Skip to main content

Summer Mission Trips on the Horizon for Laguna Social Tribe


Summer missions fundraiser "Laguna Give Week" is supporting 13 members going to nine different countries over the summer.

In the heart of India’s Sikh community, Hindu shrines engraved with silver doors and the Pool of Nectar are a couple of the attractions in Punjab.

On her summer mission trip, Mississippi College freshman Leah Trainer won’t be there to snap pictures of Punjab’s pretty scenery. “We get to share the gospel to people through evangelizing,” she says. The work includes distributing compassion kits containing personal hygiene items and other basic supplies to needy Indian people. Very few Christians lives in the Punjab state of 28 million people that borders Pakistan.

Leah is among a dozen Laguna Social Tribe women along with a male freshman Beau embarking on summer mission trips to nine countries. Traveling thousands of miles from home takes money. And that’s led the tribe on the Clinton campus to collect dollars through its first “Give Week” campaign. Details are advertised on social media sites through April 26.

A Daphne, Alabama resident, Trainer will travel to Punjab through Mississippi’s Pinelake Church and in cooperation with the organization For All Mankind Movement.

As late April exams on the Clinton campus spill into early May, Laguna representatives are eager to spread God’s word to India, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Haiti, Guatamala, Colombia and other lands. “I am confident the Lord will do mighty things over there. I know that He is going to grow me in ways that I don’t even know,” Trainer says.

Also taking part in overseas missions is Travis Pollard, who serves as Laguna’s new MC freshman Beau. In July, he will help teach an English camp in the city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic. Following the ten-day stay, Travis will join home church members for two more weeks to minister to the Czech people.

The National Gallery in Prague, vineyards of Prague and the Gothic Charles Bridge are really not on the bucket list for the Forney, Texas native. The Christian Studies major is primarily focused on equipping Czech people with English skills and planting churches in the European country.

Laguna’s summer mission trips will require a concerted spring push to collect cash as MC winds up its 190th academic year.

“The fact that Laguna is taking their time and resources to help me fundraise for this trip is so humbling,” Travis Pollard says. “I have never before in my life been part of an organization that has wanted to help serve me as much as I strive to serve them.”

Laguna’s “Give Week” campaign opens doors for people to bless students at the Baptist-affiliated university and be rewarded at the same time, says Faith Varner, the social tribe’s president.

A psychology major from Terry, Faith hopes members of the MC family pitch in and assist Laguna’s fund drive. “It is an incredible opportunity to be able to support them through this season of their lives.”

Laguna people, Varner said, “are inspiring, loving, God-fearing servants, and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

For more information contact Faith Varner at fevarner@mc.edu. If you are interested in donating online, visit mc.edu/giving and choose Laguna under “other designations.”