How It All Started...Page 1

Hello, my name is John McClung and I am a friend of
Donnie Luper. Upon his return from Suriname, he told
my wife and me about some interesting things that are
happening there. I'm not sure how much he shared with
you (about us); so allow me to tell you how the Lord
is directing us. We both are feeling the call to go
into missions. My desire is to teach missionary
children and possibly indigenous children.
I have a B.A. in Elementary Education with emphasis in
Special Education. I am currently certified to teach
Elementary Education K-6, Mentally Impaired K-12, and
Learning Disabled K-12. Presently, I am teaching 5th
Grade regular ed. This is my second year teaching 5th
grade regular ed. I taught Special Ed. for 4 years
prior to this. Three years was at the High School
level and the 4th year was at the elementary level.
My wife has a B.A. in Psychology and an M.S. in
Rehabilitation Counseling and Vocational Evaluation.
She is a certified rehabilitation counselor and a
certified vocational evaluation specialist. She
currently works for the state of North Carolina in a
local high school as a counselor in a transition
employment program. During her free time, my wife
assists me with my clerical duties required from
teaching. We both would like to know what your needs
are and how/if the Lord could use us in Suriname. We
are curious about job positions/descriptions, housing,
salary(?), etc. We are eager to get into the mission
field by next Aug/Sept.
As for our Christian Service, we are both Youth
Leaders (along with Donnie Luper and his wife) at our
local church. I attended one year of Bible college in
1986. We both have participated in short term
missions. We both have a close, intimate relationship
with Christ. We strive daily to be closer to Him, and
we strive daily to be obedient to His will.
We are praying diligently, and trusting that God
places us where He wants us.
I encourage you to reply and we both covet your
prayers.

Thank you,

John and Patricia McClung

Dear John and Patricia:

Thank you for you email. It is exciting to let the Lord lead - scary too at times. The school is in a transitional stage at this particular time. It has been largely a SIL staffed school and we are gradually changing over to
a direct hire staff. The school is now affliated with the Network of Christian International Schools, www.nics.org . If you are looking at a long term
commitment for overseas I would recommend that you raise some support so that if you plan to start a family or already have one you will have a support base in place. You can use NICS as your sending agency. The
school will provide housing and utilities. It will be necessary to raise support for your airfare and local transportation. My wife and I live on the
school's salary for a single teacher - about $400 - $500 per month. You will need to raise support to complement this salary. A used car costs US $4500 - currently gas is less expensive than in the US $.40 per liter.

If your wife works at school she would also be entitled to a single salary. I would advise her to take in some of the College Board workshops for high school counsellors. At the present time we offer the University of
Nebraska correspondence course to high school students but we are moving away from that to a traditional high school. I can picture Patricia being the high school college counsellor as well as assisting in overseeing the
correspondence program during our transition. I think it may be possible to develop a American college counselling ministry through the US Embassy
as a sideline and an interesting area of ministry. Check out my previous school's website for what I would like to see happen here www.ics.edu.hk Look under
"resources" and "colleges and universities" to see how the program was
developed in Hong Kong. You can email Sue Farley at ics@ics.edu.hk for a description of what she is doing.

We are anticipating a growth of the school in the area of reaching the
host
country population as well as serving the missionary community. I am new to the school. I was the founding principal of the International Christian School in Hong Kong for the past eight years. I envision that the American Cooperative School could develop into a smaller version of ICS Hong Kong. I have been in the Christian schools ministry for the past 36 years with
four years in public schools.

Send me your questions and I will try to answer them.

Frank Martens