Dennis and Cindy Westlake

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Prayer Letter/Ministry Update

The Westlakes served in Guinea as missionaries from 1986-1998.

From 1998-2002 Dennis served as the Africa Regional Director.

From 2002-2008 Dennis and Cindy served as pastor and wife of Southgate Church in Toledo, Ohio.

In August of 2008 they returned to Guinea, this time with CAMA Services. Dennis is the CAMA Guinea Country Director.

What we’ve been up to…

These past 4 months we have had teams/visitors coming through Conakry back and forth to Hope Medical Center (HMC), we have welcomed a new CAMA family from Holland, we attended the C&MA Annual Field Forum, we had a CAMA retreat with our CAMA staff at HMC, we closed our CAMA guest house here in Conakry and we moved to another apartment. We also spent 4 weeks of vacation in March in the USA with our children.

June 2009 Update from the Westlakes

New Team Members Join Hope Medical Center…

Hope has had as a goal staffing the medical center with full-time surgeons. We are so please to tell you that in March 2009 the first surgeon and family arrived. Huibert and Margriet van Roekel and their 1 year old daughter, Rebecca, are settled and already making a difference at Hope. They spent 7 months training in Africa at Bongolo Hospital in Gabon before coming to Guinea. What a blessing to have them!

Annual Field Forum…

Each year C&MA missionaries come together for a time of mutual encouragement, teaching, worship, strategizing and fellowship. Members of the Missoula C&MA Church in Montana came to minister, as did Chris and Marcia Braun, C&MA Regional Leadership couple. This year the Guinea missionaries had their conference here in the capital city of Conakry and they invited our CAMA staff to join them. We were the only CAMA staff able to attend. We enjoyed an amazing 5 days of drawing close as a community of believers.

Master Planning Retreat at Hope Medical…

In late April we headed down to HMC to sit down with the team and focus on where Hope is at and where they are going as a ministry in the years to come. We also wanted this to be a time of mutual encouragement, team building and fellowship.

Looking back we are amazed at all that God has done in the short history of Hope. HMC opened its doors with a staff of just four in September 2003 with Anja Erickson as the only medical team member.
Now after only 6 years they have a multicultural staff (American, Dutch, Cameroonian, Gabonese, Guinean) including an Administrative Director, a Short-term Teams Coordinator, a Doctor/Medical Director, a Physician’s Assistant, a Surgeon, 2 Nurses, an Anesthetist and a Midwife all of whom are ex-patriot staff, as well as our Guinean co-Founder, Guinean nurses, Guinean lab workers, a Guinean dental worker and grounds workers.

As we sat down together the team came up with a Master Plan that provides ‘tracks to run on’ and principles that will guide future decision making. The long term goal is for Hope one day to be entirely run buy Guineans and self-sustaining. Hope has an incredible team working toward this end!

Family News…

We were thrilled to be able to spend our vacation this year in Toledo, Ohio with our children and their families. We are happy to announce that we now have a grandson, Emerson Jay Delaney, born on March 18, 2009. It was wonderful to be with our daughter, Krissy, and our son-in-law, Scott, for Emerson’s birth. We also were thrilled to meet our newest grand-daughter, Amia Jane Westlake, who was born in December 2008. We had a great time as well with our dear little Vaelyn, now 2 years old. There is just nothing like being a grandparent! 

We were also so blessed to be able to reconnect with our families and friends including our church family at Southgate Church in Toledo, where Dennis served as pastor before we came to Guinea. It was great to meet the new pastor and his wife, Pastor Craig and Charity.

During that month at home we were deeply impacted by what we saw and heard from family and friends about the USA economic crisis. After returning to Guinea we began to look at what we could do to cut costs. That led us to closing our CAMA Conakry guest house and moving into smaller, more affordable housing. We were so thankful to be able to move to a smaller apartment in the same building.

Political Climate in Guinea…

These months since the death of former Guinean president, Lansana Conté, have been relatively peaceful. The new military president, Moussa Dadis Camara, has announced that there will be a presidential election by the end of 2009. He said when he came into power that he was coming in to re-establish order, deal with corruption and to prepare the way for a presidential election. He is currently working to address the need for consistent water and electricity here in the capital city of Conakry.

Prayer needs at
a glance…
That we will have wisdom on how to become better equipped to do transformational development work.

That God will bless and care for our kids, their spouses and our grandkids.

That the Albright family of HMC will have a good
and restful Home Assignment in the USA.

That the Hope team will grow in unity and, as an
expression of Christ’s body, will minister out of their collective strength.

That the Lord will do a great work in Guinea to establish a just and lasting government through the upcoming election process.

For the planning of the CAMA World Retreat in February 2010. This will be a time of renewal, tooling, and teaching for CAMA staff from around the world. Pray for us to raise the necessary funding for this trip.

How you can support our work…

CAMA Advance Fund: Donations toward the
overall work of CAMA throughout the world.

Westlake Support: also given through the CAMA Advance Fund. These are donations that provide
the funding necessary to keep us here in Guinea. Please mark donations "for the support of the Westlakes-Guinea"

Westlake Work: Donations that help us
do projects and meet needs related to our
work in Guinea.

Hope Clinic Project: Donations to help fund
infrastructure upgrades at Hope Clinic.

You can give to your local C&MA church and
designate your gift for one or more of the
above or you can send your gift directly to the
C&MA National Office:
Compassion and Missionary Associates
P.O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO
80935-3500

Guinea (CAMA)

Approved Specials

If you wish to contribute to one of our specials (vehicle funds, building projects, etc.) you may select it from the Approved Specials List.

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