Mississippi College Student Missions Participants Make Spreading the Gospel a Summer Priority
Collin Breedlove always had a strong desire to conduct Christian ministry through missions.
The Decatur, Alabama, native had gone on mission trips to New York City, Pittsburgh, and the Dominican Republic, helping with community outreach, service projects, evangelism, and preaching.
“Each of these trips taught me a lot about what God is doing in many different places and circumstances,” the junior psychology major said.
Many of Breedlove’s college friends told him of their experiences as summer missionaries serving through Mississippi College’s Baptist Student Union. Hearing their stories of what God is doing around the world and what He accomplished in their lives in just a few short weeks made him eager to jump into the program with both feet.
This summer, Breedlove joined fellow MC student Claire Thornhill on a mission to Medford, Oregon, and learned much about what it means to spread the Gospel.
“Sometimes my first priority in forming relationships is to wonder if others like me or not, instead of getting them to know Jesus,” he said. “I have learned that others have a story worth listening to and they need to know that they have a God who loves them.
“I have absolutely enjoyed getting to know the people in Medford. They have been so kind and hospitable to my team. They push me in my walk with Jesus and I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Shortly after becoming a Christian at the tender age of 14, Lindy Holley began praying for opportunities to go on missions. Throughout high school, however, it seemed every opportunity for the Ecru resident to share God’s word abroad fell through.
She began to think missions wasn’t for her when an opportunity arose to join a local church on a spring break trip to Boston. She helped with a church event in the Hub City, but her tasks there didn’t involve evangelism.
The junior nursing major was eager to become part of a Biblical mission on a larger scale. When the Summer Missions Program at MC provided her an opportunity to serve in the Philippines, she applied without delay.
“Doing God’s work and being disconnected from the world is something I don’t know if I’ll experience outside of mission trips,” Holley said. “There was no need to make any plans or respond to things immediately or deal with the troubles of the world – we were just sharing the Gospel for hours every day and growing in the Word.
“Seeing how completely true everything is in God’s word and experiencing it – whether in the way He provided food for us, or seeing an 18-year-old realize the truth about the Gospel, or seeing someone receiving God’s word for the first time, or even seeing a very clear rejection of the Gospel – getting to be a part of God’s plan in ways that are undeniable was the highlight.”
Breedlove and Holley are two of a dozen MC Baptist Student Union missionaries who served five-to-nine-week terms this summer, sharing the message of Christ in various locations, both international and domestic.
For decades, the BSU at Mississippi College, in conjunction with the statewide BSU and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, has developed and supported these important mission opportunities for students, which have made an incredible impact on the world – and the students themselves.
“Our student missionaries come from all backgrounds, all majors, and across all departments,” said Mandy Phillips, Mississippi College BSU director. “Some of them will later go into vocational Christian ministry or missions, but most of them won’t. They are just believers who understand that the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is the call of every Christian.
“What propels them to become involved in Summer Missions? It’s the burden for the lostness of the world. Their own personal spiritual growth – understanding what Christ has done for them – causes these students to want others to experience the joy they have in their hearts.”
Each year, the statewide BSU, the International Mission Board, and the North American Mission Board highlight a number of mission opportunities for college students. Jennie Taylor, associate director of collegiate ministries for the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board and an MC alum, customizes the list of opportunities to ensure maximum effectiveness for the students.
Phillips and her team inform the students about mission opportunities, interview applicants, help prepare them for the mission field, and pray with them throughout the process.
“We cast a net far and wide for student missionaries,” Phillips said. “We speak regularly with students in our ministry meetings. Last fall, we sponsored a Summer Missions interest luncheon in Anderson Hall that helped us connect to students who may not have attended our regular events. We also hosted a Q and A panel with our past student missionaries.
“Our student missionaries are our greatest recruiters. They come back sharing stories of how they saw God working in the lives of others. These stories make other students want to take part in summer missions, to become the people God might use to help meet a need in the world.”
Once approved by the statewide BSU and cleared by the International Mission Board or their local supervisors, the students are assigned to one of three locations they had preselected, or they are offered another fitting position based on input from their campus leaders and the state BSU Missions Team. Whenever possible, the MC representatives are paired on their assignments with other students from BSUs in Mississippi.
Holley wasn’t concerned about the price and she wasn’t interested in selecting an exotic locale – she knew God would provide for her wherever He asked her to go – so she concentrated only on the description of the assignments.
“I’ve always been more keen on traveling to rural areas and working with people who seem like they have no hope,” she said. “I also was curious about healthcare opportunities in the field, which brought me to the opportunity in the Philippines immediately.”
Breedlove selected his summer destination based solely on its description.
“The BSU described it as an opportunity to grow as a leader and to explore many different kinds of ministry, especially church planting,” he said. “This was exactly what I was looking for in my next step in ministry.”
Almost all of the field costs for stateside assignments are covered by the BSUs, who raise funds throughout the year for summer missions. Students selected for international assignments receive a $150 scholarship for each week they will be serving, but must come up with the remaining funds on their own.
Students who serve as BSU summer missionaries may come from any field of academic study. They understand that there will be cultural barriers; if they are serving outside the U.S., there will also be language barriers. The statewide BSU provides a missionary learning retreat to prepare them to face these challenges and to share the Gospel within the religious context of their respective assignments.
Phillips said Cody Counts, associate director of the BSU, oversees the bulk of the Summer Missions process at MC, working closely with the candidates to prepare them for the field. She said he invests in them spiritually and helps them with the logistical and support-raising aspects necessary to enter the mission field.
“MC prepared me by giving me many opportunities to serve fellow students on campus and in my church,” Breedlove said. “I was definitely nervous heading into the unknown, but also excited to learn more about ministry and to grow.”
“I felt confident and excited to go to the Philippines in the days leading up to our departure,” Holley said. “I knew that I was in the Lord’s hands and whatever happens or comes from our work is for Him and from Him. He had brought me this far and He would carry us the rest of the way.”
Phillips said this year’s location list is the most diverse she has seen during her 10 years at MC. Student missionaries are serving in strategic cities that impact many nations.
“They have gone to areas that we haven’t been to in a long time,” she said. For example: “MC has never sent a student to Pago Pago, American Samoa. We haven’t sent a student to Oregon in quite some time. We sent a student to southern France to engage with people from multiple parts of the world in a port city.
“Of course, some of the students are returning to places we’ve visited in the past, but there are more new ones on the horizon. That’s exciting, and it’s fun for successive classes of students to break new ground.”
While each mission opportunity has a similar goal, she said every assignment is different.
“We offer a variety of options for students, both in the U.S. and Canada, and around the world,”
Phillips said. “Typically, when they work in the U.S., they are attached to an active, well-rounded, healthy church. Even if it’s a church plant in its infant stages, the students are part of a local body, serving as interns or as a “jack of all trades,” helping with Vacation Bible School, doing door-to-door Bible outreach, or block parties with an established church.
“When they’re in the field, they mostly interact with nonbelievers, whether taking a class on a college campus, striking up a conversation with others about the Gospel, or prayer walking and mapping the demographics of a community. Our missionaries in the field plan their strategies around what these college students can accomplish in a summer.”
Holley’s responsibilities in the Philippines leaned into a pressing need: healthcare.
“We knew we would be going as a healthcare team in rural villages and sharing the Gospel, which we did,” she said. Her group spent two weeks in one village and was given free rein to discover what ministry opportunities were available. “The lack of a schedule allowed us to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead and be obedient to whatever God placed in front of us.”
Her team led a nightly Bible study for the villagers and played basketball with local schoolchildren, taking breaks to tell Bible stories.
“We participated in the community’s events and got to know the people there,” Holley said. “We also did house-to-house evangelism regularly and distributed New Testaments to those who did not have the word of God in their own language.”
The work was not without its challenges.
“Anytime something was not ideal – whether lack of water or food sources, the heat, our sleeping arrangement on the floor, people being rooted in tradition, receiving clear rejection or no response from sharing the truth, or our entire team struggling with a bout of sickness – we just laughed it off and kept going,” she said. “Our entire team had the conviction that whatever came our way, the Gospel was much more important than temporary discomfort.
“Anything that may have sounded difficult to navigate, God had a clear promise from His word for every trouble. No one had a bad attitude or a bad mood during the trip because we knew that would get us nowhere. God is much more faithful than we could ever be and He saw us through every turn.”
Of all the responsibilities Breedlove took on during his trip – leading and participating in youth ministry, children’s ministry, community projects, and evangelism, and helping at a re-church plant in California – his favorite by far was handing out snow cones and cotton candy at local parks and inviting people to attend a Christmas in July outreach event.
His biggest challenge? An amazing cultural difference he encountered.
“The culture is very spiritual, where it is acceptable to believe in Jesus, but also in Buddha, Muhammad, and many other ‘gods,’” he said. “Getting to help people see that Jesus is the only way, truth, and life to God and to live a fulfilling life is hard, but when they understood, it was an amazing transformation to watch.”
Many students discover that serving on summer missions can have numerous unexpected benefits.
“When you serve internationally, you realize that people on the other side of the Earth are just like us,” Phillips said. “You see that traveling abroad to share the Gospel is not impossible for you. The experience of being in another culture – even across the U.S. – makes you realize that, at the end of the day, we’re all humans and we have more in common than we think. That demystifies the fear of going to an unknown place.
“It prepares students not only to have a heart for others, but if the Lord should call them to go outside of their hometown, state, or country when they graduate from MC, they have had the experience of living in a different culture.”
The most revealing aspect of student missions, she said, was learning how to serve the Lord in places where Christianity is more of an afterthought.
“One of the greatest takeaways they receive is seeing how the church functions in a predominantly non-Christian environment where Christians are a minority,” Phillips said. “You think differently. You minister differently. And often, some of the tools you learn in the field can be applied and shared with their churches back home.
“They realize that these new ways to share the Gospel can translate across cultures.”
She said upon returning from their respective assignments, the student missionaries are almost always motivated to return to the mission fields as soon as possible.
“They typically come back even more burdened for the lost all over the globe – not just where they were sent. Their experience changes the way they look at people groups across the world. They come back with a fire in them, and they become some of our best leaders.
“Missions can be seen throughout the Bible, and it’s God’s heart for the nations. It’s not just a calling for some people – it’s the heartbeat of God for people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to know Him. These students come back as ambassadors for missions and are excited to help mobilize others to go and experience what they have lived.”
After his experience in missions, Breedlove is encouraging other MC students to participate in summer missions.
“They may never have free time during their summers again, so I encourage them to make their lives count for the Gospel,” he said. “It may be hard for them to give up a summer for missions, but it is worth it every time.
“Serving on mission has taught me so much about ministry and how the world is lost and needs Jesus. I have learned so much about who God is and have drawn closer to Him. Join in on what God is doing through the church – don’t just be an attender, but be a disciple of Jesus.”
Holley has two words of encouragement: “Just go.”
“Missions are not just for the summer,” she said. “Summer missions are a great eye-opener, but the call goes so much deeper. Go and see the work that needs to be done in the world in a way we often don’t get to experience here.
“In light of eternity, it is worth giving up everything to help the Gospel be heard in places it has not yet reached.”
For more information about opportunities to serve as a summer missionary through Mississippi College’s BSU, click here or email Phillips at mphillips@mc.edu.
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