Angie Woolum knows a thing or two about winning. One glance at her long list of accomplishments would widen anyone’s eyes. She is undefeated in amateur boxing and kickboxing, ranked top ten in the world in women’s professional boxing, and fought and traveled on Chuck Norris’ World Combat League (a full-contact kickboxing team). She is a two-time sport jujitsu world champion, a third-degree black belt in jujitsu, and a certified self-defense trainer.
She has dined with celebrities, appeared on TV, and met world-class athletes in the comfort of their own homes. Angie has traveled and preached the Gospel all over the country and to various parts of the world, and she will attest that all of her successes and victories are because of God.
“The favor and the hand of God has been with me every step of the way,” Angie said. “That’s what happens when His dream becomes your dream, and your dreams collide with His.”
As a young child, Angie was a dreamer and knew she wanted to be a world champion.
“Some athletes came to my school through the Eagle’s Nest program, which was part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. They would teach us about peer pressure and life skills, and I just admired them. I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to be a world champion. I wanted to be famous and be on TV. That meant that you are going somewhere, and that you’re somebody.”
But if the odds of actually reaching world-famous championship are slim, then Angie’s chances could have been considered non-existent. She was the middle of five children, born to non-Christian parents who worked the coal mines in West Virginia.
“I was the least likely to succeed,” she said, “But, I had hope because I was picked up by a Sunday school bus, and I encountered Jesus. Thank God for pastors and people who have vision outside the four walls of the church. Because someone drove a bus, I began my relationship with Jesus at an early age and became strong in my faith.”
Angie described how she was “taken in and adopted” by the children’s pastors, Rick and Kim Hisle. Every day after school she would help out at what is now Regional Church of God – Delbarton by setting up tables, chairs and even TVs. She eventually was given her own key to the building and then began to serve in ministries such as Kid’s Crusade, revivals, and camp meetings, spending her teenage summers traveling with the church leaders.
“I would watch how my pastor, Mitchell Bias, prayed and studied and then I would go do the same. It was no coincidence that the mantel of anointing that was on the men and women who took me in, who were children’s pastors, would one day fall upon me.”
When Angie wasn’t at church she played basketball and softball, and in college, she joined the softball team as a walk-on player. One summer, when visiting back home, her cousin dared her to enter a local amateur boxing competition. Her brothers and cousins showed her a few moves and how to throw a punch, and Angie won the match by knocking the other girl out in thirty seconds. She had never boxed before.
“My dad said, ‘I think this is your thing!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’”
After that match, Angie began doing amateur boxing competitions. She also worked out with a karate instructor and got into amateur kickboxing.
“Being a female in a male-dominated sport when I was going through the ranks, it was not easy. I had to mostly fight and spar men twice my size. But just knowing the Lord’s Word, that ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.’ All things are possible with God. I began working hard and also building my relationship with Him. There were times that I thought, ‘It’d be nice to spar another girl!’ But I also knew that if I could walk out of the ring after sparring with these incredible guys, then there’s no girl that I couldn’t go up against.”
Angie won match after match in amateur boxing and kickboxing competitions, and she soon caught the attention of the manager for legendary boxer James Buster Douglas, who asked to train her to become a professional boxer.
After only a few matches Angie was ranked in the top ten in the world for women’s boxing. She was invited to fight on Chuck Norris’ full contact kickboxing team, and she learned mixed martial arts. She was interviewed by Fox Sports Net on their “Women of the World” sports program. She was contacted directly by Carmen and asked to appear on his TBN show. But Angie said her most star-struck moment came when she finally met her favorite fighter: Oscar De La Hoya.
“My dream was to meet [him], and that summer, at his house and training camp in Big Bear, California, I got to meet him. My other dream was to be a world champion and I finally got that opportunity in 2004.”
In that year, Angie won the title belt championship for the 2004 USA team at the world jujitsu competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil, having previously been only a white belt (or beginner student) in jujitsu and mixed martial arts.
“The Lord’s hand of favor has just been incredible on my life … The people that the Lord has allowed me to get to meet has been above my biggest and wildest dreams. That is how big our God is!”
Angie had accomplished the dreams and goals she’d had since she was a child, but she felt God calling her to do more.
“At that time, my heart began to burn inside of me for the last, the least and the lost, and to all nations. I always knew the Lord had a call on my life, and I always say I took a little scenic tour, but that scenic tour gave me a platform to take the Gospel of Jesus to places where I could not normally go.”
One day Angie attended a conference where her long-time acquaintance Pastor Bill Wilson of Metro World Child was a guest speaker.
“Before the conference, the Lord had been ministering to me that I was getting ready to go through an uncomfortable season. During Pastor Wilson’s speech, he held up a picture of a lobster and talked about how within six months, it outgrows its shell and has to rub against the rocks at the bottom of the ocean in order to crack its shell open. He said, ‘Some of you are in that uncomfortable position now.’ And I thought, Huh, I think he’s talking about me!”
Angie knew God was calling her to join Pastor Wilson’s missionary organization in New York City, which meant selling all of her possessions, raising funds to pay her rent and bills each month, and preaching the Gospel on the streets in one of the biggest cities in the world. She worked the Sidewalk Sunday School department, ministering to 10,000 kids in the Bronx neighborhood six days out of every week. She also utilized her self-defense skills and trained incoming interns with some basic self-defense moves, which she said ninety percent of is “being aware of your surroundings.”
In March 2023, Angie felt God calling her again, and this time, it was to leave New York and to go into the world.
“I don’t take it lightly when God speaks to me in my dreams – I pray and fast about it. I knew He was moving me out of New York, but I wasn’t quite sure where that was going to be. All I knew is the Lord has called me to children’s ministry and to go to the world.”
She didn’t know exactly where the Lord would be placing her next so, in preparation, Angie completed a nine-month discipleship course, where she ministered to children in Georgia’s urban areas. She also embarked on short-term mission trips to Kenya and Togo, Africa.
“I can see in my life where God has been preparing me. I see little glimpses of the puzzle. But I also know, it’s not the [whole] picture. Even though I have dreams and thoughts that He has given me, and I feel like I know what He wants me to do, when the whole picture finally comes to be, it’s so much larger.”
After her discipleship course ended, Angie came to Purpose Church in Sevierville, Tennessee, where her aunt and uncle are members. She volunteered with the children’s ministry, and was soon offered the open children’s pastor position.
“I had gotten really close to the people, the church, the area, and the pastoral staff, but I really struggled with what to do about the job offer because I knew that the Lord had called me to long-term missions. As I finished praying and left the house, I looked up and said, ‘Lord, wouldn’t it be great if I could just do both?’”
When Angie explained her dilemma to the church’s lead pastor, he offered her the opportunity to be the children’s pastor and to travel for so many weeks out of the year for missions.
“I said, ‘Wow!’ It was such a great opportunity, and I felt such a peace from the Lord. So, I am currently the children’s pastor at Purpose Church, and I am an ambassador to the Church of God World Missions.”
Angie believes children’s ministry is important because “it’s easier for a boy and a girl to come to Jesus than it is for an adult. I started going to church when I was five years old, and then I prayed for fifteen years for my parents. I didn’t stop praying, and about the time I got out of high school, they started going to church and they have been faithful followers of Jesus since. So if we can reach these boys and girls, then we can reach their parents, too.”
Angie reflects often on how her radical obedience to God has allowed Him to carry out His plans for her life.
“It’s amazing how He brings everything together so perfectly. I always wanted to be a world champion, but God’s vision was for me to be a champion for the world.”