January 22 2007 News letter from the Moores.

Dear Family and Friends,

“That we are alive today is proof positive that God has something for us to do today.” Lindsay

“Obedience belongs to us; results belong to God.”

It has been a long while since we last sent out one of our newsletters. During the months of September through November we were itinerating in the Eastern Region of the United States. We enjoyed meeting the people and sharing our vision for Guinea and West Africa with them. But the most important thing was increasing our prayer support. How thankful we are for the ones of you who pray regularly for us and for God’s work in Africa!

While we were in the States for six months we traveled over 18,000 miles – literally going from coast to coast. We were able to spend a couple weeks with our boys in the summer and then at Christmas time too. Those were special times for us. We were also able to spend a little time with both of our parents for which we are thankful. Tom’s folks are both now 85 years old and live in Tulsa. Sherry’s folks are both over 80 now also and live in Indianapolis. God has been faithful to give them strength as their days!

We do have an update on the young woman, Had, that we have been writing about. In our August newsletter we told you how her sister had sworn to kill her the next time she saw her. We had also told you about her cousin and her husband (and baby) who were allowing Had to stay with them even though they were Moslems. The first week of September Had’s cousin her husband and son were killed in a car accident. The family has said that this happened because they allowed a lot of “bad talk” to take place in their home. (They were referring to Had talking about her choice to follow Jesus.) Had was devastated by this. We didn’t hear from her for over three months! We requested special prayer for her as we spoke in the churches. God answered your prayers! We were able to meet with Had three days after our arrival back in Guinea! What a joy it was for us to see her again. She told us of God’s faithfulness to her over and over as He protected her from attacks from her family. During the Moslem fast month of Ramadan in November, Had’s sister swore that Had would not live to see the end of the month. By God’s grace she did! Another one of her uncles recently came to Conakry to see what he could do about her change of faith. He had two young men help him catch her one day. He took her small purse, her cell phone, her address book with all her numbers in it and the medicine she had just bought. He kept trying to get her to say that she would leave Christianity and return to Islam. She emphatically told him that she would never return back. She asked him why the family kept hassling her about her faith. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? She caught him off guard for a moment and she pushed him with all her force. He fell down and she turned and ran with all her might! The young men didn’t follow her because they saw that she hadn’t done anything bad. Her uncle did run after her for a short time but she was able to get away from him. She ran over the railroad tracks and fell. A stick pierced her thigh deeply. She kept running as the blood streamed down her leg. When she finally emerged in another area of town her skirt was soaked in blood. She was able to go to someone she knew and they took her to a doctor who cleaned it up for her and gave her some antibiotics. Please continue to pray for her as she has a lot of pain in her back and her thigh – even now – due to her fall. Had’s older sister just came back from their home village where she met with the family. Ever since her return she has had some type of infection in her eyes and she can’t see very well. (Had’s niece keeps her informed about what the family is doing.)

Right before we left Guinea, last July, we were able to introduce Had to a pastor from her same tribe. He has helped her to meet other Christians, also from her tribe, and she has really been encouraged as she has talked to them, heard their stories and seen their scars (some were attacked with knives, others burned etc.). She realizes that she is not alone. This pastor has recorded Had’s testimony for her. She wants people to know and understand what she has gone through because of her choice to follow Jesus. Please pray with us concerning another issue. We are looking into the possibility of sending Had to another African nation for a year or so to get her away from the constant threats on her life which are made by her family. Pray with us that God will give us His wisdom in this decision. She is so blessed and encouraged to know that so many of you are praying for her! She says that it is only by the prayers of others that she is alive today. Thank you for praying!

We left the States to return to Guinea the first week of January. While we were in the Paris airport we saw several people we knew from Guinea and they told us that there was going to be a general strike in Guinea starting the day after we arrived! (What a welcome back!) Little did we know what all this would entail. When we arrived at the airport one of our pastors, Pastor Maxime was there to meet us. As we went into the airport he said to us “We have lost one of our pastors.” We quickly asked “Who?” He told us that our English Refugee pastor, Pastor Ben Pabie had died the day before our arrival! That was a shock! Pastor Ben had been the pastor of the English Refugee Church for three and a half years. He was such a man of God! He had suffered from some kidney problems and also from high blood pressure for quite a long time. Evidently he had a stroke one night. He was taken to a local hospital. He died three days later! Please pray for his wife and three children as they are returning to Liberia for good. Pray for God’s provision for them and his comfort to sustain them.

When we arrived at the mission, there was no electricity. We opened the door and walked in. We had only been gone for six months. Things looked a whole lot better than we expected! Since we had aluminum windows and screens put in back in 2003 we were able to close the windows during our absence and this helped some with the dust. Everything was covered with dust but we decided not to worry about it until the next morning. We went back to our bedroom and worked several hours cleaning it before we fell into bed. There were no mice skeletons on the floor this time as our cat had done a great job keeping the mice population down!! (We left one window open just enough for her to go in and out at will.) There were some giant cockroaches dead on the floor – but hey, I can handle the dead ones! J Also the electricity came on from midnight until 7 AM so that was an added blessing! (It is sure hot and humid here right now!)

The next day, true to what was said, a national strike began. This meant that we couldn’t go out of our walled compound. We have been through several strikes before so we expected it to last only four or five days. However we are now in the thirteenth day of the strike! Thankfully we left some canned goods here and we have been eating those. We were able to get some eggs from a lady passing by and we have gotten several papayas and a couple coconuts from trees in our yard and this has helped. Since we weren’t able to go out of the yard we cleaned the house the next couple days and Tom was able to finally get the Land Rover running again. We had left several small bottled gas containers and this is what I do most of the cooking on. Electricity has been pretty good coming on around 6 to 7PM and staying on until 6 or 7 AM so this is a blessing. We still only get city water three days a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, one hour in the morning and two hours in the late afternoon. We’re thankful for that too!

Please pray for Guinea! We have had gun firing going on all around us for the last thirteen days. They said that there have been seventeen killed since the strike started (ten today alone) however, through the local grapevine a lot more have been killed. There have been over a hundred wounded in Conakry alone. The people are hungry. They are out of food and the markets are closed due to the unrest. Thousands of people took to the streets today marching toward the downtown area where the military base is found. Many are demanding for the resignation of the president. There are lots of rumors going around and lots of confusion. There is fear that total anarchy may break out! (If you want more details you can check online at allafrica.com and click on GUINEA.) The president is very sick and has been in and out of diabetic comas. He also has leukemia and he has had all his blood changed twice in Switzerland. He wants to stay in power until God removes him or until he can form another group to lead the country. So pray! (We are not living in fear because we KNOW that God is in control of our lives and of this country.) The first lady has asked the local churches to pray hard for this nation so many prayer meetings are going on daily in the churches. No one is going out in their cars because the cars get stoned by groups of disgruntled young people. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers! (A 50 kg bag of rice is now selling for $33 in local currency where the normal price is usually between $10 - $12 US.)

We want to thank all of you who have and who are financially supporting God’s work in Guinea! We also want to thank the ones of you who recently made commitments to support the work while we were on furlough. (Please remember to designate all donations to the T/S Moore DM Account. If donations are given through the local church, the church secretary and/or treasurer must also designate those funds to us when they send the church check in. If you have any questions concerning this, please e-mail us about it.) There were some people who wanted us to visit their churches and/or youth groups to talk about Had and persecuted believers who have come out of Islam. We regret that we weren’t able to contact some of you before we left the States as we were having problems with our computer and we were probably not in your area of the country. However, we will be coming back to the States for a convention the first part of July in Spokane, Washington. We will then finish our year of furlough/itineration from August through December. Hopefully we will be able to make arrangements with some of you at that time. We pray that God will use you to lead many to Jesus in this New Year! Thanks again for your prayers!

In His Service,

Tom and Sherry Moore