During the last week in September the CLC International Council meetings took place just outside Rome. The Council should meet every four years, but due to Covid we were not able to meet together since 2016. It was a wonderful time of encouraging, learning, sharing and worshiping. There were 31 people attending from 21 different countries where CLC work, plus 5 outside guests. While English is the main CLC language, translation was also taking place to and from Spanish as well as French. These meetings are a little foretaste of heaven as the nations come together.
There were some significant decisions, discussions and presentations:
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Gary Chamberlin was re-appointed as International Director. Hervé Lessous (Europe), David Pabón (Latin America), Sohee Yoo (Asia) and Jim Pitman (North America and Caribbean) were confirmed as Regional Directors for the next four years.
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Ivano Cramerotti has been appointed as Digital Director. This is important as it is the first time someone with digital responsibility has been appointed to the international leadership group.
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Two countries were granted “Established” status within CLC, meaning that they have achieved a degree of stability and leadership. Those countries were Ivory Coast, represented by Martine Ouffoué, and Panamá, represented by Héctor Burke.
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We spent a wonderful time honouring both the Tyndale Publishing House and the Tyndale Foundation, represented by Sharon Heggeland and Peter Cerra. We have great commercial relationships with Tyndale in many countries. They have also supported CLC many times through the Tyndale Foundation. They were presented with a full-colour book of many of the CLC projects to which they have given grants. Finally, we honoured them by having Mercy Muthoni of CLC Kenya wrap them in Maasai blankets.
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We received updates of current donor projects. In India they are in the process of building a multi-purpose headquarters in Chennai; in Panama a plot of land has been purchased in the city of David with a view to building a mini plaza which will include a CLC bookshop and a CLC-run coffee shop; in Kenya the team is planning to build a new headquarters including a retreat centre for developing authors; for Myanmar we are planning on printing 20,000 Bibles in Burmese; and, for a wide variety of languages, an international project is underway to produce at least 25,000 children’s Bibles. It is humbling to see the faith targets that many of our teams have. See page 27 to donate to these projects.
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The award for the 2024 CLC Book Cover of the Year went to S. Korea. Second place went to France and third place to Kenya.
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It is our practice to have an excursion during our large group meetings. This always has a very positive impact on building our relationships and fellowship. What an amazing day we had visiting historic Rome and seeing monuments such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon and St. Peter’s Basilica. To top it all off, we enjoyed an excellent Italian pizza for lunch!
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We launched a significant upgrade of the CLC International website. Take a look at www.clcinternational.org. You can keep up with the latest news of CLC around the world.
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The eBook platform was presented. There is a website – www.clcebooks.com – with 7,500 eBooks representing six different languages. The iOS and Android apps are now available for download. We still consider ourselves to be in a beta testing stage while we iron out a few teething troubles, but it is substantially ready to go.
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On a personal level, as one of those ‘celebrated’ for nearing retirement, it was encouraging to see we have an emerging generation of CLC leaders around the world who will make an impact for many years to come. In the photo you can see a group from the Council who were all born in 1981 – Mat (UK), Monica (Ecuador), Sohee (South Korea), Daniel (Mexico), Ollivier (France) and Fritz (Canada).
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It has always inspired me to know that we are part of a worldwide family, serving the Lord with the same vision – albeit in very different circumstances. It is our desire to support and encourage those CLC ministries with less means than ourselves. At the same time, they inspire us by their commitment, faith and ingenuity. This was summed up in the theme of the Council – Stronger Together.
Neil Wardrope
Neil is the CLC UK Missions Director.