The God of Restoration

Paula was raised in the small town of Tupelo, Mississippi. She shared a particularly close bond with her father and thrived on being “Daddy’s girl.” Tragically, at the age of five, her world was thrown into a tailspin when her father committed suicide. Lonely and disillusioned, Paula began a decade-long search for the love and acceptance she had only known from her father. Her cries for love were muffled by years of sexual and physical abuse from the ages of six to thirteen. In the years following, she experienced bouts of depression and suffered from a serious eating disorder.

At the age of eighteen, Paula was introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as she put her faith in Him she discovered the miracle of forgiveness and new life. Experiencing the love of God, she found that Jesus was her Restorer who desired to bring her to wholeness of spirit, soul, and body. Compelled to learn more about a Savior who loved her unconditionally despite her past, Paula spent the next two years buried in the Bible, trying to learn everything she could. As she opened herself to God, He began to chip away at the destructive behaviors in her life, and the process of transformation took shape.

During this time, in Paula White’s own words: “I had this vision from God: my voice was heard in the vision as far as I could see. There were multitudes, masses of millions of people, and I was speaking the Word of God. People were either getting saved or healed or delivered, and when my voice was not heard, they were falling into darkness. And God said, ‘I’ve called you to preach the Gospel.’ I went to my pastor and said, ‘I’ve got a call to preach the Gospel,’ and he put a broom in my hand. I was just so excited to be trusted to clean the church. And thus began God’s process and design to create our current worldwide ministry.”

Where It All Began

Shortly after receiving this life-changing “mission from God,” Paula began ministering in the inner cities of Washington, DC, in the late ’80s. By the early ’90s, she was in post-riot Los Angeles, teaching Jesus to children whose neighborhoods had been hardest hit by violence. “I found myself in the inner cities of America, all over the world for years,” she says. “Just hugging little boys and girls, telling them about the love of God, and picking up little broken Paulas. I was holding myself, restoring myself, and giving them the Word that so transformed me.”

Journeying to Tampa, Florida, Paula answered God’s call to help co-found the Without Walls International Church in 1991—a ministry that has gone on to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of those in-need. Paula states that “the ministry represents the body of Christ, the Kingdom of God. Not only does it transcend ethnicity, but it transcends all barriers—socio-economic, age, and gender. God has called us to go beyond the four walls of the church and share His Gospel with those who may never come to church, those who are broke, busted, and disgusted within their lives, those who don’t know where to turn.”

That was when God challenged Paula to step into the deep and take her message into every nation through the power of television. This was by far the greatest leap of faith she had taken in her ministerial career. “When God calls you, He equips you” is one of Paula’s favorite sayings, and with that in mind, in the past years Paula White Ministries became one of the most televised and most watched Christian television programs in the world.

Transforming Lives, Healing Hearts, and Winning Souls

From there, the evolution of Paula White Ministries has included hundreds of large-scale outreaches to the needy and lost—supporting orphanages and massive global missions outreaches. Today, Paula White Ministries is an inspiration to millions around the world who seek God’s love.

“I know that life is filled with challenges and opportunities,” says Paula, “and I believe that God wants us to face adversity equipped to win. God wants us to turn our stumbling blocks into steppingstones.”

For instance, for many years Paula White Ministries has been a regular supporter of a Haitian orphanage that provides life and hope to abandoned and homeless children. Working through the orphanage, the ministry was there just hours after the January 2010 earthquake’s destruction with food, water, clothing, and spaghetti for the children, later providing tents as the masses continued to arrive looking for help to survive during the rainy season.

Paula White Ministries supports mission efforts in India to bring the love and salvation of Jesus Christ to hundreds of thousands through feeding stations, medical care, clean-water wells, orphanages, crusades, ministerial training, and churches.

Every day Paula White Ministries cares for hundreds of children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Africa. One of the outreaches in South Africa is creating a hope and future for orphaned children on a Christian farm environment where every child is given the opportunity to embrace their future through loving foster parents and schoolteachers as well as the provision of nutritious food.

Immediately following the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, Paula White Ministries joined with Bishop T. D. Jakes and The Potter’s House in funding various Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, including providing food, toiletries, clothing, transportation, and other desperately needed supplies. The ministry has also provided countless backpacks over the years to thousands of school-age children in Harlem, New York City, the Appalachians, and Tampa with its “Back to School Bash” outreach.

God Is No Respecter of Persons

It’s been said that Paula serves “faith food.” What she serves is the Word of God—a word full of the faith to take listeners from the “familiar” to the “future.” “Faith causes change. Anytime there is change, there is opportunity. That includes the opportunity to grow more, and see more, and be more. Yes, it also includes the opportunity to fail,” as Paula puts it, “but failure can be a step along the way to completion of a goal. Failure is not final!”

Acts 10:34 tells us that God is no respecter of persons. That means that anyone can be used by God as long as they yield themselves to His will. That fact was the driving force that catapulted Paula White into her destiny as a powerful vessel of God.

Thank you for being a blessing to the Paula White Ministries and for all you are doing to helping Paula fulfill her mission and call to Transform Lives, Heal Hearts, and Win Souls.