Many of the missionaries Clarence and Chet stayed with were working among the various and sometimes remote Indian tribes. Clarence loved to pull his polished trombone from its case and play it in many of the Indian villages they visited. Most of the Indians had never seen such an instrument before, and they laughed and giggled with delight as Clarence played.
As a musician, Clarence was fascinated by the small brass bands that seemed to be the center of entertainment in many of the small towns they passed through. The bands would gather in the town square in the evenings and play for all their worth on instruments that were tarnished and often dented and battered. Clarence had to admit that although the musicians were enthusiastic, the quality of the music they produced was not always very good. What did capture his interest was the way most of the bands had two drummers, who seemed to try to outdo each other in their playing, banging on the drums in often intricate and unusual rhythm patterns.
On one occasion, as Clarence and Chet were being driven over a steep mountain pass by a missionary, the Model T Ford they were riding in ran out of fuel. Clarence and Chet accompanied the missionary as he walked back along the road to a small village they had passed through. There was no gas station in the village, but the missionary managed to convince many of the local residents to drain the kerosene from their lamps into a can. The men carried the can back to the Model T and poured its contents into the car’s gas tank. Clarence had to admit that he was a little dubious about this solution to their predicament. After all, back home he had never heard of anyone running a Model T on kerosene. To his surprise, when the missionary cranked the engine, the car burst into life. Clarence and Chet quickly climbed in, and they were off on their way again. When they reached the cloud-shrouded summit of the mountain pass, the missionary turned off the engine, and the Model T coasted for three hours down the other side of the mountain.
Clarence and Chet also visited Venezuela’s oil fields located along the edges of Lake Maracaibo. The place was a buzz of activity as new oil wells were frantically being drilled. From the oil fields they headed back to Caracas, where through his contacts, one of the missionaries they had stayed with had been able to arrange a meeting with the president of Venezuela.
Since the government of a country controlled the airways of that country, Clarence knew he would need the backing of the Venezuelan government to start a Christian radio station in Venezuela. Of course, since Clarence felt that God had led him to Venezuela, he expected such permission to be merely a formality. So when he asked President Gomez for permission to build a noncommercial, nondenominational radio station and explained how it would bring news and culture along with the Word of God to the airways of Venezuela, he was surprised when the president shook his head. “You would be on the air, filling it with all kinds of things that would turn my people against me. We have no place for foreigners on the air here. We have our own religion,” President Gomez told Clarence.
Stung by this setback, Clarence and Chet decided to travel on to Colombia, hoping that the government there would be more open to a Christian radio station. But as in Venezuela, the government turned Clarence down, telling him once again that there was no place for foreigners on the airways in their country.
His spirit beginning to flag, Clarence moved on to Panama and then to Cuba, hoping that the governments there would grant him the permission he needed. But as in Venezuela and Colombia, the governments of both of these countries refused his request.
After seven weeks away, Clarence returned home to Chicago, dejected and with more questions than answers. Had he wasted his money on a pointless trip? Had he let his enthusiasm get ahead of his better judgment? And more important, had he really heard the voice of God telling him to go, or had it been his own mind? Clarence wished he knew the answers to these questions, but he didn’t, and he felt depressed and discouraged.
Katherine, on the other hand, having been alone with the two children for seven weeks and now pregnant with their third child, seemed to Clarence to be relieved that they would not be going anywhere right away. The initial zeal she had felt when God first spoke to her about going as a missionary had faded, and now she urged Clarence to forget the entire episode in their lives and again focus his energy on his ministry at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle.
Eighteen months later, Clarence was as busy as ever at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle. Despite all this activity, he could find no peace. Katherine had given birth to a son, but he had been a sickly child and had lived for only two days. The death of his newborn son deeply saddened Clarence, as did the fact that he still had no idea what going south with radio meant. And until he could figure that out, he resisted Paul’s urging that he and Katherine go to India and become missionaries there. This action put a distance between him and Paul that Clarence, despite his best efforts, could not bridge. Finally, in frustration and desperation, Clarence decided to give it all up—his vision for radio in South America and his work at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle. Instead, he would join the United States navy.
Chapter 6
A New Plan of Action
What do you mean the navy won’t take me?” Clarence asked the recruiting officer.
“Well, we can afford to be selective,” the officer replied apologetically. “What with the Wall Street crash and everything, a lot of men are trying to sign up. We’re only taking men with 20/20 vision, and yours is far from that.”
Clarence could not believe it. He had been sure that with his radio experience the navy would scoop him up and put him to work in a radio transmission room somewhere. But they did not want him, even with his radio experience.
As he walked toward the bus stop, Clarence felt an even worse failure than before. How was he going to support his family now? He still had his job at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, but ever since coming back from Venezuela, he had found it increasingly difficult to pump up the enthusiasm he needed to keep the work running smoothly. As the bus wound its way through the streets of Chicago, Clarence brooded on what he would tell Katherine when he arrived home.
Clarence wearily climbed the stairs of the apartment building, still not sure how to break the news to Katherine that he had been rejected by the navy. He had to wait for several minutes on the second-floor landing because someone was moving into one of the empty apartments. He gave a nod to a woman carrying a box of books, and then he looked again. “Ruth Miller?” he asked.
The woman turned and smiled at him. “Why, it’s Clarence Jones! How wonderful to see you again.”
“Are you moving in?” Clarence asked, realizing that it was rather obvious that she was.
“Yes, my husband and I are on furlough for a year, and we’re using Chicago as a base. Oh, my name’s Ruth Clark now. I married an Englishman born in Jamaica, and we have two children. How about you?”
“You know Katherine, of course, and we have two children, both girls. We’ll have to have you up for dinner soon,” Clarence replied.
“Wonderful,” Ruth said. “I’d love to catch up with you both and tell you about our missionary work in Ecuador.”
Clarence nodded and continued on up the stairs. He felt in a better mood now. Ruth had helped with the boys’ and girls’ clubs Clarence had established at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, and he remembered her as always being full of faith for what God could do. Perhaps, he hoped, some of Ruth’s faith would rub off on his family.
A week later the Clark family were seated around the table with Clarence, Katherine, and their two girls. Ruth’s husband, John, who was director of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Bible school in Ambato, Ecuador, regaled them with tales from Ecuador.
“You should see the countryside,” John told them. “It has everything from snowcapped volcanoes to tangled, green jungles, where trees grow a foot a day, to luxurious white, sandy beaches.”
“It sounds quite a bit like Venezuela,” Clarence blurted out. Instantly he regretted the comment. He did not like to talk about his failed trip south in search of a base for a radio ministry.
“Have you been to Venezuela?” Ruth asked.
“A while back, visiting missionaries,” Clarence replied flatly, and then changed the subject. “So tell us what’s the most exciting thing you’ve seen happening in Ecuador.”
John Clark’s eyes lit up. “That would have to be the Larsons’ work. It’s quite amazing.”
“Yes,” Ruth chimed in. “They are from Wisconsin, and they’ve been missionaries for only five years, but it’s amazing what they’ve accomplished in that time. They live southeast of Quito on the edge of the jungle. Things were a little slow at first, but they kept plodding on, and now they have incredible favor with the locals and the government.”
“Such as?” Clarence asked.
“I won’t be able to list everything,” John began, “but I know the government has asked Reuben Larson to oversee development in the whole eastern part of the country, from the Andes east; they call the area the Oriente. Reuben is in charge of road building and banking there as well.”
“And don’t forget about the salt sales,” Ruth interjected.
“Oh, yes—they are very important. There’s no natural source of salt in the jungle, and the government regulates its sale. It’s a very key position, since everyone wants salt,” John said.
“That’s a lot to accomplish in five years,” Katherine commented as she excused the children from the table so they could go play in the living room.
“It sure is. And they have big plans for the future. In fact, they are coming home on furlough in a couple of months. Why don’t you book them to speak at the tabernacle, Clarence? That way you could hear them yourself,” Ruth suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Clarence said. “I think I’ll do just that. We’re always looking for inspiring missionary speakers, especially for the young people.”
The two couples continued to chat, and Ruth promised to find out who was handling Reuben and Grace Larson’s itinerary while they were home on furlough. Clarence could then contact that person and make arrangements for the Larsons to speak at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle.
Clarence did just that, and the Larsons’ contact wrote back to confirm that the couple would be able to speak at the church. As it turned out, however, Clarence and Katherine met Grace Larson before she and her husband ever showed up at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle.
The Joneses were taking a short vacation in Omaha, Nebraska. Clarence called it a working holiday because he was leading the singing at the Omaha Gospel Tabernacle for the weekend. The speaker at the Sunday evening service was Grace Larson. Clarence sat and listened intently as Grace spoke about their missionary work in Ecuador.
“It was very difficult at first,” Grace said. “We established a small trading post on the edge of the jungle. We planned to use the trading post as a way to develop relationships with the local Indians so that we could share the gospel with them. But the Indians would run in and buy what they wanted and run out again.”
Grace went on to explain that after several months she and Reuben felt completely defeated. They had not yet been able to share the gospel with one Indian. In desperation, one Sunday morning the two of them got down on their knees and prayed, asking God to show them how to break through to the Indians or else to let them leave. As they prayed, they both felt the Lord encourage them with a verse from Zechariah 4:6: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit.”
“Years before, this verse had been our motto, but in our busyness we had somehow lost sight of it,” Grace said. “We were greatly encouraged to know that we were not alone in our endeavor. The very next morning we experienced that most amazing breakthrough. Two Indians in dugout canoes came down the river and pulled up at the trading post. ‘People have been told many bad things about you,’ they said, ‘but we have been watching you, and they are lies. We want to help you clear the land and build a better house.’ From that day on, God began to show us great favor among the Indians.”
