A Christian Mission To Guatemala Returns With Stories And Memories

By Jan Howard

Eight members of Grace Christian Fellowship recently traveled to Guatemala as part of a Hearts in Action International mission program during which they ministered to youth and children and took part in humanitarian programs. They returned from Guatemala on July 6.

The members, Pastor Adam Fredericks of Bethel, the church’s youth and children minister, Christina Panasci, John and Bonnie Barago, and Tim Frawley, all of Newtown, Maria Rivera of Bridgeport, and Tom Targett and Debbie Hyde of Danbury, spent nine days in Hearts in Action International ministry bases in the Petén jungle and Guatemala City.

The Hearts in Action mission statement expresses its ministry as “Taking the Word of God and provision to the children and youth in the nations.” It has four locations in Guatemala. In the Petén, the program ministers to schools in approximately 39 impoverished villages.

Grace Christian Fellowship became acquainted with the Guatemalan mission of Hearts in Action International last year.

Pastor Fredericks said this week that he had friends who were ministers who had supported Hearts in Action because they believed it was a fantastic ministry.

“We had the opportunity to meet Mario and Suzanne Babarczy-Emge [the missionary couple that operates four Hearts in Action International ministry bases in Guatemala] and liked them,” Pastor Fredericks said.

Following that meeting, he took a team of teens to Guatemala for two weeks where, he said, “We had a phenomenal time working with three villages. I thought the adults would like to do something along the same lines,” he noted. Since the mission needed electrical work and manpower that teens would not be able to do, the idea for an adult mission trip was born.

“We wanted to show our support any way we could,” Pastor Fredericks said.

Since that youth trip the church has sponsored Hearts in Action International, and last year provided funds to build a kitchen for a school in the Petén jungle. This year the eight-member group helped to install electrical wiring in the kitchen.

 “The goal of the mission was to raise awareness that God has a plan for them for good and not for evil, to give them a future and a hope [from Jeremiah 29:11],” Ms Barago said.

She said she and her husband John were challenged to go on a mission trip five years ago while listening to a missionary to the Middle East. “We waited for an opportunity for it to come around,” she said. When they heard about this program, they decided to participate in it.

During their stay in Guatemala members of the group took part in several activities, in addition to the electrical work and other work projects, at a ministry base near Flores in the Petén jungle. They also installed a water filtration system from Newtown’s “Water For Life,” according to Ms Barago.

“We also ministered to youth and children and did hygiene clinics and physical exams,” she said.

Kids crusades and youth devotionals were conducted as part of the mission program.

During two clinics conducted by Ms Hyde, who is a nurse, 500 toothbrushes and toothpaste, which were donated by dentists, soap, and Band-aids® were distributed to adults and children.

They also distributed five-pound bags of beans, rice, and oatmeal to remote villages in the jungle.

 In Guatemala City, the group attended a local Feeding Program that feeds 125 children twice a week. The group also conducted programs at adult and youth prisons in Guatemala City as well as at what Ms Barago described as “a nursing home of sorts.”

“To all the groups the message we brought is that they are God’s treasures and that He has a plan for their lives,” Ms Barago said.

That theme was conveyed through memory verses, skits, games, and a mirror craft that conveyed the message, “You Are God’s Treasure” in Spanish.

Ms Barago said the children were attentive during the mission programs. “They were not bored by our skits.”

The children were also very affectionate. “They freely hugged us,” Ms Barago said. “We were hugged upon entering villages, and they didn’t even know us.”

Accommodations at the jungle mission were not as rough as the group had expected. They stayed at the Hearts in Action ranch where they slept on bunk beds and were allowed one short shower a day.

“We always carried bottled water,” Ms Barago said. Though there was indoor plumbing, water was not plentiful so purified water was trucked in to the mission.

The villages, on the other hand, had no clean, running water, she said. Homes had dirt floors and thatched roofs.

While the area is not prone to hurricanes, Ms Barago said, there are earthquakes. Approximately four million people live in Guatemala City, which is surrounded by active volcanoes.

Group members started preparing for the mission trip in January by learning skits and songs in Spanish.

“We tried to meet once a month, and increased to three or four times in June,” Ms Barago said. They also did individual preparation that they brought back to the group.

“Maria Rivera was fluent in Spanish and interpreted the skits for us,” Ms Barago said. An interpreter was also available to the group while in Guatemala.

 “We learned five songs in Spanish but only used three,” she said. “We also learned the memory verse in Spanish.” In addition, the group learned Spanish phrases, such as “How are you?,” and “What’s your name?”

A tag sale in May helped with the $1,700 per person cost of the mission trip, and the group members helped raise their plane fare through their own funds and through donations from relatives, friends, and other church members.

Members of the group also had to get shots for typhoid and hepatitis A and B. A week before they left, they began taking malaria pills that they would continue to take during their stay in Guatemala and for four weeks after their return.

The trip was the first adult mission Grace Christian Fellowship has undertaken in over ten years, Ms Barago said. “I don’t think it’s the last. We hope to go down quite often. We had a great time.”

“All eight of us were impacted most by how little of our substance could go a long way there,” she said, adding some members of the group have made the commitment to sponsor a child in Guatemala.

Pastor Fredericks echoed Ms Barago’s sentiments, noting, “We’re hoping to do another trip in the future. It was a great time, a neat experience.”