Dear Friends,
We made it back to the US and have already had several meetings. We have been in supporting churches in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. We have also been in a few new churches in Georgia and Indiana. We are thankful for the traveling safety we have been granted.

As soon as we got home we started looking for a house and a new vehicle. We rented a house near David’s parents and it is a blessing to know they are there to keep an eye on things while we travel. Our Suburban, which was a great vehicle on the field, has almost 300,000 miles and is 19 years old. We bought a 2003 Honda Odyssey. It has been a huge blessing in fuel economy and comfort; a wonderful vehicle for traveling.

Most of the churches that we have scheduled meetings in are churches that already support us. We are grateful to be able to report to them. The churches we have been in so far have been fun. It is like going back for a family reunion. They are glad to see us and we are thrilled to be able to share with them what their prayers and money have helped us do. We are not trying to convince them to support us, but share with them the blessing they have been. We do, however, need to raise new support. Pray with us that we will be able to get into new churches this year and raise additional prayer and financial support.

One of the blessings of being back home is the ease of preaching in my own language. In our first meeting I preached a Sunday morning service in which 2 young men accepted the Lord. I spoke with a 13 year old boy about his salvation while another missionary showed his 11 year old friend how to be saved. Both accepted the Lord during the invitation! Last week I spoke in a service in a deaf church and was able to lead a 12 year old deaf boy to the Lord.

Within the last couple of weeks the Lord has revealed to us some medical problems that Stephanie has. We have been to a couple of doctors and are getting long term help with high blood pressure and other matters. Tests have been run and some are ongoing to find out the extent of the care needed. Pray for her health and that we will make wise decisions. I will keep you informed with any significant news.

We are excited to spend the holidays with friends and family here at home. However, we are truly going to miss the great Thanksgiving feast we have come to enjoy with the other missionaries in Merida.

Pray that God continues to bless us with good meetings and that we will be able to raise our support  to where it needs to be during this time.

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Dear Friends,
We have seen several visitors in church over the last couple of months. Many of them have come as a result of a tract distribution program we are doing. It is exciting to see people in church because someone randomly handed them a tract. Of course we know nothing is random when God is guiding our steps.

We are right between our two weeks of camp for the summer. The first week was held July 21 to 25 near Saltillo, Mexico. The village we were in was at 7,000 feet elevation which meant that it was very cool all week. A pleasant respite from the heat we experience in Yucatan.

There were 109 campers for the week. This is the largest group we have had in the last several years. It is exciting to see the camp growing through word of mouth in the churches. We do no advertising except trying to get the churches that currently attend to spread the word.

One lady was saved on Tuesday at camp. It was exciting to see her beaming all week with a clear understanding of salvation. Wednesday night I was privileged to lead 2 ladies to the Lord in my class. I taught a class which contained people who did not know sign language well either because of lack of education or intelligence. There were seven in the class. That same night there were 2 who accepted the Lord in the main service. On Thursday there were again two others who accepted the Lord. In all we saw 7 people saved at camp.

Our next week of camp will be here in Yucatan, August 12 to 15. This will be our first overnight camp here in Yucatan. Last year we did a day camp which went very well. We are expecting around 20 people for that camp. Pray with us that God will give wisdom in preparing for and running the camp.

It is hard to believe that we will be returning for furlough in less than one month. We have booked several meetings with supporting churches to report on the work that God has allowed us to do. If your church has not contacted me about a specific date that you would like to have us, there is still time. I have started calling churches in groups based on location. If I have not called your church yet, I will be calling soon. We are very excited about seeing the many friends we made when visiting your church the first time.

We do need to raise new support while we are back in the US. If you or your church receives our prayer letter but do not currently support us, we would be honored to be part of your team.

Our scheduled return will be sometime the last week of August with meetings starting the middle of September. Please pray with us as we will be looking to replace our vehicle (which has 285,000 miles on it) as soon as we can. If you are aware of a good travel vehicle which gets pretty good gas mileage and is for sale for a very reasonable price, please let us know.

See the previous post about camp for a picture of the seven who were saved.

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Dear Friends,
In February we had a special day at church with 36 in attendance. This was our largest group for a Sunday service. One of the hearing ladies who visited that day has continued to be with us faithfully. She attended for five weeks when she finally understood her need for a Savior. She accepted the Lord on a Wednesday night! The next Sunday she came to church excited to tell us that her mother and husband “wanted to know.” Bill and I went to their house Easter Sunday night. While explaining the Gospel, the mother sat on the edge of her chair eager to hear what we taught. She and the husband accepted the Lord without any questions or doubts! As we sat talking with them we realized that the lady who had been attending with us went home after each service and taught them everything she learned. They had already heard the Gospel presented many times through this precious lady.

This last Sunday we had a Deaf man and his hearing daughter accept the Lord. They have been coming to church with us for about three months. He does not know sign language but seems to be following along in the services. He reads well, when he has glasses. We have been providing him Gospel tracts magnified on the copy machine. The church bought a giant print Bible for him last week. He brought glasses with him to church for the first time this Sunday and was excited to read along in the Bible during the preaching. He went to Bill after the morning service and Bill lead him to the Lord. Jennifer took the daughter and explained the Gospel clearly to her one more time. The daughter also accepted the Lord.

Last week I traveled to Valladolid, Mexico to help with a medical team. For me it was like taking a short term mission trip. It was a lot of work as I interpreted between the doctors and patients, but it was rewarding to know that because I was doing my part, someone else presented the Gospel to each one of the patients that came seeking medical help. We saw more than 300 saved during the week!

Bill and Jennifer will travel back to the US for a needed surgery for six weeks. As soon as they get back we will work towards camp in the northern part of the country as well as camp here. We are blessed to have the camp expenses covered this year for camp in the north, but if you would like to donate towards our extensive traveling to the different camps and the expenses of our camp in the south, we would really appreciate that. Estimated cost is $1500. After camp we will pack up to return to the US for our one year furlough. We have already scheduled a few meetings while we are home. Pray for our safety traveling and that we will raise the extra support that we need for our next term.

When we return to Mexico after our furlough we will relocate to start another ministry. Pray with us that God will give us specific direction as to where to go. We would like to report soon on our next place of ministry. Pray with us that God will clearly show us where to go. We will take a survey trip in the next few weeks to seek the Lord’s direction.

Have you listened to my podcast where I interview missionaries? www.missionarytalks.com

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Dear Praying Friends,
Thank you so much for praying during the year of 2007. It was a great year in ministry. We saw several Deaf and hearing saved. We have particularly been blessed to have some of those who were saved this year become faithful in church and excited about spiritual growth.

We had our first baptismal service in December for our church. Two were baptized. One was Eduardo who was saved in September. The other was our son James. It was great to be a part of these two peoples’ spiritual growth.

God has opened new doors of ministry already for 2008. We have one Christian family who is burdened for a Deaf girl who attends school with their son. Gisel is 14 years old and knows some sign language, but not enough to carry on a normal conversation. She came to church with us this weekend for the first time and we are looking forward to working with her and bringing her to a knowledge of the Savior. She lives in a village in a very rough home situation. Just having regular contact with her is going to be a challenge. Pray with us as we work with her over the coming weeks and months.

Another opportunity came this last week concerning a 14 year old boy, Imer. While working at the church another pastor came and asked for my help in a situation. Their church has a school in which Imer attends. Imer is Deaf and was involved in a situation that the school needed help in handling. The pastor came and asked me to interpret to make sure that everything was clear to him. As a result the parents were called in to discuss the problem with the school administrator. The parents began asking for personal spiritual guidance as well as parental guidance to help with their son. Our pastor friend came to me later and asked that I take over the situation since I am able to minister not only to the parents, but Imer as well.

Along with the other wonderful growth we have been seeing in those who have been saved this last year, God continues to bring new people to us to whom we can minister. We pray that we will be able to contact many new Deaf throughout 2008.

As we are preparing for furlough later this year, we have needed to turn over more and more responsibility to the other missionary couple who will be taking the ministry completely when we leave. For the missionaries involved the transition of power has already taken place. We have laid out steps so that the church can start to depend more on Bill and Jennifer and less on us. Everything is going very well with that.

On a personal note, we had a wonderful time with the holidays this year. For Thanksgiving we gathered with almost 50 friends for a great feast. It seemed that the Christmas activities never ended. I think our first Christmas party was December 9 and we did not slow down until just after the new year. God has truly blessed us with a great group of friends here on the field.

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Dear Praying Friends,
The last few weeks have been amazing. It is great to be a part of God’s work and see how He is touching and changing lives.

We had an evangelistic push in our church during the month of September focusing on bringing visitors to church. During the month we had 20 visitors and 2 salvations! Many great contacts were made during this time.

One Deaf teenage girl who had just started coming to church with us in August was saved on a Sunday morning early in the month. Towards the end of the month a Deaf man in his late 20s was saved. He is a man whom I mentioned a couple of letters ago. We had been invited to the house by his mother. His mother and sister were saved the night we visited and a younger Deaf brother was one of the ones saved in August after camp. The last week of September the older brother (who we originally went to visit) came to church for the first time and received Christ that morning! He was very resistant to coming to church when we first started visiting in the home. Now he is very excited about being in the Lord’s house and learning the Word of God. After his salvation his younger brother, who was saved the month before, has been teaching him how to look up verses in the Bible.

During this time we saw our Sunday morning attendance double, and in the first couple of weeks of October we have continued to have visitors and great attendance for all our services.

While all this spiritual excitement has been swirling about us, we have also had some less fun excitement. I spent a few hours in a Mexican jail! They called it a “waiting area,” but the doors were locked from the outside and I was not allowed to leave. I was involved in a traffic accident where someone was injured. In Mexico you are guilty until proven innocent. After spending several hours in jail my innocence was proven and I was released with no further problems. I thank the Lord for good friends who helped advise me each step of the way.

It his hard to believe that we have been here in Mexico for over 3 years. We are less than 1 year away from returning to the US for our furlough. We are eager to be able to see many of you again and tell you all about what God has been doing here in Mexico and in our lives personally. Pray with us as we schedule meetings with supporting churches and new churches. We need to raise some additional support as we prepare to return to the field the following year.

Continue to pray for our ministry here. We are excited to see how the Lord is blessing and are thrilled to be a part of what He is doing.

David Peach

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Dear Praying Friends,
We had an adventurous trip to camp this summer. We left town with our truck not running quite right, but we had already been to 5 mechanics that were not able to find the problem. We made the 3 day trip to camp running a bit rough, but arriving by the grace of God.

Camp was wonderful! We had 93 people at camp this year. Though it is not significantly more than we have had in the last few years that our family has attended, it is the largest number of campers in several years we were told. There were 3 who accepted the Lord as their Savior! I would like to express our thanks to those of you who prayed for this week of camp. God truly blessed in that special time.

After camp, since we were so close, we headed up to the border to do some shopping. Our truck was still running rough, but eventually we were able to figure out the problem and make the repair ourselves. It was the fuel pump that gave us so much trouble. An interesting side problem cropped up on our way from camp to the border though. Our transmission went out! We had never experienced any transmission issues and were very surprised to have to rebuild it. God provided the right people in the right places and we were able to get our truck towed to a transmission shop to get us back on the road. Of course it was not as simple as it sounds, but God did give guidance and we have a new story to tell the grand kids.

After spending a few days at the border, we returned to Mérida without any car problems. We did have a 3 hour detour because of a closed road, which took us miles out of our way, but kept us moving towards home.

Shortly after we got back home, we started putting things in motion to hold our first camp here in the Yucatan. We were not able to do a week long camp where the campers would go to the campground and sleep, therefore we had a different number of people each day. All total, there were 25 people who attended camp in the 4 day event.

There were no salvations at camp, but we knew there were 2 who attended who had not made a profession of faith. I had been working with them in our church trying to help them understand the Gospel. Both of them are new to sign language and do not have good communication skills. I am very pleased to report to you that they both accepted the Lord this past Sunday morning at church!

God has been gracious in providing our needs for all the traveling we did this summer. Even the unforeseen expenses of car repairs, particularly the transmission, were taken care of by our loving Father. As you continue to pray, He will continue to bless.

I am sure many of you were aware that we had a hurricane come through our back yard August 21. Hurricane Dean passed just south of us but caused little damage here in town. Thankfully, though it was a very strong category 5 storm, there were no deaths in the peninsula. It miraculously passed through a lesser populated part of the Yucatan.

David Peach

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• New visitors
• Medical mission trip update
• Camp planning trip went well
• Camp financial blessings and needs
• Two salvations

Dear Friends,
God has blessed us with several visitors at church recently. One Sunday we had 7 seminary students visiting us, all of which are interested in special education. Through them, God reminded me of the wonderful blessing it is to be in the ministry and serving Him. One of the students could not stop talking about what a blessing it was to see people dedicated to helping the Deaf. For us, it is what we do because God called us into this ministry. It is easy to lose focus on the fact that God is using us in a special way. As we started the second service, this young man sat on the back row with his wife and cried for 10 minutes praising God for the work we were doing. That was very humbling and a wonderful reminder of the special blessing it is to serve the Lord.

In the last letter I asked you to pray for two upcoming trips. The trip to Valladolid with the medical team was a wonderful blessing. We were able to see more than 120 people come to the Lord! A local pastor worked with us and will be able to follow up on many of these decisions.

After my trip to Valladolid, I flew to Tampico for our planning session about camp. That went very well, even though my luggage took a trip to Guadalajara without me. We have many of the details worked out about camp. There are still a few issues to deal with. Pray that God will give wisdom in those areas. Camp will be July 16-20 near Tampico.

Last year, through the donation of generous churches, we were able to raise a good amount of money for camp. Enough, in fact, to be able to cover most of the cost of camp for this year. However, personally, we are in need of money to help us with our trip to and from camp. It is a 2 or 3 day trip each way (depending on weather, road conditions and traffic). If you would like to help with those expenses indicate that in your donation as being for our camp trip. We estimate the cost of the trip to be $1200.

Recently I was asked to make a visit in the home of a deaf young man. He had told his mother that he was looking for new friends and that he wanted to leave the group he had been hanging around. The mother got word to me to go by and visit. Bill Green and I went to see him. Though he was not home we were able to present the Gospel to his mother and younger sister who both accepted the Lord as their Savior! There are two deaf men in the family, both in their 20′s. The younger brother (not the one we originally went to see) and mother have been in church with us the last few weeks. I have since been able to talk with the older brother and we hope to see him in church with us soon.

Bill and Jennifer Green are the missionaries who will be taking this ministry after we get it well established and head off to start another work. Bill has started taking half of the preaching and teaching responsibilities in the church. It is exciting to see them plug right into the ministry. Bill has some great, God-given, wisdom in managing things in the work. They just passed their 1 year anniversary of being on the field with us. Please pray for them as they will be taking more and more responsibilities within the ministry.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

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Dear Friends,
“Truly David, the fact that your family and friends have given the message of salvation to me and the other Deaf gives us the hope that there awaits for us something better beyond this world.” This was sent to me by one of the teachers at the deaf school who was saved last summer. This is why we are doing God’s work!

We know that God is working among us as we see evidence of it in the ministry. In the last letter I mentioned that a man had started coming to church after seeing our new church sign. His name is Benjelimer (Ben). He has come very faithfully since that first Sunday. Because he works out of town and travels by bus to work, he is only able to be with us 2 out of the 4 weekly services. But he is always there.

This month we had a church activity in which we invited the family members of those Deaf. We had 14 visitors that night. Ben brought two of them. Ben asked me then to be at his birthday party the next week so that I could present the Gospel to all of his Deaf friends. When I stood to give the Gospel, many of the Deaf had not yet arrived. But I shared Salvation with the 25 hearing and Deaf who were there. The father of a young deaf girl who attends our church raised his hand for salvation. I prayed with him and he accepted the Lord that night! This is a man our church had specifically been praying would be saved.

The next couple of weeks will be busy. I will be going to another town for a week to help a medical team. I always enjoy these types of ministries. The missionary who invited me on the trip said that last year he led over 200 people to the Lord in the week! He takes them in groups of 15 while they are waiting in line to see the doctors and shares the Gospel with them. I know that sounds like sensational numbers, but there is a line of people waiting to be seen by the doctors for 10 hours a day. I am not sure if I will be in the waiting room witnessing or helping the doctors with translation, but either way, it will be an honor to be a part of this ministry for a week. That will be March 26-30.

The following week I will be gone to meet with other missionaries working with the Deaf here in Mexico. This will be a planning week for camp this summer. It seems so far away, but there is much to get ready before July. Pray for this trip and that we will get everything prepared as we should.

While I am in and out over those two weeks it gives Bro. Bill Green an opportunity to preach to and teach the Deaf in the church. He will be covering 3 services in my absence. Bro. Green has been working with us since their arrival on the field in May of 2006. This is a great time for him to start stretching his language abilities and start into a more public ministry. Pray for Bill during this time that God will give him the clarity of thought to be able to properly teach God’s Word.

I am eager to share with you what God will do during these next few busy weeks. Pray that God will use all of us here to honor Him in our ministry.

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Dear Friends,
We had a great Christmas this year as well as a wonderful start to the new year. During the holidays we were a little less busy with regular activities and were able to spend some time that we don’t normally have with other missionaries. It was good to get together for a few meals and to play games with one another. I realize that there are many missionaries who don’t have the companionship of fellow Christian countrymen, but God has blessed us with that here and I want to openly thank Him for it.

The church is going well. We have seen new visitors coming regularly. We have gained a few new regular attendees as well. We put up a sign for the church one week and the very next Sunday we had a man join us for the morning services. He has been faithful ever since. He does not know much sign language, but reads lips well and is learning signs very quickly. He gives a testimony of being saved.

We have had a couple of really exciting activities which have brought visitors to the church. Though we have not gotten all of them into the church on a regular basis, we have gotten a few. In the month of January we had three visitors for an activity. Two of those came back for our February activity and brought five visitors with them! Pray that the Lord will allow us to see them saved soon.

Our son James took a trip to Indiana for a couple of weeks in January. My brother and his family invited James to spend some time with them. James falls into the same age group as their children and was able to join in on family activities. He even went to school with them the two weeks he was there. It was a good time for him and for my brother’s family.

During that same time, we had another missionary visiting with us. He is a missionary to Cuba, but has not gotten permission for his whole family to live in Cuba full time. He was here visiting to see if the Lord might have his family work in this part of México and take short trips into Cuba while waiting for the permission needed to work full time in Cuba. It was good to have him visit and talk with him about what the Lord is doing in the country of Cuba. Some of you may remember that I spent a week in Cuba a few years back. This family was also on that trip.

Many churches have asked for a new family photo. We finally got a new one that you are welcome to download from our website, www.dpeach.com. You can print the photo yourself, or there is information at the website which tells you how to have a printed copy sent to you. Look on the left hand side of the website to find the link to the family photo. You will also find regular updates about our ministry.

Thank you for praying and being our partners in this ministry.

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Dear Friends,
We found a building for our new church. Though it took several weeks to get it all worked out, it is a wonderful location for our needs. It is much larger than what we imagined we could afford. Realistically it will be able to serve as our church for quite some time. It is also located just 11 blocks from the main square. This makes it possible to catch a bus from any part of town and arrive within walking distance of the church.

We just completed our second month in the new location. We are excited to see what the Lord has in store for us as we continue in this ministry.

In October, I was able to take a trip to Monterrey, Mexico. As some of you may remember, the missionaries and national pastors who work with the Deaf here in Mexico get together twice a year for spiritual encouragement and to help plan out the next summer’s camp. This meeting was wonderful. There were 6 missionaries and 8 nationals. The Lord allowed me to build a stronger relationship with the other missionaries and national pastors and wives.

Previously I had mentioned a pastor who had heart problems. His name is Horacio. I was able to see him at this meeting in Monterrey. He is doing much better and has been released by his doctor to preach again. Thank you for your prayers.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We got together with a group of missionaries from the area. There were about 30 people at the meal. We did this same thing two years ago and it was such an encouragement to us as new missionaries.

After explaining to one of the national pastors about our Thanksgiving events, he was curious if we did “traditional” type activities. I told him the food was very traditional and that we sang a few songs and had a time of giving thanks to God. He pressed for more details about what was considered traditional activities on Thanksgiving. I thought of one other thing we did that is traditional–we watched the Dallas Cowboys play football.

We are getting ready for Christmas. This coming weekend our church will be singing Christmas Carols at an open air bazaar. It is a great opportunity to pass out tracts and invite others to church. There will be a large group of Deaf there since it is an event where the handicapped are honored by the city.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

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