Greetings from Guatemala
It seems the news about “Holy Week” this year is clouded over with the president of Guatemala pushing an agenda to legalize drugs or as he says to at least talk about the option. Then again there is a lot of news about the daily robberies on the streets with motorcycles coming along side cars caught in traffic many times just to rob their cell phones. People send the newspaper pictures they took with their cell phones (hmmm, maybe not too smart). Yesterday a pickup truck saw it happening and one guy got out and shot at the attackers. Both on the motorcycle were killed (25 yr. old and 13 yr. old).

On the positive side, the annual Pastors’ Camp directed by David Lott, was a blessing with many pastors and laymen from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala assisting. The new tract design for El Salvador was well received with requests for more. We are grateful to John Rice who helped us be able to purchase the materials. Please pray with us for the finances to print more and get them to these men. One place is a new work in the town of Cara Sucia in El Salvador.

Besides the over 7000 tracts passed out at the camp, we have another 3000 that we are finishing to be passed out to churches here in Guatemala.

You could see the battle taking place as we worked to get the tracts done for the camp. The ink became like molasses and wouldn’t pass the paper. The rollers would ink one side but not the other or begin spraying ink everywhere. The paper curled like tacos. The two staplers refused to staple with over half having to be removed and restapled. The guillotine had to be triggered three to four times before it would cycle.

The interesting thing is after getting the tracts to the camp, the staplers work perfectly and the guillotine cycles every time. I plan to check the settings on the printer and crank it up when we finish the tracts in process. Please pray with us that we will be able to flood the pastors with tracts. Join us in the battle.

The Home Bible Study in the Condominiums continues to grow and even more importantly, the people are growing Spiritually and rejoicing in being able to share the truth of God’s Word with other people and answer questions about the Bible. It’s an added blessing to have two men in the Study also teaching.

Several ladies have little children and we are talking with them about possibly starting a young mothers’ discipleship study in their neighborhood with Cathy teaching them. Because of the large number attending the Home Bible Study we are also praying about dividing the class beginning a group in another location.

We are so thankful for your prayers and support.
Don and Cathy Hinds

Dear praying friends and family,

We have so much to give thanks for. Since our last prayer letter we have participated in Bible clubs in Sakerti on the other side of the city for five days and then another four days here at our property. We had many children come to learn about Jesus. What a great privilege, blessing, and lots of fun it was to work with them. We were also able to minister at three different “quinceañeras”, a wedding, and an Evangelistic Conference.

Our Christmas outreach concerts were well attended and it was our best Christmas season ever. We were able to present more concerts this year with more variety of instruments and singers. Our musicians worked very hard to prepare their music well and ministered with hearts full of hope to reach many with the Gospel of Christ and to glorify His holy name. Two of the young men wrote songs we used in the concerts. It was the sweetest of blessings to work with these precious young people. To God be the glory for it all.

To finish our concerts we invited the kids over for an all-night fun and fellowship with volleyball, ping pong, a variety of other games, a bon fire, lots of food, and a message to challenge and encourage our young people. We started at 6:30 pm Friday and ended 6:30 am Saturday. Everyone was really into all the fun. Nobody slept! So thankful for the parents who also stayed as chaperones and participated in the event.

Some of our musicians went with us as we joined with another church, to pass out suppers and tracts to the people who live on the street in the capital city. We found entire families from babies to elderly. It was a good opportunity to share with them the love of Christ. We were able to pray with some of them and only God knows the fruit of this effort. Hopefully it is fruit to remain for the Father’s glory.

We have also begun the layout for another tract that will be used by pastors starting new works and have added an El Salvador design to the Little Red Book covers. Please pray the support will come in to purchase the ink and paper to provide the tracts to the pastors and workers here.

As we start this New Year our thoughts are in Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Now that we are back to work from Christmas break we have begun working on our February outreach concert. We are hoping to present this concert in the capital city. Also, we are praying about a mission’s trip with our musicians to Retalhuleu. It’s located approximately 5 hours from the capital city.

Our prayer requests for music ministry: effective outreach and wisdom as to where to present our concerts and to see our opportunities to minister with music; to help our musicians to grow spiritually; to save young people from the streets and gangs. One young person who had visited our music school a few years ago committed suicide last week the day before Christmas Eve.
We are so thankful for your prayers and support.

Don and Cathy Hinds

Once again we come to you with grateful hearts for all of your prayers and support as we trust in God’s help; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Romans 12:12

We are thankful and hopeful as we continue in this ministry in Guatemala rejoicing in what we have seen as we think of the verse from Psalm 92: 4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands.

We thank God for the 4000 tracts that were made here in the print shop since our last report. They were used in our ministry and were given to other churches and they were passed out to sow the precious seed, the Word of God, into the hearts of precious people. We are thankful for the souls who have come into the knowledge of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus through this ministry.

We thank God for the outreach opportunities that we have had with our musicians through concerts and special events that we have already presented in different places in the capital city. Last week we ministered in a place an hour from here called San Antonio La Paz with a concert and where we were able to pass out tracts and leave tracts with the pastor there. The previous weeks were constant rain with landslides, bridges falling and road washouts throughout the country. Even after a couple days of no rain we passed over parts of the highway with water still running across and the road into the town was half gone in one part.

We are presently scheduling meetings for the rest of this year and are planning for a really busy Christmas season. Gas is expensive and there’s lots of work in preparation, practice and prayer but to God be the glory. He has provided and continues to provide through it all. It is exciting to see our young musicians grow spiritually with a real love for reaching people for Christ. Our group averages 20-30 for our concerts and we have two vans (1985 and 1989) that we fill up when we travel. We have a unique variety of instruments that attract attention and encourage folks to come and listen. (Guitars, violins, cello, viola, harps, hammer dulcimer, keyboard, and bells at Christmas time.) We have our best group of singers this year and look forward to our opportunities to minister.

These are our dates we have scheduled for a variety of outreach opportunities with still events to schedule for November & December.
October 28 Bible Institute Graduation
October 31 Ministry to a church
November 11 Evangelistic meeting
December 3-4 Missions trip to Zacapa
December 10 Wedding
December 18 Christmas concerts.

Along with more events, you can add in our church, home bible studies, printing, and ladies bible studies.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for the ministry here in Guatemala.
Don and Cathy Hinds

It was a blessing to be able to take and hand out 9000 tracts to the Pastors and workers at the Pastors camp this year that they were able to take back and use in Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and even Panama. Pastors asked for more tracts and in July we will be printing more to take to El Salvador and Honduras along with others for Guatemala. We are so grateful for the financial help that has come in to help with those costs.

We are also grateful to the financial help that came in so we were able to buy a clarinet and cello for the music ministry. Both the clarinet and cello players had to return their instruments to the City Orchestra and we were able to find and purchase the instruments in time for the Resurrection Outreach Concert. There were 29 musicians and chorus members participating from five different churches.

It is a blessing to see God working in the lives of these young musicians and their desire to travel as a group as an evangelizing team to other towns. Plans are underway for late August or early September to help a new church three and a half hours outside of the city with concerts and preaching in the church and central park. We’ll be taking tracts printed out with the information about the church to pass out before the concerts.

The tree cutting is on hold until we can purchase a new chainsaw as it overheated and died halfway through the last tree. We had to finish the job with the axe and machete.

You may wonder why the letter started with Greetings from Georgia and activities out in July and August. Well, we have a new grandbaby coming in the beginning of May (number 14) and our son, Andy is working at getting his brothers and their families together with us on July 4^th. We haven’t been able to get everyone together in several years and there are some little people that were not born yet then. With Jeff living in Georgia, Dave in Rhode Island, Andy in New York, and us in Guatemala, it gets difficult. So, we are in Georgia and will be going up to New York on May 2^nd (unless plans change) and then back to Guatemala in July. It has been two years since seeing the kids and grandkids for a month in 2009. Boy they grow fast.

Thank you for your prayers and support

Don and Cathy Hinds

February 2011

Greetings from Guatemala,

“I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.” Psalm 34:1-3

We give thanks and praise to God for His grace and excellent loving kindness toward us in the ministry here in Guatemala. Even though the year began with some difficulty (problems with vehicles, plumbing problems on the property and the dollar losing value and a few other unexpected expenses) we thank God that we can continue on and to God be the glory!

We are busy in the music ministry preparing to minister in April Outreach 2011. We have some very committed young people playing instruments and singing this year and some young preachers ready to preach the word of God. Psalm 40:2 “And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”  We are hoping to reach souls with the Gospel of Christ in the areas where we will be ministering with these concerts. Please help us pray for one of our musicians who had to give her clarinet back to the public music school. She is a beautiful faithful young lady who needs a clarinet for our concerts.

While passing out tracts and inviting people to church in the neighborhood not too far from the church, we came across a group of kids who had been faithful to our church in the past but stopped coming. To make a long story short, after our visit they came to church the next day bringing others with them. We thank God that while they were gone, they didn’t get involved with a gang.

Home Bible studies are continuing on in three different areas. A sweet lady named Carmen came to our neighborhood Bible study for the first time a couple of weeks ago and is excited and loaded with questions. We are hoping she will reach more folks and invite them to come.

In April there will be a Pastors Camp with Pastors and workers from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador attending. Please pray for the funds so we’d be able to print and supply them with tracts to use throughout Central America. Genesis 26:19 “And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water” Wouldn’t you like to be a “well of springing water” to them as they toil in dark valleys to bring the truth of God’s Word to the people?

Although we have had a couple days of rain in February, we still have several projects to get done before the rainy season hits. We finally took down a large tree in a narrow spot between the church and a warehouse. Its roots were raising the floor next to the church and in the warehouse. We have other large trees in front also causing problems with the warehouse and our retaining walls. There are also concrete repairs needed in the church driveway along with a means to control water runoff.

But, we are so thankful as the work goes on. Thank you so much for your prayers and support for the ministry here in Guatemala.

Don and Cathy Hinds

This fall has been a busy time working with the musicians and choir of several churches in preparation for the combined Outreach Concerts planned this year for the 10^th and 12^th of December. Several musicians will also be ministering at a wedding this weekend and one of the students will be going to a Ladies Breakfast to minister with the harp there on the same day. What a blessing.

There have been several new students added in the past month. It is always a blessing to see young people making themselves available to be used in their churches and Praise the Lord with their talents.

Please pray for those concerts as they quickly approach.

Please also pray for our vehicles as one doesn’t have as much power for climbing the mountains and I’m afraid it could have something to do with the white smoke coming out the exhaust. At least it’s running and getting us where we need to go and the problem with it cutting out on the road was finally fixed after being in two different shops. The other car has been in the shop four times since it overheated going up to a church in the mountains.

This month we helped another church with their Vacation Bible School in a neighborhood at the edge of a mountain. They had an average of 80 kids each day in that location for the week. Marco Turriza and his family from Mexico came and oversaw the clubs in different locations. When brother Turriza left on his way to Honduras and El Salvador, it was a blessing to be able to send with him Little Red Book tracks and other tracks we printed here.

A Pastor of a church in another town told me that his church tries to canvas a different town each month and asked if we could provide the tracks for them to use. We’ll have 2000 done for him this week to send along with the other tracks already made.

Two of the Home Bible Study groups had their last meeting until January. The other group will finish up this week. The Studys have been great and it’s always a blessing to hear how the people are witnessing to others.

One of our young ladies has been bringing to church another girl that worked near her and she asked Cathy to Disciple her. They had their first meeting last Sunday. As the schools here are on their summer break, one of the young girls asked her teacher to come to church. She didn’t come Sunday but said she would next week. The girl is very excited.

As many kids “learn” English in school, we have begun a goal of having each child be able to quote in English “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

(1 John 5:12) when they return to their classes.

Rainy season has ended pretty much and repairs are underway as funds become available.

Lots to keep in Prayer.

Thank you for your faithful support and prayers

Don and Cathy Hinds

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