Christmas Program at Coslada

Here are a few photos from the Christmas program at our church in Coslada.  They were 12 unsaved people in attendance.  Pray with us that God will use His Word to work in their hearts! 

December 2011 Prayer Letter

Catching up with the Clodgos…

     Since our last official prayer letter back in September, things have been very interesting in our house to say the least.  Our kitchen flooded twice due to a faulty water pressure regulator, the mother board on our “good” computer crashed and while it was in the shop being fixed a much older laptop that we were using crashed, and our car was in the shop – not once but three times!  However, despite all of these distractions, God was – as always – more than faithful and sustained us through each one of these unforeseen “blips” on the radar of our family´s life.  We also want to take this opportunity to once again thank all of you who gave to help pay for car repairs and the purchase of a new computer!

The Zone…

     Are you in The Zone?  The newest outreach at our church is called La Zona (The Zone).  Right now, the only teenager in our church is Levi.  So, in an effort to get to know some teens in our neighborhood, we are using our church as a youth activity center.  At the moment, this is a purely pre-evangelistic activity.  We have ping-pong, a foosball table (Thanks Pastor Roger!) and we bring Levi and Gracen´s Wii and hook it up to the church projector.  Here is what happened in November at The Zone. Levi´s classmate Sam started a group called One Town at a Time, a group of ECA students with a burden to reach unreached towns in Spain and, even though our church is established, we asked if our desire to start a youth center would fit into their ministry ideas.  It being a nice fit, we picked up 2 carloads of middle schoolers, most of them from the group OTaaT who meet weekly to pray, and a seminary student.  We got to the church, fed them a snack, and they went out in groups of 4 or so and handed out flyers, the same  ones we had posted all over the neighborhood earlier in the day.  We were astonished when a few minutes later, the kids came in droves!!!  At one point, not counting the kids from ECA who came to minister, there were at least 20 kids in our church from the neighborhood.   We couldn´t believe it.  Too many to even get all their names.  Some of the kids were frustrated with their friends when they couldn´t get their friends to leave!  Twister was a hit, the Wii was constant and the ping pong was intense.  They devoured the brownies the other mom had made and so Tammy promised them brownies in two weeks when we opened again.  When we were closing at 7pm the boys on ping pong were begging Glenn not to make them stop playing.  Adrián, Adrián, José, José, Eva, Andrea, Nicoleta, Pedro, Fabi, Luis, Dominique…  Of course, it was the loudest and dirtiest we´ve ever seen our church, but it was worth it!!  It was good for Levi to be involved in something like that.  His experience:  they were trying to invite a group and when they heard "church" they walked away but Levi said "Wii, food and ping pong!" and they came back to get the flyer!  They didn´t come that night, but you get the idea what it´s like to try to get teens into our church building. The idea is to break down barriers and eventually get to know them enough to have an influence in their lives. Last week we had about 15 kids come to hang out and break in the new foosball table.  We open every other Friday night.  Who knows when we´ll be able to have devotional talks with them or any of them would attend church...it could be years, but maybe it will be this Christmas to see our program on Dec. 23.  One of our church members is also coming to help.  You can imagine the prayer support from all of them since many of them grew up going to youth centers opened by other missionaries.

 Praises…

·         The provision of all the funds needed to pay for recent car repairs.

·         A pastor who gave so that we could purchase a foosball table to use in The Zone.

·         The joy it has been to study the Bible with an unsaved couple who has been attending our church.

Pray with us…

·         For the salvation of the couple that is going through the Bible study called The Story of Hope.

·         For our church’s Christmas program “The Million Dollar Question”.

·         For The Zone.  We now have contact with 20 or so teens. 

·         For our support needs.  We are currently about $1,500 per month under supported.

Contact information:

Calle Extremadura, 16

San Fernando de Henares (Madrid)

28830 Spain

Telephone: 011-34-91-207-9539

Skype: glenn.clodgo

Website: www.iglesiabautistadecoslada.com

Blog: http://clodgocorner.blogspot.com

Account number at ABWE: 13121

Watching the Children Grow

Many of you have heard us talk about the little boys who visit our church without their parents.  What a joy is has been to see them develop over the past few years!  Besides praying for them, hugging them, and teaching them about Jesus, one of the more practical things we have tried to teach them is how to sit still and quiet in church.  With that huge task in mind, I bought them notebooks and pens and now every Sunday, they get out their notebooks and draw, usually quietly.  Spongebob has his portrait on several pages and Patrick is also well represented.  As one would expect at this age, the boys are starting to write letters and even copy phrases they see around them.  Today as we were singing one little guy brought me his notebook and asked me what it said.  "TU AMOR POR MI".  "Your love for me", refering to God´s love.  I was overcome with joy to be able to tell this little fellow how much God loves us.  I prayed that the message of the song and his little note-taking would sink into his heart, and the hearts of the other 2 children there without their parents, coming from homes where God´s love isn´t a prominent message.  Well, I found myself so overcome, that then, I wasn´t quite able to sing the song myself!  In a flash I was going over the process in my life that led to that tiny interaction between me and little sweetboy.  A calling to missions, God's leading to Spain, so many financial supporters who have made it possible over the years, language school (thanks for praying me through that one!), a dozen sh´s, a hundred fingers to the lips, and countless hugs later, we arrive at this special moment.  "What does this say?"  That He loves us so much.   It's more than a phrase to copy from the powerpoint.  It´s the phrase that helps us love little ones with dirty fingers, that motivates us to get out of bed in the morning, that helps us love those who mistreat us, and makes us want to do it all over again and again.   TU AMOR POR MI.  His love for me.  immense!

Car Repairs

Dear praying partners,

      I want to thank all of you who have been praying for the financial needs that we mentioned in our last prayer letter and to ask you to keep praying. We went by the garage to pick up our car only to find out that is in need of more repairs that are going to cost about $300 more. (If it wasn´t for the fact that the mechanic is a fellow believer, I would have some serious doubts that maybe we were being taken. He is actually doing everything he can to help us save money on the repairs.) That means that our intial estimate of $1,300 is now at $1,600. If God should so lead you to help out with this need, you can give online at www.abwe.org or send a check to ABWE. PO Box 8585, Harrisburg, PA, 17105-8585. Our account number with ABWE is #13121. Thanks again for bringing this urgent need before the Lord!

Yours for the harvest in Spain,
Glenn

Kid´s Club

Dear Praying Partners,

This week we are having our annual kid´s club. It´s our version of VBS. Please be in prayer with us that this activity will reach out to many families and that a clear witness will go out! We will be meeting every day from 7PM to 8:20PM (Spain time). On Friday evening, along with a special snack, will be showing a powerpoint presentation of all of the pictures that were taken during the week and inviting all of the kids to our AWANA club which begins on September 30th. Keep praying! God is working!

Yours for the harvest,

Glenn, Tammy, Levi, and Gracen

Additional Information

Dear partners,

     In response to our prayer letter, some of you have asked where to send gifts. Forgive me for not having included that information in the letter. You can either give through ABWE´s website www.abwe.org or you can send a gift to the mission: ABWE, PO Box 8585, Harrisburg, PA. 17105-8585. Please designate the gift for Glenn and Tammy Clodgo, account #13121. Thanks so very much for bringing these matters before the Lord! He is faithful!

 

Clodgo Corner September 2011

Minute to Win It! (game time with youth)

Family Camp

     Many of you were praying for a successful and blessed family camp and, indeed, it was!  (If you receive our email updates you have already heard this, so bear with us.) It was the best camp ever!  We just keep repeating those words over and over to each other! At the camp, overall, there were about 100 campers. (20 children and more than 20 teens make up part of that number). In our class of 11-16 year olds there were about 20. A large number come from churched families. About 4 boys from 14-16 years of age came without belonging to any of the churches. Some of these fellows travelled over 8 hours to get to camp. (Can you believe it?) One of our greatest joys in ministry is answering questions like "Where´s Mark?" "Where´s Luke?". In our little church in Coslada, just about any one of our children is capable of finding books in the Bible thanks to the amazing team of children´s teachers we have. So you can imagine how fun it was to help some of those teens look up Bible passages. They read verses willingly. They enjoyed filling in their outlines each day. HERE´S THE BIG NEWS: On the last day of camp, Tammy saw one of the 12 year olds reading his Bible during free time.  She had a chance to ask one of the 16 year olds about his camp experience and he excitedly explained to her his plans to "keep on with the Bible and go to church". Does that excite you? It does us. We just got a big charge out of explaining how Heaven and Hell are constantly at war for each of their souls and the power of Jesus against all things we fear and all things that can have power over us. (Mark 4 and 5, Luke 12 were some of our passages.) We presented them with the gospel each day and challenged them to draw close to Jesus in all of life´s situations. We feel strongly that God started working in some of their lives long before camp and we are praying for His continued work in each of their lives. One way He worked was enabling us to take 2 girls from Coslada with us for whom many of you provided a camp scholarship. They had a great time, made a lot of friends and were presented with some great Bible truths and their life applications. We wish we could tell you some of the details of their lives...a situation that causes us to wonder what God would really like to do if He were just invited in. Thank you for giving and for praying for them.

Financial needs

     To begin with, we want all of you to know that we appreciate so very much your sacrificial giving that enables us to serve our Lord and Savior here in Spain.  In this regard, we are blessed beyond measure.  However, there are two very pressing needs that we would like to ask that you bring before the Lord with us…

1. Car Repairs: Our car is, once again, in need of some important repairs.  The current estimate is $1,300.  Please pray with us that God will supply the funds.  This is an urgent need.

2. Lack of monthly support: Over the past year or so, due to the financial crisis, we have lost several individual and church supporters.  Currently, we are about $1,500 per month under supported.  We will be taking furlough next summer and will need to raise this amount before ABWE will allow us to return to Spain.  However, in the meantime, we need your prayer concerning this important matter. 

What´s on deck in the coming months…

     Next week, we will be holding our annual kid´s club.  It is held in a small plaza right behind our church.  This year we are going to incorporate a bit of English with the hopes of attracting some of the kids who  attend a bilingual school located right next to the church.  On the last night of the club, we will be inviting the kids to come and visit our AWANA club which begins the 30^th of September (Thanks again RCCC!).   We are planning a marriage retreat for the upcoming fall or winter.        

We are praising God for…
o    A great spirit at the church!
o    A great family camp!
o    Arrival of the Byerlys!

 Matters of prayer for the next few months…

 o    Kid´s Club and AWANA, a youth ministry to start up

o    Bible Study we will be starting with a married couple who live in Coslada – pray for God to work in their hearts.
o    Ladies´ Bible Study
o    Plans for Marriage Retreat
o    Andy and Lindsey Messmer, Brenda Andrus, the Hagues, and the Duryees are raising support to come to Spain.
o    Needed funds to cover car repairs.
o    Our support level – we are currently about $1,500/month under supported. 

Thanks so very much for standing with us in prayer.  Thanks also for your faithful support!  Keep praying!  God is working!