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A Pennsylvania couple takes charge of the Guatemala mission
By Geoffrey D. Brown
News-Post Staff
gbrown@fredericknewspost.com
ZACAPA, Guatemala — Robert Jackson warns missionaries from Frederick Church of the Brethren that there will be no drinking or smoking. “In this culture it’s a taboo. People who are religious don’t drink or smoke, and are looked down on if they do.”
He cautions the new arrivals to avoid plants and animals. Dogs are not pets, they are scavengers and guards. Don’t touch the chichicasta: The broad-leafed, hairy plant gives you a nasty rash.
Avoid caterpillars — some are poisonous, and can cause a 104-degree fever for three or four days.
His wife, Tharsis Rodriguez-Jackson, chimes in, addressing the men: “Don’t talk to the women unless you know the family. If you’re being nice, you might not know it, but the women might go home and get a beating because you were trying to be nice.”
Sunday, the mission awakes early for devotional prayers and songs that begin at 6:30 a.m. sharp, and it is clear that the Jacksons are not kidding around. Anyone not in the main room at exact meeting times is reminded, in person, immediately, that the time is at hand.
For the Jacksons, discipline is paramount. A mission team’s work can be hard, and it can at times be dangerous, especially if people don’t pay attention to the rules.
The discipline extends to the spiritual. Morning and evening prayers, worship song and reflection are mandatory, and the format and content are controlled largely by the resident missionaries.
On the mission group’s arrival, the Jacksons collect passports to be locked away safely — passports that are worth $10,000 apiece on the black market. They caution against leaving valuables in the rooms. Steel doors to the houses and tall iron gates outside are locked. Thieves will go to great lengths to get valuables, they explain. The high walls and lack of windows in the houses nearby attest to the obsession with security.
“Our focus is a little different,” Mr. Jackson explains. “We try to go to places that don’t have churches, in mountain villages and on the outskirts.”
They say they see a great deal of discrimination against the Mayan-descended population, who have suffered the most hardships, poverty, and health problems during the turmoil of the bitter civil war and its aftermath, according to historical accounts. Most of the villagers they help are Mayans or mixed Mayan and European. The best jobs and appointments tend to go to European Guatemalans, whose ancestors are largely Spanish.
Among the Jacksons’ projects are building churches, feeding people as needed, providing entertainment such as movies, hauling a projector and computer and generator up mountains. They also concentrate on water projects.
“Water tends to be one of the greatest needs,” Mr. Jackson said.
The Jacksons organize the missionaries time, almost to the minute, throughout the nine days they are in Guatemala. Their passion for their work and their determination to move along multiple projects mean they drive the missionaries under their care hard, often working them for 12 or more hours each day with few breaks.
Tension breaks out at times between the group and the Jacksons; at one point, group members request a shorter work day in preparation for a long hike, and several missionaries felt a need to press the point. After members suffer dehydration and exhaustion during a mountain hike, the group has a heated discussion regarding preparations made by missionaries and decisions made by the Jacksons.
Yet the Jacksons show concern for the welfare of their charges, and they keep the group together and focused. Even to the end of the trip, as the missionaries waited to board their plane for the trip home, the Jacksons were there, shepherding the men and women to the gate, gently urging them not to linger.