Costa Rica News – There are no other words than “hero”.
It has been said that there is no greater love than for a man to give his life for his friends.
Kelly Clarke, youth pastor of New Covenant Church in Tyler, lived his life by these words, and ended it by these words, sacrificing his own life to save a child from drowning off the beaches of Costa Rica over Christmas.
“They went to the beach with Manuel Garcia and his family, Costa Ricans they’d known for years,” said Hannah Bower, outreach coordinator at New Covenant and a lifelong friend of Clarke’s. “Johnny’s son was in the ocean swimming, and the waves were getting high and there was a strong undercurrent, and he started going under. So Manuel swam out to try to save the boy, but he started getting tired.
Kelly swam out there and saved both of them, but the undercurrent pulled him down.”
There is a GoFundMe to help bring him home.
by Calvin Maynard, (edited by Dan Stevens), From Tyler Paper
