Much has been written about the centre of Christianity moving to the global south in recent years. This has certainly been true in the CLC ministry around the world as we have seen the Lord allow our teams to grow and expand in Latin America, Africa and India. Our CLC team in India works under the name ELS (Evangelical Literature Service) and they were delighted to be able to open two new stores in 2011. These new stores in Ooty and Vizag bring the total number of ELS stores to 19. They provide vital resources to the exploding evangelical church in this rapidly developing nation. Please pray for Christopher Robert (the CLC team leader) and the many ELS workers as they struggle to provide the needed resources in a land hungry for the gospel. There is a specific need for more English Bibles these days and the CLC USA team can use donations of quality used Bibles and donations to purchase new Bibles that we can send in our next container shipment to them. In 2011, we were able to send two separate containers to India and we have more shipments planned for 2012.

What a year 2011 has been for the CLC team in Kenya! And through it all, God has been faithful.

The CLC work in Nairobi began in 2007 with the simple idea that Christian books needed to be more widely available in Kenya. Most local Christian bookstores had to order their products from the USA and UK and wait months for them to arrive. Rather than start a new bookstore initially, CLC opened a distribution center to supply the local needs by carrying larger numbers of popular and important titles. Right away, the availability and accessibility of key titles improved and the demand continued to grow.

Based on this initial success, CLC started supplying local churches and ministries as well as Christian bookstores in Kenya and surroundin

g countries. One local church appreciated the work of CLC so much that they invited us to establish a bookstore on their campus. As a result, our first Bookshop-In-A-Box project was launched and a bookstore was opened on the church campus in what used to be a shipping container. This refurbished container was a great way to make books available in a strategic location at a reasonable cost. CLC is now looking at launching several more Bookshops-In-A-Box projects in other parts of Africa.

Early in 2011, our warehouse street sign was removed by the local city council officers with no advance warning because they claimed it was causing some sort of obstruction. For some time before this incident, the CLC Kenya team had been praying that “the presence of God would saturate CLC Kenya so much that people passing by the property would be drawn in with a desire to know God.” The week after the sign was taken down, a man walked in and said that he wanted to know Jesus. This was particularly amazing because there was no sign even on the building to indicate that CLC was a Christian organization at that moment. The man became a Christian and the team w
Late in the year, a group of men armed with spears and pangas (a type of machete) cut through the fence around the CLC property in Nairobi in the middle of the night. They tied up Gideon, the watchman who lives on the premises, and then tried to enter the building. Despite their sharp weapons, they were unable to break the grills over the windows or the padlock on the door. They also tried to break into Gideon’s home but they couldn’t open the door. A few personal items were taken from him, but he was unharmed.as delighted to share the truths of the gospel with him.

Despite these challenges, the team continues to advance, and two new stores were opened at the end of the year. One is located in the university town of Kakamega and the other is a town called Eldoret. Interestingly, while our team was interviewing potential candidates to manage the store in Kakamega, a person who applied was actually led to the Lord during the interview. Please pray for God’s continued protection of our team and for the success of these two new literature outlets.

Note: The following report came from a CLC bookstore in a country in Central Asia which we will not identify because of security concerns.

A young lady came into the store, looked at books on interpersonal relationships, and ended up purchasing Josh McDowell’s book The Secret of Loving.  This book clearly makes the point that you need to have God’s love in your life before you can really love other people.  This point caused the young lady to return to the store with many questions.  She told the staff that she had actually been more interested in Satan than God, but now she wanted to learn more about God!  This time she bought another Christian book, Lies Women Believe, which is full of promises from the Bible.

When she came back to the store the third time, a few weeks after her first visit, she again asked about what she’d been reading.  A staff member sat down with her and not only answered her questions, but more importantly explained to her how she could receive forgiveness and new life in Christ.  This time she prayed with him to receive Christ right there in the store!  Praise the Lord!

Having originally desired to improve her relationships with others, she ended up improving the most important relationship of all, with Jesus Christ!  And as she grows in her newfound faith, she will probably be making progress on accomplishing what she’d set out to do, getting along better with other people!

Central Asia

This may be a little harsh, but for those that say that they really do not enjoy reading, I would suggest that maybe they are in the wrong business or they need to reconsider their priorities. For most of us who do enjoy reading, it is one of the greatest joys in our lives.

This past week I came across a very insightful article by James Stewart  in the Wall Street Journal about the current situation at Barnes and Noble.  After describing why he felt that B&N was not a good current investment, he went on to share his thoughts about independent book retailers.  This is what he said:

“I do miss the bookstore I grew up with in the Midwest and the small stores that once dotted my neighborhood. Could B&N’s decline pave the way for the return of the independent bookseller?  Despite the array of suggestions tailored to my interests (or at least to my recent purchases) that appear when I open the Amazon site, I still yearn for someone intelligent who can recommend a good book. I enjoy the community of other people who love books. I like talking to someone both before buying a book and after reading it. I think independent bookstores may be able to provide these services even while selling over the Internet. Their overhead should be lower, since they don’t need to carry huge inventories of physical books and don’t need huge retail spaces. Maybe I’m naive, but I’d like to think there are new opportunities for booksellers.”

After reading these highly encouraging words, a terrible thought struck me.  Are we independent Christian book retailers really going to be able to provide the experience that he remembers and still longs for?  With all the stores that have closed and with so many great long term retailers having gotten out of the business, are we who are left really able to take up this mantel effectively?  After about two minutes of wallowing in the possibility that we might be doomed after all, the optimist in me returned and I began to get excited again.

I think that the key to what James Stewart was saying resides in the words intelligent, community and people who love books. Over the years it has been my observation that the Christian retailers who loved what they did and were successful were book people and hired book people.  To my dismay, however, on all too many occasions, I ran into colleagues who confessed that they did not read much.  The two reasons that I was given for this surprising reality was either they were too busy running their stores or they actually did not enjoy reading.  In our current economic environment I have come to the conclusion that we must all become avid readers or we will die and maybe faster than Barnes and Noble.

For those who say that they are too busy to read, I refer you to the excellent Bill Hybel’s book entitled, Too Busy Not to Pray and I would contend that we are too busy not to read.  No Christian retailer worth their salt can afford to ignore this aspect of their business.  We all need to commit to put down our iPods and cell phones, turn off our televisions, and take a Facebook fast.  Making time every day and certainly every week to  immerse ourselves in books and authors that God has given us the privilege to represent has to be one of our biggest business priorities.

This may be a little harsh, but for those that say that they really do not enjoy reading, I would suggest that maybe they are in the wrong business or they need to reconsider their priorities.  For most of us who do enjoy reading, it is one of the greatest joys in our lives.  If a person is running a Christian retail store and really does not enjoy reading and still wants to stay in the business, they must at least have someone on their team who loves to read and can help instill this passion in the rest of the team.

So why am I optimistic after all?  This past summer, I have had the opportunity to get to know a number of young college students who were interns with our ministry and discovered that they really enjoyed reading, were intelligent and longed to build the types of community settings that James Stewart talked about in his article.  We had lots of conversations about authors, ideas and books that were shaping their lives.  These folks are the next generation of Christian retailers, writers, editors and Christian book consumers.  I firmly believe that they will work for current Christian retailers if we give them opportunities to take on significant responsibilities within our operations and even for the modest wages that we can afford. Their enthusiasm will infect our customers and may even re-energize those of us who have been around for a while wondering if we can still keep going.

Reading is not optional for us as Christians and retailers, it is essential.  Praise God that he has gifted so many people to put words together in such a way that they can actually change lives.  I am eternally in debt to the writers that have affected my life and I am committed to sharing this passion for reading with all those that I come  in contact with.  The next time that I am tempted to simply “vegetate” in front of the TV, I am going make sure that I have a book nearby that can help me to overcome that momentary and passing temptation.

CLC Cebu is a branch of CLC Philippines and has three areas of outreach: retail bookshop, wholesale distribution and bookstalls or kiosks in churches and schools. Our purpose is to provide the people of Cebu with Christian books that will encourage them to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and to grow into mature Christians. We in CLC Cebu have extended our ministry to bookstalls so as to reach more of the people that don’t have time to go to our main bookstore. Currently one of these kiosks is located on the second floor of the Elizabeth Mall in Cebu City, Philippines (photo below). Cebu City is the oldest city in the Philippines and the main center of commerce and trade in the surrounding islands.

The Cebu branch has been open for seven years and we have two full time workers and two volunteers. We thank the Lord for His sustaining blessings! There are so many challenges that we face here in Cebu but we know that God is at work in our everyday events, and in the people around us. We really need to expand our bookstore here in Cebu so that we can better meet the needs of people by offering them a wider selection of products when they visit the shop.

We thank the Lord for what he has done in our ministry here in Cebu. Please pray with us that we will continue to achieve our goal and mission in 2011 and in future years.

Japan – All CLC workers safe
From Mitsuhiko Fujio, Japan Director

Thank you for all your prayers for the earthquake disaster.

In Japan, there have been two big quakes previously, in 1923 and 1995, but this was bigger than ever before. It happened at 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon, and all the CLC Stores were open for business. After checking all the CLC stores (including the customers in the shops), we found that all were kept safe and there was almost no damage to the merchandise.

However, all the trains were stopped in Tokyo and at the Ochanomizu [central Tokyo] store, the staff could not get home and had to stay in hotel.  Also a crack appeared on the Ochanomizu building and the shop did not open the next day. CLC does not work in the hard-hit Tohoku area, but there are some Christian bookstores in the Miyagi and Fukushima prefecture, and contact still cannot be made with some of these shops.

Japan is called the “many quakes country”

Pictures From Japan

and all the possible preparations that could be made were in place, but for this earthquake it was not enough. Now many Japanese people are in distress, having lost families, houses, and towns. Many churches have also been affected by the earthquake and floods.

Please pray that the believers can give encouragement and hope to those in distress. Pray that the workers of CLC Japan, who are still in shock from the quake, are encouraged by the Word, filled with the Holy Spirit, and able to cope with daily business. Pray that the tracts and books from CLC Japan will be widely used to introduce Jesus to those who are affected by the quake. The Bible says ‘Those who trust in Him will not be disappointed’. Romans 10:11

Colombia Flood Relief

There was severe flooding in parts of Colombia during the first half of December 2010.  CLC Colombia has had the opportunity to take supplies and books to badly affected areas. Between Christmas and New Year, Rubby Ariza and Kelly Gutierrez, from CLC Barranquilla, made the journey to Santa Marta where they bought over 200 bags of essential food supplies, to which Bibles were added, and then, after some difficulty, they hired a lorry to take them and the supplies to Plato, in the north of the country. The journey took much longer than normal because of the bad condition of the road, and the hire vehicle broke down – but as Rubby and Kelly say ‘the Lord always has His angels in place, and a passing truck driver stopped to help us’.  The food aid was given out from a church in Plato, and surrounding villages were visited by canoe.

The CLC team is grateful to God for support for this project from CLC Chile and Ecuador and from Nelson publishers. Unilit publishers have offered a donation of 5,000 books.

As Elsa Maria Noy de Sanchez, the Director for CLC Colombia says, “We trust in God even though life is painful”.