MC Students Gear Up for Summer Mission Trips

Molly Fraiser enjoys spending time with children as an apartment ministry volunteer.

Amber Cockrell will soon work with churches in Peru to teach children to speak English and share the gospel.

A Mississippi College student from Louisville, Cockrell is among 27 MC missionaries who will serve in North America, Southeast Asia, Africa and other parts of the globe this summer.

“This is right up my alley,” says Cockrell, an elementary education major and Spanish minor who will visit villages in Peru's Andes Mountains from June 1-July 31.

International mission trips are nothing new for the MC junior. As a freshman, the Louisville High graduate spent a week on a mission trip in Greece with members of First Baptist Church, Clinton.

In Mississippi, Cockrell is also serving needs at a local church - every Sunday morning, she plays the piano during worship services at Hickory Ridge Baptist Church in Florence.

Students are well-prepared to do a variety of mission assignments before they leave the Magnolia State.

Each year, MC's Baptist Student Union equips and sends students across the globe for the cause of Christ. Their numbers are growing. There were 20 summer missionaries from the Christian university in 2009.

Students typically will be away from the Clinton campus from a month to up to ten weeks. “They will be doing things like English camps, teaching hygiene in villages, working at orphanages, living in villages and building relationships in order to share the gospel,” says Heidi Cheatham, the BSU associate director on the Clinton campus.

Molly Fraiser, an MC junior from Madison, won't need a passport for her journey to Oklahoma. The social work major will work in a town near Tulsa starting May 25.

The Madison Central High graduate will serve on the staff at a women's shelter through Aug. 1. “I will talk to the women and children and tell them about God.”

Fraiser will also assist with Vacation Bible Schools for children. Church mission trips are part of her DNA. During her senior year in high school, Fraiser joined other members from Broadmoor Baptist Church on a mission trip to South Africa. In the future, she wants to enroll at a seminary and go into the mission field.

MC's international mission trips this summer will take eight students to Southeast Asia, six others to Africa, with three going to Peru and one to Ireland.

Whether they're serving in the United States or abroad, they will get involved in a number of community service projects. “All of these efforts are for one purpose and that is so that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be seen and heard,” Cheatham said.