2013 - Around the CLC World

CLC USA – eBooks on the rise. In December 2012 they sell 1.000 eBooks for the first time in a single month. See the end of this year for the progress achieved!!
CLC Hong Kong closes its doors for the fi nal time after 37 years service. The demand for English books has gradually reduced in recent years. Praise God for all the Chinese books that have gone into mainland China over the years.
CLC Chile moves to a new warehouse. It is a property owned by the Bible Society, and we now share the building. It is great to work alongside the Bible Society and the facilities are a significant improvement on our former warehouse.

Central Asia 2 – two people came to know the Lord through the ministry of one of our bookshops. Praise the Lord that despite spiritual opposition, there is openness to the Gospel.
CLC Canada moves from its former HQ in Westmount, Montreal and opens a new shop in Verdun as the first step in a restructuring process.
Grigorij Torchilo steps down as leader of CLC Belarus after twenty years, having founded the work, developing it across the country and initiating the publishing program.

CLC UK gets free publicity on BBC radio! A campaign to sell the ‘Real Easter Egg’, with a clear explanation of the Easter story, is sold across the country. Reporters curious to find out more interview staff in CLC London.
CLC Canada restructuring Stage Two. A new bookshop opens in Est, attached to a Bible College, and a combined bookshop / warehouse opens in Broussard.

CLC leaders from around Europe meet together in Budapest, Hungary for leadership training, focusing on website development, social media and publishing. We are joined by business consultant Elba Carrizo.
More than 6.000 people gather in Debrecen, Hungary to hear the inspirational author, Nick Vujicic. Our local bookshop provides a book stall for the event.
Sotos & Eva Photiadou continue to be concerned about the economic situation in Cyprus, affected by the Greek economy. Th eir prayer is that financial hardship will cause people to seek the Lord.

CLC Hamburg, Germany has the huge responsibility of coordinating all the book tables for a large national gathering of protestant Christians – 150.000 people were expected.
CLC Portugal participates in the Coimbra book fair.
CLC USA sends an intern, Ben Saxe, to Burkina Faso in French West Africa, to help our local National Director, Prosper Weda. Prosper is trying to improve his level of English!

ICRS is a time for a number of CLC teams to meet from the English speaking world. Th is trade fair was held in St. Louis this year. As well as meeting with suppliers, the CLC leaders meet to discuss joint plans. Th is has produced an increase in publications in recent times.
CLC Papua New Guinea participates in the National Book Week which emphasises children’s books.

CLC Myanmar Director, Jacob Mung, suff ers a signifi cant heart problem. By God’s grace, he had met some Korean missionaries a few weeks earlier and they offered to pay for him to have treatment in Korea. God is good!
Romania sends missionaries to the UK! Cristi & Ane Cotovan, with their three girls, move to the UK to further develop CLC’s digital strategy. Cristi is based at the International Office.
The roof of the Mubai, India bookshop collapses. Happily, no-one is hurt but the repairs take some time.

CLC Bolivia opens its doors to the public for the first time in Santa Cruz. Gamaliel and Marlene Padilla moved to Bolivia earlier in the year from Venezuela. Importation of books is complicated by the fact that Bolivia is a land-locked country and the books have to cross the Andes from Chile.
Central Asia 1 receives a significant order of books and Bibles in Russian. This is a complicated process and a cause for rejoicing. Many of us take the supply of books for granted.
CLC Korea increases its publishing significantly this year, releasing many new titles.

Although only 3 years old, the warehouse in Valencia, Venezuela was severely damaged by a fi re in the adjoining building. The repairs will take many months.
The Regional Directors’ Meetings took place in Africa for the very first time. A week of meetings in Nairobi, Kenya provided great insight into the issues facing our African brothers and sisters.
Yulia Shabalina gets married and moves to the USA, after many years of service in Central Asia and Moscow. Below, the CLC Moscow team with Bibles from Belarus.

CLC Colombia makes progress towards opening a bookshop in Miami, adjacent to their warehouse, and a new work in Mexico City.
CLC Romania places an order for the second print run of a successful bilingual children’s Bible, and prepares to publish a number of other titles.
CLC Canada has celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the work in Quebec.

Huge disruption is caused outside our bookshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The situation is made perilous when a crane falls into a collapsed section of road, threatening to fall on our shop.
Two containers are sent from CLC USA – one for Sierra Leone and the other for Liberia, with much needed supplies of Bibles together with new and second hand books.
Parts of the Philippines are devastated by Typhoon Haiyan. CLC workers look for ways to send practical support to the victims.

CLC New Zealand closed its bookshops last year, but they are still active! They send thousands of Christian calendars to prisoners.
ELS/CLC India is preparing to open a new work in Sri Lanka, some years after we were forced to close our operations there.
eBooks continue to grow! After selling 1.000 eBooks for the first time in December 2012, CLC USA sales have been significantly over that mark every month in 2013. Technology is here to stay!
Th e CLC eReader app is making progress. Neil Wardrope signs a contract with Renato Fleischner of Mundo Cristao, Brazil to enable us to sell their eBooks.