MC Students Scatter on Spring Break Mission Trips

From local to international mission work, students use their break to serve and give back.

Conner Dyess, a student at MC, and Chip Wilson, associate director of Student Engagement, headed to Belize for spring break with a group of 9 other men.

Spring break missions have become a relevant topic on Mississippi College’s campus. Students have the option to spend their break on vacations to the beach, lake, or mountains, but instead, some chose to spend their time going on mission trips to different places both in and out of the country.

During the break, Chip Wilson, associate director of Student Engagement, took students to Belize. Wilson took students to serve in varying capacities before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was always a service trip with 8-10 students.

“After COVID, everything was up in the air on whether we could continue bringing students to do missions over spring break,” Wilson says. “The world was still up in the air and very iffy.”

While Wilson was doing mission work in Malaysia, Wilson met a missionary named Darryl Hatfield who lived in Belize. Hatfield said that he would appreciate Wilson bringing a group to Belize to help serve and mobilize their missions.

Conner Dyess is a sophomore at Mississippi College and was part of the group going to serve in Belize. He encouraged his friends to become more interested, and they built a team of 9 to gather together and travel to Belize. Dyess and his friends were able to raise money through personal donations to complete their funding for the trip.

The group went to lay floors for a mission house. In the mission house, they train men to learn trade work and get into the workforce.

“We are getting the chance to lay the groundwork for these men to stay and learn trade jobs,” Wilson explains. “The men are given a chance to serve the community by learning new trades and getting out into the workforce to better their community.”

Through the trip, they hope to learn more about each other and grow as men of God together. Their trip lasted for 5 days as they worked to serve the people of Belize by laying flooring in the new mission home and exploring the community. Each night, they returned to a host home provided by missionaries in the community in order to rest and prepare to serve again the next day.

“We want to make the conversations at the end of the day and the debriefs matter after each day of serving,” Dyess says. “We are given the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a mission house, and we appreciate this time and the ability the Lord has given us to serve his people.”

The Baptist Student Union (BSU) at MC is also sent groups of students on mission trips during spring break to Worcester, MA. The group of students partnered with a church there to minister to the community. They spent time creating relationships, repairing the community’s infrastructure through manual labor, and helping in any way they can. Graeme Forrest, a senior at MC, went with the group and explained their mission for the week.

“Christianity is scarce in that area of the country. There aren’t many believers,” Forrest says. “We will be hosting one-day camps on local college campuses and high schools.”

Forrest did not get the opportunity to go last year, so this year he felt that he wanted to go out and help better the community in Worcester.