CLC Portugal
Started in 1985High Street Outreach:
Two Stories From Carlos Cunha
“CLC Portugal started an evangelistic programme as a follow up to the counselling ministry already offered in the bookshop to non-believers. We called the programme ‘Chronological Bible Study’; it was Bible teaching, evangelistic in purpose, to give people a panoramic view of the Bible, taking into account all different perspectives — historical, geographic, linguistic, etc. The project ran from 2009 to 2013 and, over this time, more than 15 people accepted Christ into their lives and are now serving in several evangelical churches in the city of Coimbra. Praise the Lord!”
“Every year, CLC Portugal participates in the city Book Fair, and the local council always offers to cover the cost of our bookstall and asks us to help them with the programme! We offer the only bookstall there that has live music for people passing by. We ask well known national singers to sing and play there, and they also have the opportunity to share their faith in Christ as well. The council is very happy because they have good music included in their programme at no cost to them.
The Power of the Printed Page
About 40 years before CLC Portugal was launched, literature work was, of course, carried out by others. Here is an unusual example:
A man turned up at the Vieira de Leiria dispensary one day saying that on the previous day, when on the neighbouring beach, he had noticed a bottle floating on the waves. Having got hold of it and opened it, he discovered it contained papers in a foreign language – or languages. However, as he turned them over, he came across something in Portuguese, which was John 3:16, on a sheet entitled ‘Good News in 20 Languages’ issued by the Printed Page Evangelistic Society of Belfast. The man knew that religious services were held in the dispensary so he thought someone there would be able to explain the mystery of the bottled papers. Thus, Sr. Veiera was afforded a good opportunity to tell him of Christ crucified and to supply him with Gospel tracts in Portuguese.
(Excerpt: ‘Clippings’, Floodtide Jan/Feb 1947)