke my heart and changed my world.”

After returning from Uganda and going back to her job at Sea World, Kripner continued to work with Villages of Hope. In fact, she devoted so much time to the missions organization, it became the equivalent of a second full-time job. After praying for direction, Kripner left her dream job to follow God’s calling on her life.

Today, Kripner works full-time with Villages of Hope-Africa, training short-term teams and leading them while in Uganda. 

When she returned to the UMHB campus for missions emphasis week, this time she was one of the missionaries sitting behind the tables she visited as a student.

“I feel so blessed to come back here and get to talk to students,” Kripner said. “This school is making disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations. That’s what we’re teaching students.”

Kripner is proud of the way her university emphasizes missions.

“The campus comes around and supports this week in a way that I don’t think a lot of other campuses do,” Kripner said. “It shows that these four or five years that students spend here are about so much for than time in a classroom.”

God can use you

Kripner cites her personal experiences to assure students whatever career they pursue, God can use them.

“Our purpose in life is bigger than any job title,” Kripner said. “It’s to be a disciple for Christ.”

Asked what she would say to a younger version of herself walking by tables in the university’s student union, Kripner answers: “Live in the moment. Be bold. We’re planting seeds and being light for Christ.”


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