In 1956, Jean Phillips and her husband took their 2-year-old son on a mission trip to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Working for the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, they stayed for 40 years, through a guerrilla war and the births of three children more.
In all that time, Mrs. Phillips, who last year published a book, "Rescue" (Hannibal Books), about her experiences, recalls only once questioning her choice. In 1976, she heard on the news that 13 local missionaries had just been massacred.
"I prayed to God, `I can't stay here with this kind of fear,' " she said in a recent interview. " `If you want us to stay, give us peace.' Our hearts were made to be at peace, and I was not afraid after that."
But how can parents find peace leaving the security of Western countries and taking their children to unstable areas? In India, in 1999, an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6, were burned to death by a radical Hindu group. In the Philippines, in 2001, an American missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. Mrs. Burnham was eventually reunited with her children, who stayed behind in the United States, but her husband was killed in a gun battle between his captors and soldiers.
Missionaries may even be put in harm's way by their host country's government, as was the case with Veronica Bowers, an American, and her 7-month-old daughter, whose plane was shot down in 2001 by the Peruvian military on the mistaken suspicion that it was transporting drugs. And four years ago, Mrs. Phillips and her husband were kidnapped at gunpoint in Lesotho, while visiting their grown daughter's missionary family. They were soon released.
Given the dangers, not just of violence but also of life-threatening illness, why do these parents go? John Bueno, the executive director of the Assemblies of God World Missions, which sends people to 204 countries, including 39 "restricted" ones, where proselytizing is technically illegal, says, "We're very strong on calling."
Mr. Bueno, who was himself a "missionary kid" in Chile and who later served in El Salvador through 11 years of civil war there, explains that potential missionaries are questioned about their reasons for wanting to go. "Is this a romantic feeling of going overseas or is this really a call?" is a typical question, he said.
Aside from the spiritual benefits of life abroad, many parents, like Mrs. Phillips, welcome the exposure their children gain to other languages and cultures.
"Parents," said Eileen Charleton, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Maryknoll Mission Association, "like to instill in their children the adventure of this kind of life."
Mark Kelly, a spokesman for the International Mission Board, which supervises about 5,500 missionaries, tells of a couple who had been serving in Scotland and who felt called to go to Angola with their children "at just the moment when Angola had been listed by the U.N. as the worst country in the world to raise a child." The board interviewed them about their decision, but Mr. Kelly emphasizes, "It really comes down to trusting God that when he takes you to a place, he's completely aware of those challenges."
Asked about the dangers abroad, Joseph Nangle, the co-director of the Franciscan Mission Service, noted that the group took trainees to Washington, "the murder capital of the U.S."
And, of course, there are ways to mitigate the danger. All of the missionary programs require psychological testing, training and education before they send anyone into the field. (More than a year usually elapses between the time a family expresses interest and its departure.) Initial interviews are often conducted with each parent separately. School-age children are generally examined independently, to make sure, as Kathy Wright, the admissions coordinator for Maryknoll, explained, that the mission is "in the family's best interests."
Some groups have limits on the number of children a family may have to be eligible for a mission. Others, like the Assemblies of God missions, try to limit the age of the children who go.
Mr. Nangle says the training that families receive before going abroad, a three-month course for the Franciscan missionaries, helps them to understand "the theology of what it means to work in another culture."
"You are not going to convert the world," he said. "You are supposed to be of as much help as possible."
Families are also trained, he said, in "practical things like health issues and trauma."
"Missionaries will see some pretty tough situations of poverty and violence," he said.
Some groups like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, avoid sending missionaries into the most difficult areas, including China, which, though it is relatively safe, does not allow proselytizing. Maryknoll does not send missionary families to Iraq or Afghanistan, Ms. Charleton says, at least until another group has established itself first.
But even countries where violence has not been pervasive can turn suddenly. The Mormon Church just pulled its missionaries out of Bolivia because of the recent revolutionary activity. (Only the three mission presidents, out of 600 to 900 missionaries, had children there, a church spokesman said.) The Franciscan missionaries have remained in Bolivia, but "it has become a question," Mr. Nangle said. "We have dialogued with folks, and asked, `Are you up for this?' " Almost all the missionary organizations say they leave the ultimate decisions up to the family.