Home Assignment Updates

God is good all the time; all the time God is good. This week was an especially good week for the Gillespie family.

On Monday, while our son David was being sworn in as an attorney in Columbus, Ohio, his niece (our first grandchild) decided that Nov. 7th was a good day for her birthday. Summer Dawn was born to Brian and Gina Kinnard at 10:24 pm, weighing 6 lb. 1 oz. and being 19.5 in. tall. Of course, she is absolutely beautiful and very precious. We’re all in love with her! We’re including a picture so that you can agree with us.

A special part of this is that Lois was able to be present at the birth. We were in the middle of a missions conference in Norwalk, Ohio, a little more than half an hour from the Mansfield hospital. Tuesday evening, as we shared our ministry of Training the Next Generation, we were able to share these pictures of the next generation in the Gillespie family. We are so grateful to be here on home assignment for this very special time.

Thank you for your prayers for us. Please pray for our friends and supporters as they are making new support decisions for the coming year. We want to return to the field in the spring and can only do so as God supplies our support needs through His people.

As I’m writing this update, Bob is up on the housetop, putting the finishing touches on our new roof. We were so blessed by the friends from our home church who gave up a Saturday to help us with this project. There are a few more major projects and lots of finishing touches to be completed on our little house in Loudonville, but we really enjoy having a place to call “home” once again – even if for a short time.

So many of you are asking “How’s the new hip?” After just 10 ? weeks, I can gladly say that my new titanium part and I are getting along just great. Most of the time I forget it’s there which is how it?s supposed to be!

We recently had the privilege of attending state meetings in both West Virginia and Ohio. Not only were we blessed by the sharing of the Word, but our hearts were blessed once again by our contact with so many of our faithful friends and supporters. We were reminded once again how very special all of you are to us.

In our contacts with some of God’s servants from our churches, we sometimes receive apologies that their church family cannot support us. We want you to know that in our journey of “friend finding”, we aren’t only looking for financial support. We are looking for God’s prayer warriors; we firmly believe that you are more important to us than our financial support. In fact, with you taking our need for support to the throne, we are sure that God will supply our need in His time. Please don’t apologize that all you can do is pray.

Most of you know that we were hoping to return to West Africa in January. At this point, we don’t have the support we need to return that soon, so we’re moving our departure plans up to the late spring. Because of that, we have more Sundays available to come and share with our church friends – new and old – about some of God’s blessings in West Africa during our last term and about where we believe He wants to use us during our next term.

Sometimes when I re-read my updates before sending them out, I realize I’ve used the word “blessed” or “blessing” too many times. Truthfully, there’s no other way to phrase how we feel when we reflect on God and how He chooses to work in our lives. Thank you, dear friends, for being a part of this blessed feeling. 

I can only say thanks, over and over again, to those of you who prayed for me this week. My hip replacement was Monday morning at 7:30, and I came ‘home’ yesterday (to my parents house in WV). One time in the hospital, I remember wondering why I seemed to be doing so much better than others. Some suggested my age, but I remembered your prayers. Most of the time I am amazed at how little pain I’m actually having, but then there are those other times…

But that’s only about the last week, and it’s time to move on; Bob is back in Ohio working on our house. He hopes to have the carpet laid sometime within the next few weeks so he can bring me home. Since my therapy consists of an exercise routine I do on my own, I can do it anywhere. 

It’s really been a very busy summer with meetings continuing up through the evening before my surgery, combined with the work on our house, going to our church missions conference, and attending to the needs of our elderly parents. Our schedule will pick up again at the end of September with meetings in Michigan. My goal is to be ready to go to these meetings with Bob.

Thanks again for your prayers. We have really felt your love this week.