Crisis Up date - February 16 2007 Newsletter #53 from the Moores.

Dear Family and Friends,

Thanks for all your prayers! We just wanted to send out a quick update to let you know what has happened in the past few days in Guinea. Monday and Tuesday were extremely bad days in our area of Conakry. The gun fire was constant both during the day and night. Monday night martial law was declared by the pres and a curfew was put in place. It was announced on the radio that anyone caught on the streets before and after the curfew would be shot! The first day people were only allowed to go out from 4 – 8 PM. On Wednesday it had been changed from noon until 8 PM. However it was not safe to be out walking about any times after dark! The news has announced that “at least 64 people were killed in Guinea on Monday and Tuesday” but we believe there were many more than that killed. Tension is rising.

We had no electricity in our area for over 48 hours! We also didn’t get any water in our area from Saturday morning until Tuesday evening!

We tried to call the US Embassy to get updates on the situation but we could never get through. Sometimes it seemed that the phones were being blocked so people couldn’t call. Tuesday around noon we found out that the US Embassy had a military plane that was coming in that afternoon to evacuate the extended family members of the “official” Americans who worked for the US government in Guinea and that there were some empty seats on the plane and they were taking other Americans out also who wanted to leave. It was too late for us to do anything about it. However, when we were finally able to use the phones again we were able to talk to some other missionaries with CMA and PBT and we heard that the Embassy was bringing in another military plane on Thursday and if any Americans wanted to leave they could sign up to go on that plane. We felt in our spirits that the time had come to leave for a while and so we had our names put on the list. Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday we organized things, packed and made arrangements with our guards and Pierre and Paul (the two young men who live in the mission compound) to take care of things while we would be gone. (The unsettling fact is that we have no idea how long we will be gone. We hope it will be less than a month before we can return.)

We did leave on an Air Force plane on Thursday, February 15th, around 5:40 PM and arrived in Dakar, Senegal around 6:45PM. From here we are making arrangements to fly to Europe where we will stay for several weeks and watch the situation in the country. We will also be seriously praying for God’s direction for us and for Guinea! Please pray with us! We have very mixed feelings right now and it was extremely hard to leave our dear African friends there!

We’ll be writing a more detailed newsletter soon. We just wanted you all to know that we are safe and sound and we serve a great God!! Again, thanks for all your prayers!

In His Service,

Tom and Sherry Moore