The Dallas Morning News

Texas' Leading Newspaper                                                        Dallas Texas, Saturday, May29, 2004

Irving actress brings Corrie ten Boom to life.
Evelyn Hinds portrays woman who hid Jews during Holocaust and wrote ‘The Hiding Place’
By Mary A. Jacobs, Special Contributor

While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in 1944, Betsie ten Boom had a vision. She and her sister Corrie would travel the world to tell people what they had learned there.

            Betsie died a few days later, but Corrie ten Boom did travel the world, sharing her Christian witness and telling how her family hid Jews in their home in Holland at great personal risk. A 1971 book recounting her story, The Hiding Place, secured a place in the canon of popular Christian literature, and Billy Graham made it into a film. Ms. Ten Boom traveled and lectured until the age of 86, and died in 1983 on her 91^st birthday.

            Betsie’s vision didn’t end there. An Irving woman is telling Corrie’s story today—and while she hasn’t yet traveled the world, the experience has led her to some interesting places.

            Evelyn Hinds, a speaker and actress, saw the movie in the early 1980’s. Struck by Ms. Ten Boom’s sincerity and faith, Ms. Hinds began reading her books, and for years, kept a devotional book by Ms. Ten Boom by her bed. She listened to recordings of Ms. Ten Boom’s speeches and interviewed people who knew her.

            “She was a spiritual grandmother to me,” Ms. Hinds said. “Her books helped put my problems in perspective.” After two divorces and worries over her son’s medical problems, Ms. Hinds says she learned that “good does come out of bad, and God uses all things that happen to us as part of a plan.”

            And, that, she decided, was a message that others needed to hear. Having presented a dramatic portrayal of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ms. Hinds decided to create a similar program portraying Corrie ten Boom. In 1997 she began performing the half-hour program and found that audiences were touched by Ms. Ten Boom’s message of forgiveness.

            “In her portrayal, she is Corrie ten Boom,” said John Gillespie, executive director of Roaring Lambs ministry. “You can tell that she speaks from the heart and has been diligent in her research.”

            Garry Kinder invited Ms. Hinds to perform twice before the 400 member Bent Tree Bible Study.

            “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Mr. Kinder said.

            In 2000, Ms. Hinds traveled to the house in Holland where Ms. Ten Boom’s family hid Jews, now called the Corrie ten Boom Museum. The museum invited her to perform for a staff gathering—in the same living room where Ms. Ten Boom had gathered with her family every night.

            “They led me to Corrie’s bedroom to change into my costume, and I walked down those narrow stairs to the living room,” said Ms. Hinds. “It was an out-of-body experience.”           

Mary A. Jacobs is a Dallas freelance writer. Her email address is maryjacobs44@yahoo.com