Photo by Geoffrey D. Brown

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In their nine days traveling, the missionaries helped build a church and repair a section of road, climbed a mountain to a remote village, delivered medicine, entertained children, and brought their Christian faith to hundreds of poor villagers in one of the world’s poorest countries.

They suffered exhaustion and dehydration, and more than half of the missionaries suffered intestinal problems during the trip — several were bedridden for a day each.

They were up before dawn and several days didn’t finish their work until 10 or 11 p.m. They prayed together, ate together, sang together, worked together and, through some difficult days and moments of tension, stuck together.

For veteran missionaries, the travails of the Frederick Church of the Brethren’s third mission to eastern Guatemala would be nothing to brag about. Frederick County houses of worship send hundreds of missionaries across the country and around the globe every year, according to a survey by The Frederick News-Post. That doesn’t include humanitarian and medical trips not related to houses of worship.

Risks include malaria, dengue fever, typhoid fever, scorpion stings, hepatitis, heat stroke, dehydration, diahrrea and vomiting, broken bones and infections, poison plants and insects. Missionaries take safety and security risks unheard of at home because the conditions require it.

And, in a way, because that’s part of the point. More than once during the mission to Guatemala and in its aftermath, group members mentioned the sacrifices of Jesus Christ and the disciples, early martyrs of the Christian church, and especially the apostle Paul’s journeys and sufferings and devotion to spreading Christianity. For Christian missionaries intent on spreading their faith, few sacrifices are too great.

There are no seatbelts in the backs of pickup trucks, and third-world traffic laws are more often suggestions. In parts of Guatemala, guns are everywhere and health risks rampant. Yet members of the group repeatedly expressed faith that they would endure difficulties and complete their mission. Even, sometimes, when common sense seemed to suggest a safer path.

Despite the hard work, difficult conditions, and risks, the mission to Guatemala was liberating, and in many ways the sense of freedom was intoxicating. And the urge is strong in many of the missionaries to return and continue the spiritual and humanitarian work with a people they have grown to love.

For four days The Frederick News-Post will relate the story of the June 10-18 mission of the Brethren and the people they worked with out of the provincial city of Zacapa in the hot, dry region of Guatemala’s east.