The Clow Communicator
March/April 2020

This is not the newsletter I expected to write for March/April.  I expected to share with you about the churches I got to visit.  I expected to tell you about John hosting new teammates (currently support raising to join the team in Teguc.) on their short visit to meet the La Ceiba team. Expected to share with you about Holy week in Honduras and how we celebrated.  To share with you how we were staying cooling in one of the hottest months of the year.

Instead....as are all of you....we are social distancing which canceled 2 of the three churches I was to visit.   I was able to visit and speak to our supporting church in KS.  Both girls got to join me, which was a huge blessing! One church, I joined in viazoom for an online service.

I arrived in the States on March 12th, with my return date being March 31st.  Since unable to return home, I have been staying just south of Abi, in a borrowed apartment.  Gracious friends of friends, members of a TX PCA church, have a detached apartment on their property.  Josiah and I have been staying here.  Abi has had the opportunity to join us on the weekends.

John and Evan are on lockdown in Honduras.  I am so impressed with how Honduras jumped on it and shut the country down when there were just a few cases.  Everyone in Honduras has been allowed one day a week (based on the last digit of their id card) to go to the grocery store, bank and get gas.Just this week, the hardware stores were allowed to open back up.

After waiting and waiting for Honduran government approval for me to return home (and permission for John to travel to the airport to pick me up), we received word from the lawyer that we have been approved.  LORD willing, I will return home this Sunday, May 3.  Please pray the LORD will continue to open doors. Please specifically pray for these hurdles: 1) the Delta agents will accept the paper work and allow me on the plane. 2) Honduran immigration will accept the paper work and allow me to enter the country. 3)  I will be allowed to 14 day quarantine at home and not in a separate location.  4) the national police will accept John's approval papers to travel and allow him to pass through the checkpoints. 

Picture of Rebekah, Kathy and Abigail visting Grace Fellowship in Coffeyville KS on March 15. The last Sunday Churches were allowed to hold services.

John submitted a request for an MTW Ambassadors grant.  We just received word that it was approved!  Read on to find out how you can be a part!

The Lord is blessing our church plant in Tegucigalpa (Iglesia Presbiteriana Gracia Sobrerana) in a mighty way.  People are hungry for the gospel of grace and it has grown rapidly.  With the ordination service of Josue close at hand, the church plant is well on its way to voting in place a session and becoming a particular church.  As we plan ahead towards planting more churches, forming a presbytery(s), and thus the start of a national Presbyterian church, we are thinking through how to prepare potential Honduran church planters.  Part of that preparation process will include serving an internship period in a church.  The long term plan is for each church to provide the resources to call, train and pay a salary for the intern.  In the short term, that funding will have to come from other sources. To get the internship funding started we have been awarded a 1 for 1 matching ambassadors grant for up to $10k.  This means that Ambassadors will award $1 for every $1 given to the project up the $10,000.  We are excited for this blessing and would ask you to consider helping us reach this goal.  We have an intern candidate starting the interview process with what will eventually be the session of the particularized church, IPGS in Tegucigalpa, very soon.  Lord willing if they are called and accept the call, he and his family would move to Tegucigalpa to start the internship soon after the Covid 19 travel restrictions are lifted.  For sure we covet your prayers for this goal to be met and the advancement of His church here in Honduras. If you would like to give towards this project the donation, the MTW Project number is: #82650.  Click on the link below to be directly taken to the online giving site. https://www.mtw.org/projects/details/la-ceiba-honduras-team

If you would rather mail in a check,  the address is:
MTW
P.O. Box 744165
Atlanta, GA 30374-4165 

John and Kathy Clow
MTW - Honduras