Dear Prayer Partners,

The missionaries of Benin are dealing with one blow after another. This morning, April 29, we were informed that Bob Couts' mother had died last night, which was quite a shock. She'd been in a car accident several months back, was doing well in rehabilitation and was to be released in a few days. Her 83rd birthday was to be next month.

At this time Bob and Becky are at the airport waiting for a 10:00 pm (our time) departure.

Bob's mom was a woman of God. The family is very close. Pray for all of them as they go through this time of grieving and rejoicing in the gift God had given them in such a mom.

The funeral will be on Saturday, May 3.

The viewing for Lori, Charles and Kaye's daughter, and funeral service will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, April 30. Kaye shared with us that Lori had a deeply moving experience with Christ recently that had caused her to be more on fire than ever for the Lord. She was well prepared to meet Jesus.

Pray that anyone in either family that has not made a serious commitment to Christ will do so because of the vibrant testimony of these women.

Your prayers are the sustaining power of all of us missionaries.

Love,

Barbara and Jeff

P.S. Jeff and I left Benin Monday morning, April 28, to travel here to Togo to meet with folks. We had intended to leave early this morning (Tuesday, April 29) for Ghana and then on Wednesday to Cote d'Ivoire. At the same time we were informed about Bob's mom we were told that they would be flying out of Togo (no USA flights out of Benin today), therefore we opted to stay another night, tonight, in Togo so we could hug on them before they left. Therefore very early tomorrow morning, Wednesday April 30, we will leave and try to drive the entire way to Cote d'Ivoire which may be around 12 hours. If it becomes too lengthy a trip we will stop at a hotel along the way for the night. We would appreciate your prayers for our travel.

On Thursday and Friday, May 1&2 we have meetings with Baptist leaders--one to plan a volunteer leadership training trip that will take us back into the rebel zone in Cote d'Ivoire and the other meeting is a follow-up Baptist leader think tank to discuss the reorganization of the Cote d'Ivorian Baptist Convention and future.

Lastly, when we returned from our last trip to the Cote d'Ivoire rebel zone Jeff and I shared the trauma and loss of the Christians there with our Christians in Benin, particularly with the women of the Littoral Association during an day of fasting and prayer. In response-- for this trip to Cote d'Ivoire the Baptist women of Littoral have loaded our vehicle down with selections of their own clothing, that are "little" used, new cloth and even given us money to take back to the Christians in the rebel zone. What an outpouring of their love! We nearly didn't have enough room in our Prado for our belongings! One woman came to our door with two sacks of clothing from her children. She had shared with them the difficulties being endured by the Christians in the rebel zone and her children went through their own clothes, choosing out things to send to the children there. Finally the Littoral women's Baptist president, Ginette KIKI, mentioned to me that other churches, who were not informed of this initial giving, were upset that they hadn't had the opportunity to give and made her promise that they would be informed of the next time we drive to Cote d'Ivoire so they can participate in aiding their brothers and sisters in Christ. Nothing like this has ever taken place in West Africa, to our knowledge, between Baptists from country to country. May God by honored through these acts and attitudes of grace and love