Author name: Lois Gillespie

All is calm here at ICA, if you can call the last full week of school before graduation ‘calm’. Please pray for the families that will be traveling within the next week to Bouake for all the graduation hoopla, and then home again. Even under the best of circumstances, travel here in West Africa is not something to look forward to. Also pray for the staff who will be leaving ICA and flying home to the US and Canada. We will miss them.

Also pray for a friend of ours who is considering whether the Lord wants her here at ICA next year. We desperately need her, but time is short and there are a lot of details to work out. We know it can happen if God is in it. We’d love to have her here!

I received a special blessing this past Sunday when someone I’ve never met surprised me by telling me in e-mail that her Sunday School class was praying for me, and asked me to share with her about ICA and my work here. I only know her through some correspondence about a product we are considering here at ICA. I guess we never know where we will meet someone else in the family of God, nor do we always realize how special our prayers are. Thank you for your prayers

So sorry this is late. I got so carried away troubleshooting network problems yesterday that I forgot what day it was. Although we ended up with several unrelated problems, all is back to working condition for now.

As all the teachers are wrapping up the end of the school year, some are also making plans for next year. Bob is busy designing a small science lab area for his junior high classroom. He’ll probably have to build it himself as the shop has projects already lined up for this next break. He’ll be able to partially finance it through some of your gifts. Thank you so much.

I am enjoying a return to health this week. I had been struggling with a mild case of malaria for 3 weeks, as well as a reaction to the medication. Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease, but cleaning the malaria out of your system is necessary. Finally, it all seems to be gone. Thank you for those who have prayed.

I know a lot of you are preparing for Bible school and other summer projects. We’d like to hear about them so we can pray with you for God’s blessings.

My update will be short today as I’m working with some visiting consultants on accessing their e-mail, something which should be a simple process except that we’ve run into Murphy along the way. Yes, he lives in Africa, too.

Please pray for the meeting that our school administration is having with these consultants to help determine the future direction of the school. ICA is still a vital service to so many missionaries in West Africa. However, education of missionary children is changing and we want to change with it so that we can continue to meet the needs of the missionary community.

Also continue to pray for staffing needs for next year. We have had numerous responses to the urgent request sent out about a month ago, but these things take time. Pray that details will be worked out quickly and thoroughly so that some of these potential staff members can be here this coming year.

I’ve been blessed this week as I’ve prayed for some of you. Paul said “I thank God on every remembrance of you.” Putting that into my own words, it turns out like this: “Remembering you makes me smile.” Pray for us as we pray for you.