Alex Blount

After a missions trip this summer, LaGrange College senior Alex Blount has about 75 new friends on the other side of the world.

Alex traveled to Mahasarakham, Thailand, to teach English through Baptist Collegiate Ministries with three other BCM students from Georgia College & State University, Valdosta State University and North Georgia College & State University. Other Georgia BCM students traveled to Russia and California.

"After the application process, there's an interview weekend in which you're put with other people you may not know, along with two leaders," says Alex, a religion major from Powder Springs.   "They get to know you through personality tests and different exercises to see what your strengths might be in the mission field."

BCM gave Alex his first choice of Thailand out of the mission opportunities available.

"Our job was to teach English at the university there, and by doing that, we built relationships with the students, made tons of friends and were able to share the gospel with them and have faith discussions," he says.

Alex's days in Thailand began by his teaching one or two classes, eating lunch with the students and then resuming his English instruction. Depending on the day, he and fellow Georgia students traveled to a local elementary school in the village.

"We would visit and do simpler lessons with the children, like shapes on cards, and teach them circles or squares," he says. "We'd do that in stations, and then the pastor of the church there would give a gospel message. Afterwards we'd play with them or have a class."

Traveling abroad isn't new to Alex, but he said after taking religion classes at LaGrange College, his Thailand trip was influenced because of the way his religion and philosophy professors have molded him in the way he viewed his faith.

"They definitely are open to challenging and throwing out new ideas that we hadn't thought about before," he says, "so that made me think in new ways about my faith."

Alex originally came to LaGrange to be a history major to help him become a high school history teacher, but he soon felt a calling to missions instead. Besides trips to Guatemala with his church and to Moscow, Russia, with BCM, he has taken service learning courses at LaGrange that focus on housing, food and food security issues.

As a junior, he also worked with Circles of Troup County, an anti-poverty initiative, as part of the college's Servant Scholars Program. Alex and other Servant Scholars provided childcare for women who were taking classes to help build bridges out of poverty.

Now as a senior Servant Scholar, he will be working with the program's 11 other seniors on their capstone project, "Mission: Poverty," and find ways to make the community more aware about poverty in the area and also to find ways to help.

Alex says his dream job is to answer God's call for him to serve, wherever that might be.

"I want to do missions anywhere I can best reach the people I'm trying to minister to, whether that is in Mahasarakham, Thailand; Moscow, Russia; or LaGrange, Ga.," he says. "Wherever God has led me to is where I should be."