By Megan Young
Editor
JACKSON, Miss. — Just a sophomore at William Carey University in 1998, Mandy Phillips already sensed a career calling to collegiate ministry when she attended the Spring Leadership Conference preparing to go on her first Baptist Student Union (BSU) summer mission trip to Connecticut.
As she walked across the stage at the commissioning service, someone abruptly handed her a dozen roses and told her that she was Mississippi BSU’s 2,000th summer missionary. That someone, she would later find out, was the 1,000th summer missionary and BSU director at East Central Community College, Scott Vaughn.
Stunned at being singled out from among her peers, and slightly bewildered by the roses, Phillips doesn’t remember all the details of that moment, but what Vaughn said still sticks with her to this day.
“They had him hand me the roses,” said Phillips, “and he leans to me and says, ‘You’re going to be a BSU director.’”
Vaughn had no way of knowing that the Lord had already started to work in Phillip’s heart when he uttered those words. Open to a life of ministry, but still uncertain about God’s plan for her life, she couldn’t help but believe that this was one of His ways of affirming her call.
Obedience to that call would lead Phillips to serve in collegiate ministry in five different state Baptist conventions throughout the years. From the deep south to New England, she has had the opportunity to disciple college students across the country.
Full circle
Now the Collegiate Ministries Consultant at the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, Phillips works directly with the 40+ BSU staff across the state as they encourage and equip students to participate in summer missions.
That number still includes Vaughn, who is honored to have played such a pivotal role in Phillips’ path to collegiate ministry, especially since it so closely mirrors his own.
Active in the BSU as a student at the University of Southern Mississippi, Vaughn felt called to serve vocationally but had no direction. He led music for local churches, filled in as pulpit supply, served as an interim youth minister, and had gone on local mission trips, but it wasn’t until a 1987 BSU summer mission trip to South Korea that his calling became clearer.
While in South Korea, Vaughn met full-time missionary and former BSU director Jack Owens. A brief conversation between the two forever changed his life.
“He just looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Scott, you haven’t even considered the one ministry you have been involved with for four years — campus ministries.’ Then he got up and left, and I never saw him again,” said Vaughn. “But his words stuck with me.”
Eleven years later and now a BSU director himself, Vaughn was serving on the 1998 BSU summer missionary selection team when he asked to be the one to honor Phillips with her 2,000th summer missionary title.
“In that moment, I guess I was her ‘Jack Owens’ for her call,” said Vaughn. “As I handed her flowers and a plaque, I felt prompted by the Lord to say, ‘You will become a BSU director!’ Then I walked away. The Lord did the rest with Mandy!”
Phillips and Vaughn now fondly reminisce about their shared Mississippi BSU milestone titles that have bonded them together in collegiate ministry, both knowing they did nothing to deserve the designation that is bestowed alphabetically by location and last name.
Looking back over her career, though, Phillips knows it was no coincidence she was the 2,000th summer missionary. She can pinpoint that moment on stage with Vaughn and the experiences she gained from her first BSU summer mission trip that year as a pivotal moment in her life.
“It completely changed my perspective of the world,” said Phillips. “I mean, literally, the trajectory of my life changed because of summer missions.”
Highest state convention sender
Talk to almost any ministry leader in Mississippi, and chances are they will have a similar story of how BSU missions played a major role in their spiritual journey.
Mississippi is currently the top mobilizer of Next Gen Summer Missionaries for the International Mission Board. Mississippi Baptist Collegiate Ministries have held that distinction in 2025 and 2026. In the summer of 2026, Mississippi BSU sent out 162 students to 23 countries and 13 U.S. states.
“I have watched so many students follow the same path that I did,” said Vaughn. “They felt the Lord was calling them to vocational ministry, then through their BSU summer missions experience, they followed through with total commitment to God’s plan for their lives.”
At an annual meeting of the Mississippi Baptist Convention several years ago, recalled Vaughn, all the BSU directors were called to the stage in recognition of the vital role the ministry has on college campuses. As he looked out over the crowd, he could see dozens of his former students who were serving churches across the state.
“As the request for hands to go up if collegiate ministries was a vital part of their Christian walk,” said Vaughn, “hands went up as if a vote was being made!”
That’s not to mention, added Vaughn, the vast number of students who use their summer missions experience to impact people in their daily lives.
“There are hundreds of students who served in BSU summer missions that learned to be missionaries in the everyday jobs also, being a light for Christ as they go, making disciples and serving local churches,” said Vaughn.
6,000 and counting
This past summer, Mississippi BSU hit another milestone — more than 6,000 summer missionaries sent since the program began back in 1947. Gavin Adams, the official 6,000th, served for nine weeks at Camp Livingstone in Magog, Quebec, Canada.
“I was a summer missionary only because God ordained my path in such a way,” said Adams, a student at Mississippi State University. “When I applied to summer missions, I was having a hard time spiritually, and I was really struggling with a lot of doubt and confusion. At this time in my life, God rose up certain men and women to encourage me.”
After submitting his application and completing what he thought was a terrible interview, Adams was accepted to serve, though not in the location he originally chose.
“I firmly believe God placed me where I was because He knew what was best for me,” said Adams. “I have seen radical changes in my life, and I am forever grateful for the high calling of Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not think that God is unable to use and transform you, but in spite of your weaknesses and failures, trusting in God’s grace, present yourself to Him with empty hands ready for His harvest. If He calls you from there, know that it is a blessed calling.”
Reflecting on being the 6,000th summer missionary commissioned by Mississippi BSU, Adams echoes what so many before him have said.
“I’m so thankful to have been a summer missionary at all,” said Adams, “and I think the great number of fellow laborers that I’ve gotten to become numbered amongst speaks to the abundant grace of God. I’ve seen my life change in many blessed ways, and it is a comfort to know that I am one story of many.”
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