22 Dec Celebrating the Life of Clark Blakeman
December 21, 2016
Today our dear friend, brother, and team member Clark Blakeman stepped from this life to the next to be with Jesus. Clark was our Servant Teams Director at Lahash and served in a number of roles over the years including as a Board Member. He and his wife Cathy Blakeman served on staff for the past several years. Clark battled against cancer and eventually succumbed to the cancer today at 1 PM. He will be terribly missed!
Clark was everyone’s friend. He spent time with every person in every situation in life. He was transformed by Jesus and became a passionate disciple over the years. He served the local church and the international church with courage, dignity, compassion, and love. He would not get sucked into cynicism. He was eager to talk about God’s gift of salvation all the while serving in the most helpful and gracious ways in the community. His words matched his actions. Clark loved people from every nation, every ethnic group, and every religion. His faith gave him the power and the grace to hold fast to the truths of Christ while listening to and loving everyone he met.
Clark was passionate about the Kingdom of God. He was driven by higher ideals and would not compromise. These higher ideals and deeper integrity gave him intense compassion for “the least of these” and he was always on mission to love and serve the marginalized. His inspiration was Christ as he stepped out of his comfort zones and into the painful and less glamorous parts of our planet. In those less glamorous places he met with Jesus in the form of the hungry, sick, thirsty, imprisoned, and lonely. And in those places he found joy and warm relationships.
Many of us best know Clark for his teachings on Asset Based Community Development. He was convinced that the best way to lift up the local community and serve neighbors was to discover and enhance the assets already present. It is a way of giving dignity to each person and it spoke life into community after community around the world.
He was an excellent teacher, a great listener, a powerful preacher, a wonderful father, a loving husband, a visionary, and a gifted communicator.
As followers of Jesus we mourn this loss. We mourn with his wife and children. He has left a hole in our hearts that can’t be filled. But at the same time we have confidence that we will see him again. Jesus Christ was resurrected and conquered death. Clark is now free from his pain and is at home with his maker and creator. So as we mourn we also celebrate God’s work in this incredible friend’s life and our hearts are filled with hope and gratitude.
You have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.
See you soon
PHOTOS
Clark hands out certificates to the attendees of the 2014 Lahash conference in Mwanza, Tanzania.
Clark teaching Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) concepts at the 2012 Lahash Conference in Dodoma, Tanzania.
Leroy Barber leads Clark and the Servant Teams in a dicussion on missions and need for diversity in Christian leadership in the United States.
Clark Blakeman and the team heading out for a site visit.
Clark enjoys some conversation with Michael Gere in Dodoma, Tanzania.
Clark and Daniel Holcomb in Mwanza, Tanzania.
Clark and Cathy receive prayers as Clark’s cancer continued to weaken his body.
Clark prays over the kids served at the local church in Dodoma, Tanzania.
See more photos in our Remembering Clark Blakeman Photo Gallery.