When Lee Anne LaPlue graduated from Hillsdale College in 2011 her parents thought she would move close to Tennessee and teach somewhere in the Appalachian region.
“I am from Kentucky, so I was pretty excited about that prospect,” LaPlue’s mother, Darlene, said.
And for a while, Lee Anne LaPlue thought the same thing.
She had been accepted to “Teach for America” and the organization had promised her a job teaching elementary school somewhere in the southeast.
She had completed a five-week training course in the Mississippi Delta and then life threw her a curve ball.
In the following weeks, her promising new career turned into a series of dead end leads. School had started and “Teach for America” had not called her back.
“That was stressful,” Darlene LaPlue said. “She didn’t know what to do with herself.”
Finally while hiking with her friend Gretchen in the hills of Tennessee it all became clear. Gretchen was leaving for Ibadan, Nigeria later that year to teach at a Christian Academy. LaPlue always had a passion for international mission work. She felt called to try to join her.
She contacted the headmaster at the Ibadan Christian Academy. Shortly thereafter, they found an opening and offered her a job teaching anything and everything: English, literature, spelling, speech, Bible classes, composition. They even asked her to run some extracurricular clubs.
“Why pass up something God has put right there in front of you?” Laplue asked.
In a few short weeks, LaPlue visited the Nigerian embassy in Washington D.C., got vaccination shots, and went through all the protocol of moving abroad.
“I took her to the airport,” Darlene said. “I cried the whole way home.”
The Academy was kind enough to ease LaPlue into Nigerian culture and her new career.
“Food was different at first, church was different, the weather was a bit toasty,”LaPlue said. “I didn’t have a full plate when I got here. They’ve definitely filled it up but it’s been a nice easy learning curve.”
This fall, LaPlue is beginning her second year of teaching at the Academy.
It has been her lifelong dream to work with disabled children abroad. She says her job in Nigeria is the first step in realizing those goals.
“I find it to be a very tangible way of obeying God’s command to reach out to the least of these,” LaPlue said.
While LaPlue isn’t working with disabled children at the academy, she still faces the challenges of teaching a very diverse classroom. Her students include the very poor as well as the children of some of Nigeria’s richest citizens.
“The attitudes of wealthy kids can be difficult especially in a society which realizes class differences.”
Her classroom also includes Christians, Muslims, and a variety of different nationalities; Nigerian, Lebanese, Indian, and others.
While fighting between Christian and Muslims rages in Northern Nigeria, Ibadan is peaceful. Most of her students’ parents came to the area for economic opportunity.
At the academy, LaPlue explained, they foster an environment where those differences don’t carry much weight.
Moving to Africa to teach is understandable career choice, for anyone who knows LaPlue well.
“Service to others, is in many way Lee Anne’s identity,” LaPlue’s friend Laura Golden ‘11 said. “Its where she finds her joy.”
At Hillsdale, LaPlue was involved in long list of philanthropic groups including leading the Jonesville Manor volunteers, Best Buddies, art therapy at St. Paul’s, Special Olympics Basketball, Joni and Friends Camps. She also participated in numerous mission trips.
LaPlue was largely responsible for creating a growing partnership between the Jonesville Manor and Hillsdale students.
“I think her success in that stems from the love for the people she’s serving,” Golden said.
Through it all LaPlue views the opportunity to work in these environments as a gift from God.
“I have been incredibly blessed by so many who the world would consider the least of these.”
While Darlene worries about her daughter, she shares Lee Anne’s faith.
“Her life is committed,” she said. “It’s hard to let your kids go, and then you realize they’re giving their lives for the Kingdom of God.”