Pastor Paul had a very aggressive and fast-growing cancerous tumor removed from his pancreas on January 2, 2026. It grew from the size of a pea to a walnut in 4 1/2 weeks. The surgeon said that if he had not had a ‘gallstone incident’ recently where they had to remove his gall bladder, they would never have found the beginning stages of pancreatic cancer until it was out of control and too late. We all know that wasn’t just ‘lucky’ as the surgeon said, but was directly from our God of miracles.

After lots of battling with pain, low oxygen, high blood pressure, etc., PASTOR PAUL WAS DISCHARGED from the hospital in Kalispell on Friday, January 9th but the doctors requested that he and Joy stay more nights at a motel in Kalispell which they did. They needed the rest! They returned home on Monday, January 12th but recovery has been slow and painful.

He was prescribed a regimen of chemotherapy after several lymph nodes were removed and sent to the lab for testing. The results came back showing some cancer cells in some of the lymph nodes.

He started chemo on February 10th and then having with chest pains on February 12th, thinking it was probably a side effect of the chemo just to be proactive rather than reactive he went to the ER. While he was in the ER he had a heart attack which was immediately treated with by scoping his arteries and placing a stint. He went home today and is doing really well. He is very glad he went to the ER when he did.

A visit with the oncologist reassured Pastor Paul that the chemo treatment was mainly to eliminate intestine or colon cancer (where the cancer actually started) instead of pancreatic cancer (which has a much better success rate). They also changed the type of chemo after saying that 1% of those who took the first type of chemo he had were susceptible to heart attacks and they didn’t want to allow him to be part of that 1%.

Pastor Paul had a stress test on his heart on Tuesday, February 17, and they told him his heart was extremely strong and that he’d live a long time. We all agree with that and proclaim healing and total health both in regards to his heart and cancer diagnosis.

(Monday, March 9, 2026) Pastor Paul was, for the first time in over 2 months, preaching in all 3 services last weekend and his body responded well. He has another round of chemo tomorrow, Tuesday, so please pray for his strength and health.

While Pastor Paul is taking recovering from major surgery, we will keep any updates or changes posted here so you are able to know what is going on and know what to pray for. If you’d like, you may send cards to the church address, 6145 N. Montana Ave. Helena, MT 59602 and we will make sure they get to the McElroys.

Thank you for your prayers! They make a huge difference! They kept Joy alive a few years back and now they will do the same for our Pastor Paul.