April 04 2007 Newsletter #55 from the Moores.

Dear Family and Friends,

“Faith gives us the courage to face today with confidence and tomorrow with expectancy.” Anonymous

Greetings once again! Today we arrived in Paris, France, on our way back to Guinea. During the 3 ½ weeks we were in the States we were in constant contact with friends and nationals in Guinea. Most of the other missionary staff have returned to Guinea. The president seems to be letting the prime minister run the government at this present time. Twenty-two new government ministers have been chosen. (They reduced the number of government ministers from 32 to 22.) The country has calmed down and the people are hopeful! Many feel that this is a special “moment in time”, an open door, that God has allowed for us to continue His work there. So we are going back, hoping that we will be able to visit the pastors in the villages and continue the work God has called us to do. We appreciate your prayers as we return – not only for protection but also for wisdom as we try to finish various projects to help the national church.

We thank God for the two weeks we had in France right after we left Guinea. We were mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted and as we walked miles and miles each day God restored our souls and helped us to get rest. It was not our intention to go on to the States but God arranged that. He knew what lay ahead in the next few weeks and He knew we would need to be with our families for a time.

The day we landed in the States one of Tom’s aunts passed away. Two days later another aunt passed away. God worked it out for us to go to one of the funerals and we were able to see some of Tom’s cousins that he hadn’t seen for more than 20 years! We felt this was an important time to reconnect with them.

On Sunday, March 11th, we had a service in Des Moines, Iowa. That afternoon we drove to Indianapolis, Indiana, to see my (Sherry’s) parents – Bob and Evelyn Welch. We were pretty tired so we stopped to sleep along the way for about an hour. We got in around 3:15 A.M.. The next morning I got up first and went down and spent some time visiting with Mom and Dad. Later when Tom came down he visited with them and Dad seemed fine. Around 1 P.M., as Dad was going to eat lunch, he said that he was cold and he began shivering and shaking terribly. He said he couldn’t get warm. At 2:10 P.M. we walked him back to his chair in the living room and covered him with blankets. Tom and I went over to my brother John’s home for a short while to do e-mail. About an hour and a half later my mom called and said that Dad was seriously ill. Thankfully my younger sister, Lynn, who is a nurse, had left work early and was on her way to a meeting at her son’s school. Mom called Lynn and she immediately switched courses and went straight to their home. When Lynn walked in Dad’s face was ashen and she had a very difficult time getting him to respond. She had Mom call 911 immediately. The EMTs were there within seven minutes or so. Mom had given Dad a nitroglycerin pill before they arrived. They said that Dad wouldn’t be able to make it to his regular heart hospital in Indy so they took him to the closest hospital about five minutes away from Mom and Dad’s home. He was given five more nitroglycerins in route to the hospital. Lynn called us around 4 P.M. and told us to hurry and come right away because Dad had been taken to the hospital with congestive heart failure and they said he was drowning in the fluid in his lungs! We raced to the hospital with John’s wife, Teresa, and were taken to a private room right off of the emergency room. Within thirty minutes the physician came and told us that we needed to discuss life support because things did not look good for Dad right then. We told him that Dad wouldn’t want long term life support but if need be we wanted him put on short term life support at least until John, his son, could get home from Minneapolis. When the doctor left we began making phone calls to people across the country so they could get the word out to pray for Dad! Dad was in the emergency room for six hours then he was moved to the cardiac unit. John got in at 11:15 P.M. or so. It was an emotional reunion. We didn’t get to bed that night until 2 A.M. The next morning we were back at the hospital. Dad had been diagnosed with three things: pneumonia, respiratory failure and congestive heart failure! But God is still in the miracle working business! Within 36 hours Dad was up and walking in the ward and pretty much off of the oxygen! That was a miracle!! How thankful we are to God for giving Dad back to us for a while! How thankful we are that we were able to be with our family during this time of crisis! God knew – we didn’t know what lay ahead – so He arranged it all! Dad stayed in the hospital for twelve days. After the first five days he was put in a rehab center within the hospital. He went home on Saturday, March 24th! Please continue to pray for Dad (Bob Welch) that God would continue to strengthen his body and give Mom strength as she takes care of him. (It has been decided that they are going to start transitioning over to John and Teresa’s house. That will make it possible for someone to be with Dad at all times.) Please pray for them as they go through this transition time.

We were also able to spend two days with Tom’s folks in Tulsa then we drove out to California to see our boys. We got to spend four days with Mike, Scott and Tim in Sacramento but weren’t able to see Tom and Mashele as they live in Eugene, Oregon.

Altogether we traveled 6255 miles during the three and a half weeks we were in the States and God was faithful to protect us all the way!

We do have an urgent prayer request concerning Had. We got an e-mail from her last week. She said that she had been very sick and that one of her uncles was forcing her to go up to her home village with him. She said that she felt that “this would not be good” for her. So please pray! We wrote her back right away asking her how this uncle could force her to go but she hasn’t written us back. (This village is the same one where they wanted to crucify her in the market place last year!) We had wanted to send her to another West African country in January or February, but with the strike and the political problems we were unable to do that. We know that God is her protection but she so appreciates knowing that people all over the world are praying for her safety!

Thanks again for all your prayers over the past seven weeks especially! We wouldn’t be returning to Guinea if we didn’t have you behind us praying! Pray that God will open up many opportunities for us to share Jesus with the Moslems there during this time. Also we want to thank those of you who faithfully support the work of God in Guinea through your financial giving! Because you give, we are able to go and because we go Moslems are still coming to Jesus! God bless you bunches!

In His Service,

Tom and Sherry Moore