Home Assignment Updates

February – the month when Hallmark would have us think of LOVE. How privileged we are to realize God’s love in our lives each month of the year. A lot of times, He uses you to communicate that love to us.

This past week we’ve been blessed through our individual supporters (as opposed to church supporters). Sunday we ate dinner with one of our individual supporters who was having the BIG birthday (?). What a fun time we had as we got to know each other better. Then yesterday, we received an e-mail from some friends from our home church with the very special news that they, too, are going to support us on an individual basis.

So, as of yesterday, we are officially at 81.73% of our support level. It is edging up there slowly, but it is moving upwards. We believe in our hearts that God will have us leaving for Niger sometime this Spring. Please pray with us for the rest of our financial supporters as they may even now be praying about the decision to support this ministry of Training the Next Generation.

If you want to reach us over the next few weeks, please call 330-749-0573 as Bob’s phone is currently out of commission.

Thank you for loving us all year long.

We’re writing our update this morning from full hearts that just want to share with you how God is working, especially since your prayers are being answered.

First of all, we’ve been encouraged from God’s Word once again. In Matt. 16, the disciples were fretting because they had forgotten to bring bread. Jesus marvels that even after the feeding of the 5000 and then the feeding of the 4000 (both times with lots of leftovers), they still didn’t get it. They found it hard to comprehend that GOD was with them; their needs would be met. Amazing; we have the same God in our midst today.

Secondly, our home church voted this week to increase our support by $550 per month. We are so thankful for this added support which will not only help us get to the field sooner, but also shows us how much they are behind what God is doing through our ministry.

Last of all, our beautiful new granddaughter is providing laughter every time we are with her. Grandma has finally taken time to update our photo album on the web with lots of new pictures. You can find them at www.gillespiesonline.comphotos.htm. 

We ask that you continue to pray that God will bring in the remainder of our support so that we can leave this Spring for the field of Niger and Sahel Academy. Please don’t be discouraged by thinking you can’t do anything to help with our support (or that of other ministries whose work stirs your hearts), because you can. You can pray. God will use your prayers to accomplish His will.

By this time in December, many of us have received so many Christmas cards and newsletters, not to mention that we?re SO busy, most will go unread, at least until after Christmas when things calm down a little. That?s one of the reasons we?re shocking you with that dreaded offensive ?Happy Holidays? ? to capture your interest in our newsletter. I mean, after all, we really don?t write that often these days.

But seriously, Happy Holidays! Because the phrase has become fighting words for so many, it has caused us to think about what it means. It is true that to some, it is used in an effort to be politically correct and not offend others who may not believe in the Baby in the manger. In other cases, the phrase is used in a deliberate attempt to remove all references of Christ and the religious overtones from Christmas. It?s no longer enough to change the spelling of ?Christmas? to ?Xmas?; after all, everyone knows the correct spelling of Christmas. Whether or not they worship the Christ of Christmas, they are reminded every time they see ?Christmas? ? or ?Xmas? ? that there is more to this holiday than what the world would make of it, leaving them once again ?without excuse?.

So why are we wishing you ?Happy Holidays?? It?s because we want to ?bring you into remembrance? of how special it is to count our blessings during the Thanksgiving season (even though we?re a bit late), to sincerely offer you the “peace…that passeth all understanding” given to us by the Christ of Christmas, and to ?provoke you (and us) unto love and to good works? during the coming year of 2006. These truly are ?Happy Holidays?. We don?t want to let those outside the knowledge of God affect what we know about the true meaning of Christmas ? and Thanksgiving and the New Year. From the bottom of our hearts, we once again wish you ?Happy Holidays?.

The year 2005 has been special for us. We?re spending lots of time with the next generation of the Gillespie family, Summer Dawn Kinnard, born on November 7, 2005. You can see pictures of her (and the rest of the family) by visiting our photo page. We’ve also been blessed by time spent renewing friendships with many of you and meeting new friends, too. We are rejoicing that just this week we received word from two different churches of new financial support, and we?re truly expecting that we?ll hear similar news from more of you in the new year. Because of this, we?re continuing to plan for our return to West Africa in Spring 2006.