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Chip Clary and Phala Echols bring more decades of valuable service as international missionaries to Mississippi College.
As Office of Global Education staff members, the Clinton residents clearly love the work they do to serve 430 international students at MC.
For more than 30 years, Clary ventured out to the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore with the International Mission Board.
Now his mission is working daily with students from China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Russia and other nations at the Baptist-affiliated university. “We are in an extremely busy place and we never know what new challenge we will have when a student walks through the door.”
Equipped with job skills on the world stage, the Memphis, Tennessee native knows what questions to ask and what advice to give. And he communicates in a comforting tone to satisfy MC’s international visitors thousands of miles from family members.
Clary and Echols do their best to make Mississippi College their home away from home for students from all over the globe.
“It is fun to be around so many cultures and learn about so many countries,” Clary says. MC enrolls students from more than 40 countries.
It doesn’t matter where the student comes from. MC Office of Global Education Executive Director Mei-Chi Piletz, a native of Taiwan, and her entire staff are always eager to provide guidance, day or night.
Clary serves as the student services coordinator. Echols remains on the go as director of programs.
Piletz is happy to work with the two newcomers who joined her office in August. “I think they are very professional and bring many years of experience.” Clary also brings fresh insights about the rapidly-changing world of technology.
No job is too big or too small.
Recently, Clary and Echols teamed up to sell Office of Global Education T-shirts to students in the MC cafeteria. Funds generated from sales will be used for scholarships.
Chip Clary feels the joy of having “the world come to my birthplace” in America. “I get to continue to work with international students from even more places than I could have ever gone.”
One of the MC students he’s delighted to be around is his daughter, Hannah, a senior in the School of Nursing. Chip and his wife, Vesta, a Florida native, first met during their IMB service in the Philippines. The Mississippi couple are also the parents of a son, James, a pharmacy student at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. Vesta Clary works at Mississippi Baptist Convention Board offices in Jackson.
Phyfa Echols remains equally passionate about her service at the Office of Global Education.
Growing up in the small town of Linden in West Alabama, the University of Southern Mississippi graduate embarked on a globe-trotting journey with the International Mission Board decades ago. Her work led her to Bangkok, Thailand as an administrative assistant and church planter. She later served for a dozen years in Seoul, South Korea and five years in Thailand.
Echols worked with children of missionaries in Asia – from newborns through their high school years to deal with their spiritual, educational and social needs. In an interesting twist, three of the missionary children she helped abroad are MC seniors: Hannah Clary, Austin Southern and Melody Williams.
Joining the Office of Global Education staff has been an enriching and rewarding experience since day one. “The world has come to us,” Phyfa Echols says. “At any given time, I can hear conversations in multiple languages taking place in our office.”
For more information on the MC Office of Global Education, contact Mei-Chi Piletz at 601-925-7635 or mcpiletz@mc.edu
Photo: Phala Echols and Chip Clary
