Greeting, dear brethren! I hope this edition of the newsletter finds you all well. A lot has been happening since the last issue. In that issue I reported that I would be making an previously unscheduled return to Guatemala to teach a class. As it happens, I gave a report of our work to the brethren of the Golden church of Christ in Golden, Colorado the morning of August 25 and left immediately after church for the airport, arriving in Guatemala about 10:30 that evening. My good friend Denton Landon had been able to teach one day of my class before he left Guatemala, leaving me four days of the class. Because of our annual staff retreat, I needed to be back in Denver on Thursday evening of that week; I was able to make it to the retreat center late that night, having dropped off a bag of dirty clothes at home, picked up a previously-packed bag of clean clothes and continuing on my way. An interesting side-note from the staff retreat is that one evening we calculated our air miles flown in the previous year. Our team traveled 1.1 million air miles from Labor Day 2012 to Labor Day 2013 to train preachers around the world. Wow!
I also reported in the last issue that I was making plans to take a group of four campaigners from Denver to Guatemala this month. We have now been back from that trip for almost a week. It was a great campaign, with several Bible studies conducted, contacts made and visitors at services. Please keep the small congregation in Cobán, Guatemala in your prayers as they follow up with the work that was done. One unfortunate result of the campaign is that we were apparently exposed to something. I have been sick since before we returned, and several of the campaigners have also complained of symptoms. I would appreciate your prayers for us, as well. I hope to visit my doctor tomorrow and start making some ground toward recovery.
I am currently working on translating material into Spanish for a class that is coming up in November in Guatemala. Brother Nery Irías, who has worked so faithfully with us in Honduras, will be traveling to ITL in Guatemala to teach Old Testament I (Genesis, Exodus) that week. When I am done with that, I’ll be working to prepare a class I will be teaching the next week via our video conferencing system at ITL on Christian Evidences.
As you can see, things are still busy and the schedule is quite full, but I plan to make some very drastic modifications in my travel schedule in the near future. I suspect that this illness may be at least aggravated by traveling so much. I am very happy that brother Luis Camacho, who accompanied us on this campaign, has agreed to come on board and work more with us in our partnership with ITL. This will be a great help and blessing to me.
Again, I ask you to keep us and this great work in your prayers. I also want to thank you all for your continued interest and support of this work. Without good brethren like you, we would not be able to accomplish the things that continued to amaze us and cause us to praise God for being allowed to be a small part of it. For more on what Bear Valley is accomplishing around the world, visit our website at: WeTrainPreachers.com/Extension-Schools.
God bless,
Donnie Bates