Late October 2025

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Ever need to be in 3 places at once? Okay – you Parents have probably had more challenging demands like 8 places pressing for your presence at the same time …. Yesterday God, knowing my limits, allotted to me only 3. That was enough for the wimp, me. Hang with me for a minute for the abridged version. There really is a prayer need (or several) I’ll be sharing.

My niece Naomi’s car brakes have been slack so yesterday I took Julian to school. We then stopped by the car repair shop to see if they could look at Naomi’s car if we glided it in. They could. We did. With God at the controls Naomi got her car safely to the workshop. Next we swung around to pick up the rental car I had reserved. Nope. No car available. Okay – how would God orchestrate the day? I needed to:

1. Take my other resident niece Eva to Cape, 80 miles away, for a biopsy
2. Transportation was needed to pick up Julian from school at 3pm but I knew I wouldn’t be back in time.
AND 3. Sandy – our maybe unsaved 80+ year old, reclusive friend SANDY had called by brother Dan and me saying she thought she was fading away and didn’t want to die alone. Please come!

I missed her call because I was driving Julian to school & calls won’t ring through if I’m driving. Dan did get the call. Dan’s job is really iffy now due to lack of customers so when there is work he really can’t take the day off. He did go to her house though, get the fire department to come to let him in and requested an ambulance to take Sandy to the hospital. She tried to refuse to go but they chatted her into it … Dan gave the EMTs his business card with his phone number and took off very late for work.

That’s really what the MAJOR point of this letter and prayer need today – SANDY.

How God worked it out: Naomi sent out a prayer request to our ladies prayer group and one of the gals – dear Bea – said she could take care of picking Naomi up, getting Julian from school, and returning them home. Big THANK YOU, LORD and Bea!

With Sandy on her way to the hospital I was able to take Eva to her biopsy appointment. THANK YOU, LORD!

Once back in town we checked on Naomi’s car – no diagnosis or treatment yet. That “freed me up” to go check on SANDY – theoretically sedated, intubated and in ICU. Nope. No Sandy in ICU. She was still in the ER. I left my name at the ER registration desk requesting admittance to see her and was told to sit and wait. I sat. I waited. Some 45 minutes later … the nurse caring for SANDY had called my brother Dan to update him. He told her I was there waiting to see Sandy. End of my wait. I had about the next hour with Sandy who was indeed sedated, intubated, totally unresponsive — and being readied for a transfer — to Saint Louis. 2 ½ to 3 hours away ……….

Please pray for Sandy. She is extremely impoverished. Her rental house is awaiting official condemnation, literally falling to pieces around her. Holes in the floor. Iffy water supply. Porch walls pulling away from the floor leading to impending roof collapse. She has been downright adamant though about not wanting to move. To even bring it up reinforced her walls of resistance, “Please leave. I need my personal space.” Ever since first meeting her last December we’ve prayed for God to intervene and guide her (and us) into a better locale. This is it.

Sandy gave no emergency contact at the hospital. She maybe has an elderly cousin but they are seemingly estranged. She would never give us that name. Because of the circumstances the ER nurse caring for Sandy had contacted Dan about Sandy’s state. She was also open to letting me, as Dan’s sister, know SOME details. THANK YOU, LORD!!!!

That bring us to today. I woke up at 3am with Sandy on my heart. I’ll be taking my sister Faith to a 7:30 doctor’s appointment, dropping Julian off at school, checking on Naomi’s car and then ???? Maybe go find Sandy in St. Louis?? If she’s still alive ????

To be continued.

Please, please pray for Sandy, and the other needs in bold mentioned above. THANK YOU!!!!

I shared this picture in a letter earlier this year – Dan with Sandy, one of the times we took her food shopping at Walmart.

UPDATE!!

My apologies. I should have sent this out Saturday evening after our trip to St. Louis to see Sandy. She was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than I expected! But …. There were times when she was 100% lucid and rational in her thinking, and the next moment totally off the wall, disoriented, talking and making no sense. She was very frustrated that we were not taking her home that day.

My grateful thanks for how you have upheld her thru this crisis. Your continued prayers will be appreciated, especially for her salvation. She would stare blankly when I spoke of Jesus. She did let me pray for her before we left – though that too ended with the same vacant hollow gaze earlier mentions of Jesus had produced.

Please uphold the social service departments at Mercy hospital in St. Louis and here in Poplar Bluff as they attempt to evaluate Sandy, that they can make an accurate assessment and find help for her rehabilitation mentally and physically. Please pray for her need for a long term better living situation, too = someplace decent, safe, wholesome – with intact floors, walls, no sky showing around the ceiling; hot & cold running water, etc.

Thank you for caring and praying.

Because Christ came, we have ………………….

HOPE !!!!

Hope Sharp