January 2012 Update

Clodgo Corner Update - January 2012

Glenn, Tammy, Levi, and Gracen 

Missionaries in Spain with ABWE

Dear prayer and financial partners,

    We want to begin this update by letting you know just how much we appreciate you and the vital role you play in the ministry that God has called us to here in Spain.  Thank you for the time you spend in prayer and for your sacrificial giving!  Thanks for your eternal investment in the lives of Spaniards.

     Since our prayer letter in December, things have been moving right along.  The church in Coslada just had it´s annual meeting.   It is a great moment in the life of the church to reflect back upon the previous year and talk about the direction that we feel God is leading us in for the upcoming one.  Over the past year, the church has been involved in so many different activities - men´s and ladies Bible studies, AWANA, evangelistic Bible studies, The Zone (a youth activity), family camp, special outreach activities, kid´s club (VBS), and so much more.  It is a tremendous encouragement and blessing to work along side of the Spanish believers in the church and see their passion and dedication to the Lord.  

     One of the items on the agenda for our annual meeting was our furlough.  In June, we will be taking a 6 month furlough.  Please be in prayer with us that God would provide housing and the use of a reliable vehicle.  If you might be able to help us in any one of these areas or know of someone who might, please let us know.  Also, we will soon be contacting supporting churches in order to schedule a time to report on the ministry in Spain. However, we will also need to raise more monthly support.  We are currently only at 82% of our needed support.  Thanks in advance for taking these matters before the throne!  

Yours for the harvest in Spain,

Glenn, Tammy, Levi, and Gracen Clodgo

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!