As a student at Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn., this fall, Meagan Brazier (’14) plans to study anthropology, the study of humans, including their cultural characteristics, customs and social relationships.
She’ll get to do a little bit of anthropology work this summer in Thailand — mixed in with lots of missionary work. Brazier will spend the month of July in Thailand volunteering at an orphanage for girls rescued from prostitution, teaching conversational English at a university level, working on relief projects and evangelism through drama. She will be a team member of Real Impact Missions, which was created in 1985 and has sent mission teams to more than 50 countries.
Brazier has long been interested in doing mission work overseas. That interest was piqued when her older sister Courtney participated in a Real Impact Missions trip to Thailand while she was in college. “She also helped me not sugarcoat what the trip may actually be. I know there will be hardships to face, but I know I can overcome them,” she said.
Brazier wasn’t sure at first where she wanted to go. She was trying to decide between Africa and Thailand. “I didn’t want to go somewhere that I wanted to go just because it was fun. I wanted to go somewhere that I was being led by God to go to and it would be difficult for me,” she said.
Brazier was set to travel to the African nation of Burkina Faso, but the kidnapping of more than 200 girls by a militant group in nearby Nigeria led to a change in plans.
Individuals pay for their own trips with Real Impact Missions. Brazier’s trip was going to cost almost $3,800, not counting airfare to and from Miami, where she will meet her other teammates, and extra spending money for the trip.
Brazier started working an afterschool job, held fundraisers at local restaurants and sold T-shirts to try to raise the money. Believer’s Community Church, her hometown church in Batesville, donated $800 toward the trip. Her Hot Springs church, New Life, planned to help as well. Someone even left an unmarked envelope with $100 in it in her room at ASMSA.