May 2020 Update from Roger and Barbara Clark

Shelter in Place. Sounds pretty dire, but it’s really pretty good advice for life. Wherever you are, stay there as long as God tells you, and take care of yourself and those with you.

Coronavirus has definitely impacted our lives here in Idaho serving with MAF at HQ. Both Carol and Tom are attending Northwest Nazarene University, Carol as a junior in nursing and Tom as a sophomore in physical therapy / sports medicine. The campus is now closed, and both kids are living at home and carrying on their studies online. I would imagine that moving home with your parents is pretty low on the scale for any college student! Thankfully both kids are very driven and doing well. All of us under one roof is a blast from the past and definitely has its fun times! Their campus will be closed until the fall semester in August. Robby, a sophomore at Nampa Christian school, is now on “homeschool” as well, and Barb is proving to be a capable high school teacher, with just a bit of duress!

MAF HQ campus is shut down with just a skeleton crew paying the bills, printing and mailing. Much of our support of overseas programs is via email so that continues. I recently called the guys at the hangar in Lesotho just to catch up and see how the Corona situation was treating them. I was surprised to hear that South Africa had quite a few Corona cases and in response had throttled back most of their borders. As you may remember, Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa. As of now, Lesotho is reporting no cases of the virus. Every family on the MAF team opted to stay in country and keep serving with flights and maintenance even if it means not leaving for care if the virus makes a toehold into the country. Up until this point in my phone call, I had pretty much just been thinking about myself, my family, and the US politics of the pandemic. Wow. It was a stark reminder of the commitment of our MAF staff and the real risks they face.

I had planned to head to Haiti this spring for an airplane repair and inspection project, but as of now have put it on hold. I was also hoping to get back to Africa this summer to help with maintenance in Lesotho, but it looks like that’s in a holding pattern as well. Carol had planned on going to India with her local church, but now the team is waiting until this blows over. Many of you received her letter and generously supported her… thank you! The trip will still happen, just a little later. Robert also had his first missions trip planned with his youth group to head to Guatemala this summer and has been hard at work saving up to pay for the trip. It looks like that will wait until we get the all clear to travel again.

So here we are at yet another bend in the path, this one quite unexpected for us all. Sheltering in place. Thank you for your years of faithful prayers and giving.