Clarence heard what the doctor was saying, but he refused to believe it. By now Richard was at his bedside, and silently father and son prayed for Katherine’s recovery. Richard also sent out messages asking for additional prayer, and soon HCJB was beaming the prayer request around the world. With so much prayer being offered up for his wife, Clarence was sure that her condition would improve.
On the ninth day Katherine did open her eyes and mumble. Clarence was right by her side and squeezed her hand tightly.
Katherine looked at him intently. “Why, you’re not the Lord!” she exclaimed and slipped back into her coma.
From then on Katherine slipped in and out of consciousness. Two weeks later Clarence made the decision to have her and himself transferred to the Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. He had learned that this was the best place for him to have more surgery on his shattered jaw.
The doctor had decided to postpone amputating Katherine’s feet, and her legs and feet were encased in heavy plaster casts. Her head was bandaged, as was Clarence’s, and Clarence knew they made quite a sight as they were loaded onto the airplane for the flight to New York. Richard accompanied them on the flight, and Nancy was waiting to meet them in New York.
When they finally arrived at Presbyterian Medical Center, a specialist took a look at Clarence’s jaw and declared, “I don’t think you will ever be able to talk again.”
“How about play the trombone?” Clarence wrote in response.
The specialist shook his head. “No way that’s going to happen either,” he said.
Clarence refused to believe what the doctor said, even after a second operation on his jaw and despite the fact that he had to suck baby food through a straw for sustenance.
Slowly and painfully both Clarence and Katherine began to heal. Forty-two days passed before they were released from the hospital with strict instructions for complete bed rest at home.
Katherine’s sister Ruth and her brother-in-law Chet picked them up from the hospital and took them to Talcottville, Connecticut, where HCJB had just bought a guest house. Katherine still had casts on both legs and was so heavily drugged that it was hard to tell how much her brain was functioning. Clarence was still in much pain, too, but now that the wire had been taken out of his jaw, he was determined to get his facial movements back.
Clarence put his total focus on his and Katherine’s recovery, and step-by-step, progress was made. Katherine had the casts removed from her legs and feet and was slowly able to relearn the skill of walking. Meanwhile Clarence practiced moving his jaw and mouth each day until he could unclench his teeth enough to mumble, then talk, then whistle, and finally play the trombone.
Katherine’s recovery, though, was much less predictable. The strong drugs took away her will to live, and days went by with her sitting on the sofa, staring listlessly out the window. Clarence talked to her about what was happening back in Quito and encouraged her to imagine a bright future for them as a couple. Thankfully the brain damage did not leave as much permanent disability as the doctor expected, and Katherine had recovered enough to be mother of the bride when Marjorie married Marvin Steffins six months later.
By the time Clarence and Katherine were well enough to travel back to Ecuador, it was October 1955. On their way to Ecuador they stopped off in Panama to visit Clarence’s brother Howard and his wife, Lillian, who were now helping to run radio station HOXO, a local Christian radio station that had been taken over by HCJB.
The Joneses arrived back in Quito just in time for the opening of the Rimmer Memorial Hospital in the city. This was HCJB’s latest venture built under the direction of Dr. Paul Roberts. Clarence was impressed with what he saw. The hospital was a two-storied structure, with offices and an outpatient department on the bottom floor. The second floor housed the operating room, maternity rooms, and other wards. Paul explained that the hospital could accommodate thirty patients at a time and fifteen newborn babies.
The staff at the radio station had also grown considerably in the time Clarence and Katherine were away, leaving many new missionaries and national workers for the couple to get acquainted with.
Not long after Clarence returned to Quito, Nate Saint, Missionary Aviation Fellowship’s pilot in the Oriente, flew into the city. As usual he visited Clarence, and the two men began talking about life in the jungle. Nate explained how the HCJB clinic at Shell Mera was a real blessing, not only to the missionaries in the area but also to the local Indian population. He looked forward to the clinic’s growing into a full-fledged hospital and told Clarence that he and another young missionary serving in the area, Jim Elliot, had begun work on the building to house the new hospital.
A month later, on January 8, 1956, five young missionaries, including Nate Saint and Jim Elliot, were reported missing in the Ecuadorian jungle. It was gravely feared that the five of them had been killed by the Aucas, the same savage Stone Age tribe that had in the past harassed and killed a number of workers for the Shell Oil Company.
When Clarence heard that Nate and four other missionaries were missing, he dispatched Abe Van Der Puy to Shell Mera to help with the search-and-recovery operation. Clarence remained in Quito to relay reports from Abe to the radio station’s worldwide audience. Three days later Abe reported that it had been confirmed that the five missing missionaries were all dead. The Aucas had speared them to death on the banks of the Curaray River. Suddenly HCJB was besieged with reporters from around the world, wanting to know what had become of the missionaries, why they had gone on such a dangerous mission, and whether any others planned to follow them. Clarence took the opportunity to share the hope of eternity with them all.
As a result of the death of the five missionaries, many people became interested in seeing Nate Saint’s vision for an HCJB hospital at Shell Mera come to fruition. Money began to flow in from around the world for the project, and Back to the Bible radio commentator Theodore Epp also took up the challenge of raising money for the venture.
Despite the sad beginning to 1956, Christmas that year was a great encouragement to Clarence and the workers at HCJB. Christmas Day 1956 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of HCJB. Ecuadorian President Galo Plaza presided over the anniversary celebration and ended the event by encouraging the staff with the words, “I hope you are here to remain with us forever. I am sure that is the heartfelt wish of all Ecuadorians.”
During the anniversary celebration, Dr. Carlos Andrade Marin, the mayor of Quito, also gave a speech. Afterward he and Clarence reminisced about how, as a young secretary for the president of Ecuador, Carlos had kept placing HCJB’s application for a radio license on the top of the pile of papers on the president’s desk.
The twenty-fifth anniversary also marked the inauguration of the new 50,000-watt transmitter and antenna at Pifo, once again extending the reach of HCJB’s signal around the world.
The next milestone occurred in May 1958, when Clarence and many others gathered to dedicate the new twenty-bed Epp Memorial Hospital at Shell Mera. Theodore Epp, who had helped raise so much money for the project, was on hand to unveil a commemorative plaque that read,
Voice of the Andes Hospital
of the eastern jungle in Shell
Dedicated to the Glory of God
May 10, 1958
“NOT BY MIGHT NOR BY POWER,
BUT BY MY SPIRIT”
By now Clarence was fifty-seven years old, and the car accident had made him think about handing over the leadership responsibilities of HCJB to someone younger. As he looked around for the right person, he noted, “I’m looking for aptitude, attitude, and action; for a person who has spiritual impulse, the certainty of God’s motivation that will carry him on in spite of the obstacles. I’m looking for someone who is willing to work harder than anyone else and who won’t ask anyone else to do what he is not willing to do himself. Leadership is the ability to follow up on what you think should be done. It takes guts, tenacity, and stick-to-it-iveness.”
It was clear to Clarence as he looked around that Abe Van Der Puy fit the criteria. Clarence approached the board of directors and discussed with them the idea of grooming Abe as his replacement. The board agreed, and Clarence began the process of handing over his day-to-day leadership role to a younger man.
The growing ministry continued to face new challenges. Television was the latest technical innovation, and Marian and her husband, Bob Clark, were put to work pioneering Christian TV programs that HCJB could broadcast. In addition, the roster of languages the radio station broadcast in continued to grow.
Before Clarence stepped down from his position, the board of directors had one last request of him. They wanted Clarence to go on a world tour of missionary radio stations to stir up interest in Christian radio and report back on how they could all work together more closely.
Clarence was delighted with this assignment, especially since Katherine now felt well enough to join him on the thirteen-month trip. The couple set out from Quito in late 1958 to travel through South America. Everywhere Clarence went, he spoke and conducted seminars on “How to produce radio programs” and “Radio, the new missionary.”
From South America Clarence and Katherine headed north through the Caribbean islands and up the East Coast of the United States. While in the United States, Clarence was particularly gratified to find that Lance Latham had taken the boys’ and girls’ clubs they had started together at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle years before and turned them into a national network of Christian children’s clubs. Lance had called the clubs Awanas and credited Clarence as the founder of them. “Nothing you do for God is wasted,” Clarence told Katherine as they visited one of the clubs to tell the children about their work in Quito.
From the United States Clarence and Katherine sailed for Europe, then traveled on to Africa, Israel, India, Thailand, Cambodia, and Singapore. Everywhere Clarence went, he tried to show the value of radio in reaching with the gospel into difficult areas where there were people who would not go inside a Christian church. He also took a shortwave receiver along with him on the trip, and each night he and Katherine would tune in to see what was happening back in Quito. Even in places as remote as Irian Jaya and the hills of Western Australia, the signal was strong enough for clear reception. Often Clarence and Katherine would hold hands and marvel at the amazing things they had accomplished in their twenty-seven years with Radio HCJB.
In November 1961 Clarence and Katherine returned to Quito, where it was time for Clarence to hand over the role of president of the organization to Abe Van Der Puy. Abe had already proved himself by doing a great job of running the operation while Clarence was traveling, and so it was not difficult for Clarence to hand the reins of leadership over to Abe.
The board of directors did not want Clarence to retire altogether, however, and neither did Clarence. Instead they appointed him Ambassador at Large for the World Christian Radio Fellowship and asked him and Katherine to do as much speaking around the world as they could. The arrangement suited Clarence well, and he had soon set up a rigorous schedule for speaking engagements at Bible conferences and church meetings.
The years rolled by, and the Jones family spread out across the American continent. Marian and Bob Clark stayed on in Quito with their three children. Richard and his wife, Carol, moved with their four children to Panama, where Richard helped run radio station HOXO. Nancy married a man from Chicago named Bob Sutherlin, and they produced three children in quick succession, while Marjorie and Marvin Steffins had six children. A total of sixteen grandchildren kept Granny and Grandpa Jones very busy!
