Author name: Bob Gillespie

We want to thank all of you who prayed for our safety during our recent trip to Niamey, Niger. Thank you also for praying that the Lord would ‘direct our paths’ while visiting that field.

After visiting the field in Niger and talking with our sending church, we believe that God would have us serve at the MK (missionary kid) school in Niamey, Niger. Our mission, Evangelical Baptist Missions, has a number of ministries there including a seminary for the training of national pastors. We are excited to become a part of these ministries.

Currently, we will continue our furlough. This also includes raising additional support to be able to return to Niger. (As you know, the school in Ivory Coast subsidized our support; the one in Niger does not.) We are scheduling meetings through November, 2005, with hopes of being on the field by the first of 2006. We would love to visit your church and give an update. For scheduling, we can best be reached by e-mail.

Thank you for your faithful support and for being behind us in prayer during our most recent adventures.

It has been more than a month since last we updated you on what the Lord is doing in our ministry. Like most of you, we have been very busy with holiday ‘stuff’. In the midst of that, we were able to visit a few of our supporting churches and enjoyed thanking them for being ‘beside us’ in prayer over the last 3 1/2 years of changing ministry. 

Once again, our ministry is changing. Using funds provided to us by ICA to help us relocate into a new ministry, this Sunday, Jan. 9th, we will fly to Niamey, Niger, to visit the ministries there and to envision how we might be a part of them. These ministries involve an international (MK) school in Niamey similar to ICA (our former ministry), an elementary school for nationals directed by EBM (our mission) but staffed by nationals, several seminaries throughout Mali, Niger and Benin which train nationals to be pastors, and many church-planting efforts throughout these same countries. Please pray that God will make His direction clear to us as we consider what He is doing in West Africa and whether He will continue to use us there.

While in Niger, we hope to have an opportunity to return to ICA with our field director to retrieve our household goods (as well as those of other EBMers) and other items to be used in the ministry in Niamey. These will be stored in Niger so that if we return there after our furlough, we will not have to ‘outfit’ once again. If not, they will be available to other missionaries for their use. Please pray for wisdom as to whether to make the trip, and then for safety as we hope to secure transport of these goods by truck out of Cote d’Ivoire.

We will keep you posted in the next few weeks while we are back in Africa.

We’re here in America in time for Thanksgiving – something we asked some of you to pray for. We’d rather be at ICA; but since we can’t, we’re glad to be with family on Thanksgiving. We arrived in Cleveland on Friday night and have been catching up ever since – on sleep, on food, on relationships, and ministry details. (Of course, Lois has been ‘catching up’ on shopping with her sister.)

As we will be the states for a while, our updates won’t come as often. We will keep you posted as we pursue future ministry opportunities. Please pray for the Lord’s clear direction as we consider all the needs and opportunities.

PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW CONTACT INFORMATION! At the moment we’re rotating between family members until we move into a place of our own. We’ll provide that address later, but for now we can receive mail at:

Gillespies
468 Gloucester Circle
Brunswick, OH 44212

Thanks for your love and prayers,