Clarence W Jones Grave

From Reach Beyond (HCJB):

One Sunday morning at Lake Harbor, Paul Rader gave a missionary challenge, and at the invitation, Clarence, who had been leading the singing, went forward to give his life for missionary service.  Rader was greatly moved. “God bless him.  We need Clarence Jones here in this work.  But if God wants him in missionary work, that is what we want for him.”

Not long after, Clarence was sitting in the service at Lake Harbor as missionaries Ed and Carol Carlson told of their work in Tibet; but what tugged at Clarence’s heart was their personal tragedy in having both of their children die on the long trek home. Yet tears of joy were on their cheeks as they told of their experiences of walking with God in very difficult situations. Despite their sorrow and loss, they were going right back to the place where God had called them.

Clarence recalled, “I thought of my two little girls in the cottage with Kath—Marian had just turned two and the new baby. What if I had been them? Would I be willing to give them up?”

The Lord spoke to Clarence Jones that night in a voice so clear that Clarence was sure it was audible to all around. Just as God had said to Philip in the book of Acts [8:26], “Arise and go south” to Clarence He spoke the same words, but added “with radio.”

“Go South with radio? Is that what God has been training me for? What about Kath? Often she has said that one reason she was content to marry me was that she knew with the work I was involved I, I would never be a missionary. And that suited her just fine.”

Clarence walked along the beach after the service, his head and heart whirling, yet he felt a strange quiet certainty. “Here I was in a fervor of missionary zeal, setting up conferences and programs for missions, and now it was turned around, pointing right at me. Would I leave this fruitful work, an area where God was obviously blessing, and set out for a spiritual desert?”

When Clarence returned to the cottage, he didn’t tell Kath of God’s call, nor that he had answered yes. But at breakfast the next morning, Clarence broached the subject: “Kath, if the Lord were to call us to the mission field, would you be ready to go?” Kath came around the table and wrapped Clarence in her arms. “It’s all right, dearest heart. Last night while I was putting the babies to bed and you were in the service, the Lord came to me, and very plainly He asked, ‘Kath, will you go?’ Yes, my love, we will go.”