Ray and Joanne Clark say they aren’t really interested in filling the pew — or the rocking chair.
The couple — members of East Brow Community Church, Ider, in Sand Mountain Baptist Association — came to Christ in their 50s and they knew from the get-go that they had no intention of sitting around.
From South Dakota to Brazil the Clarks have spent the last couple of decades burning up the road for missions.
It was a calling they say started with a prod from God — they knew there “must be more to being a Christian besides filling a pew,” so they thought they could “perhaps make a difference.”
After all it was someone getting out of the pew and reaching into their lives that brought them to Christ so late in life. They had “head knowledge” of God but no active faith and a Christian friend encouraged them to attend church. When they did their “veil of blindness” lifted, Joanne Clark said.
As they grew in their faith they got heavily involved in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Bryant, the church they had begun attending. Both taught Sunday School as well as classes on spiritual gifts. Ray Clark served as men’s ministry director and was overseer of the church buildings and grounds while Joanne served as Sunday School and Vacation Bible School director.
They loved serving in their church.
But it didn’t stop there.
It wasn’t long before they were involved at the associational level. Ray Clark became active in Constructors for Christ and spent a lot of time helping director of missions David Patty start Sand Mountain Association’s disaster relief teams, a very active ministry today.
Joanne Clark taught Spanish through Samford University’s extension program and for missions teams.
Patty described the couple as “friends, missionaries, servants.”
“In 2003 they helped me put together our first ‘associational’ missions trip,” Patty said. “They drove down to Laredo, Texas, and … we went across the border and met with an International Mission Board missionary friend who introduced us to some pastors. I came back (to Alabama) and got 41 people to volunteer for our first of many missions trips to Nuevo Laredo.”
And soon the couple was going themselves.
It started in Mexico and it just kept going.
In 2001 the North American Mission Board commissioned them as Missions Service Corps volunteer missionaries, a program they later became state coordinators of in Alabama.
They followed God’s call to Brazil, Arizona and to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota.
And they’ve filled pulpit after pulpit around the association and state encouraging others to do the same.
Inspiring others
It’s a passion and commitment that those around them have found inspirational — to the point that Sand Mountain Association recently dedicated its 2014 annual in the couple’s honor.
“Thank you, Ray and Joanne, for wanting to make a difference and wanting to do more for our Lord and Savior,” the annual read. “Thank you for the time, energy and encouragement you generously and willingly gave and for the sacrifices you have made. Many have been blessed through your giving to the Lord. … Congratulations on an honor you so richly deserve.” (TAB)
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