Author name: Lois Gillespie

Not much has changed since our last update, even though it?s been almost a month since we e-mailed. 

Bob is busy visiting with pastors, scheduling meetings, and studying while I handle the correspondence. Occasionally I have opportunity to use my computer skills to help friends and/or family out with their computer woes. I do miss being involved with technology on a regular basis, as Bob misses teaching. 

But this time of furlough has its blessings. We are enjoying the time we can spend with family and friends, catching up on your news and learning first hand how we can pray for you. We love worshiping together with many of you in familiar environments, and ministering to you when we can. This is also a time when we can ?hone? some of our skills and enjoy activities that aren?t available to us on the field. 

How can you pray for us?

First of all, we want to find a ?fix-me-up? house at an unbelievably low price, so that we can fix it up to live in while we?re home and then rent it out when we?re gone. Some of the places we?ve looked at are really bad, but affordable! The only thing that makes me willing to consider it is remembering how trashed our school was when we returned and how we got it all back together!

Secondly, we hope to return to the field by the first of the year. Before we can do that, we need to raise enough additional support to replace the subsidy we were receiving from ICA . Since we know that God can do this, we ask that you pray for us as we continue to build relationships with friends and churches, some who will partner with us in prayer and others who will also partner with us financially.

Praise the Lord we are back here in Niamey. Amidst our 3 vehicles, we experienced 4 flats and 3 other breakdowns. We only traveled with our trucks through Cote d’Ivoire; during that time they experienced 4 breakdowns. UGH! But we are here – our trucks aren’t. They were held up in customs; hopefully we’ll get that cleared up tomorrow. Such is traveling in West Africa!

Thank you for your prayers for our safety. We truly did experience safety during our ‘adventures’ of these past few weeks!

After 23 hours of traveling over 2 days (1500 km, about 200 km of which was horrendous), we arrived here on campus and were warmly greeted by the campus pets, some of our workers and some of the French soldiers with whom we had made friends. We were pleasantly surprised to be invited to eat all our meals with them, and we are eating well! Tonight was special. We dined privately with the Colonel (of all the French forces here in Cote d’Ivoire) and were treated to a 6-course french meal, some of which I didn’t recognize. (But then, I don’t recognize some of the African foods I eat either.) Having our meals prepared for us enables us to concentrate on the packing, something we really appreciate. We hope to be ready to leave by this weekend.

Thank you for your prayers for our safety. We ask you to continue in prayer on our behalf for our safety as we travel this weekend with 2 40-foot trucks over some unbelievable roads. We also ask for prayers that God will make clear His direction for our future ministry as we visit in Niamey, Niger.