Giving hope to people who struggle every day to simply survive is a profound experience.

Flathead Valley team members who recently returned from a medical mission trip to Guatemala can attest to that power of hope because they have seen it up close and personal.

The trip, facilitated by Whitefish-based Potter’s Field Ministries, was a whirlwind of caregiving: 29 volunteers, eight days, four clinics, $14,000 of donated medications, 1,250 patients helped.

But beyond the exhausting pace and the emotional weight of caring for the poorest of the poor, there was a feeling among the group that this trip was just the beginning, the start of something much bigger.

“It’s the process of planting seeds,” Dr. Dan Munzing said. “Things grow; it’s about networking ... we’re already thinking about a team for next year and bringing a construction team.”

Michael Rozell, a potter and pastor who operates Potter’s Field Ministries with his wife, Pam, a Christian concert artist and songwriter, has been involved in mission work for well over two decades. He said he, too, felt the fervor of this particular mission experience.

“Medical outreach is one of the greatest opportunities to connect people to a message of hope,” Rozell said. “These people will have hope [going forward] that they don’t even know about yet.”

He acknowledged the overwhelming nature of mission work in places such as Guatemala that can’t but help evoke a personal declaration — “I can’t do everything but I’ve got to do something.”

Potter’s Field sold its ranch northwest of Whitefish two years ago because the ministry in mid-2013 had moved its IGNITE mission training school to Antigua, Guatemala, where Potter’s Field now has an 11-acre facility. Having a base there makes it much easier to facilitate mission trips, Rozell said.

“It’s been life-changing for us and the interns,” he said.

He and Munzing first connected a few years ago when Munzing treated Rozell for an illness that seemed to drag on too long. Rozell threw out this proposal to his doctor: “If I get better you have to go on a mission trip.”

Rozell got better and Munzing kept that promise and in 2006 embarked on his first medical mission trip to El Salvador. The recent trip to Guatemala was his fourth mission trip.

Along with medical professionals from the Flathead, six local young people accompanied the group. Seven medical professionals from Southern California also went, including Munzing’s brother, Dr. Tim Munzing.

Rozell said he marveled at the momentum created by the volunteers. Potter’s Field solicited local pharmacies and nailed down most of the medication donations.

“Most of the pharmacies had never been asked,” Rozell said. “What we saw happen was a lot of people got involved. These are my new heroes.”

A side trip to a garbage dump in Antigua, where poor families literally live on piles of rotting trash, proved to be one of the most profound experiences of the trip.

“We were all touched by that experience,” Munzing said. “These people have almost no hope.”

When he asked the dump dwellers if he could pray with them, one woman muttered, “I think God left me a long time ago.”

Dr. Sarah Nargi, who took her teenage daughter, Nadia, along on the medical mission, said treating those poor families at the dump was one of the most difficult days.

“It was disgusting and depressing, all these little kids,” she recalled. “It was an entire community of extremely poor people, literally living in it.”

Nargi said one of the reasons she decided to be part of the team was to give her daughter an opportunity to volunteer in an environment that was out of their element. Her own father modeled that kind of giving when she was young.

“I just feel like it [volunteering] is one of my life values,” Nargi said.

She was proud of how her daughter stepped up during the mission trip to work long days with no complaints, often without a break.

“It was a good bonding experience,” she added. “I had a hard time faking happiness and she was there laughing and playing [with the children] and being great.”

Team members wound up treating dozens of patients at the dump site.

A trip to the hospital in Antigua was another “pretty intense emotional time,” Munzing said.

“There was such a sense of being overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re fixers, and these [patients] have been abandoned by their families.”

Because the team was there over the Christmas holiday season, Potter’s Field staff was able to take 57 patients in wheelchairs to the ministry center for a Christmas party.

Charlene Karberg, a certified nurse’s aide at North Valley Hospital, helped with triage during the mission trip and is already planning to go on the next mission.

“I can’t wait to go back,” she said. “I’m already talking to people about next year. I want to learn Spanish.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.