Personal Testimony of John & Hyoncha Clark

Some years before they came to Taiwan , John was praying at a home meeting and suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart and said, "I am going to send a great revival to Asia in the near future and I want you to go there and participate in it." The message was clear but it seemed too difficult to do because he and his wife had debts and very limited finances. At the time he prayed and told that Lord that he would go when the Lord provided the money to go. Time passed but nothing changed in their financial condition.  

One day John was driving home from work in his truck and he got into a serious accident. Another car struck his half-ton pick up, from the right side, so hard that it knocked it over on its' side. The whole thing happened so fast that he had no opportunity to avoid the other car. As his truck was rolling over on its' side, he got angry with God. Why was God letting this accident happen to him? He had driven for years with no serious accidents. When his truck stopped moving he found that he was not hurt but his truck had been destroyed.

Suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, "I did not call you to be a carpenter, to build houses. I called you to be a preacher of the Gospel and a missionary. This accident has happened to you because you did not obey My voice. You must leave immediately and go as missionaries to Taiwan . If you do not go now, then you will miss all of the ministry that I have for you."

Those words explained the purpose of this accident and he made a promise to the Lord that he would go and trust God for the finances. By the time he got home it was late. When he walked into his house he saw Hyoncha and said, "Guess what happened to me today!" She said, "You got into an accident!" Then he said, "Guess what the Lord said to me today!" and she said, "It's time for us to leave and go to Taiwan !" He said, "How did you know that?" She said, "The Holy Spirit spoke to me today and told me that it was time for us to go to Taiwan ! I was going to tell you when you got home!"

In order to go they had to move out of their house and rent it out. They sold their two vehicles and charged five tickets on a credit card, for themselves and their three daughters. No one promised to help them financially except their aunty Thelma, who gave them one hundred dollars a month. (It costs at least fourteen hundred dollars a month to support a family of five in Taiwan .)

Trusting God and going to Taiwan was like taking a leap over a cliff in the dark and saying, "Here I come Lord, catch me!" Their three daughters, Koreen (12 years old), Sharlene (10 years old) and Christine (8 years old) went together with them to a strange new land.

On the way to Taiwan , they spent one month traveling and preaching together with their uncle and aunt in the Philippines . It was a dangerous country to take children into because there was a great war on between the communist rebels and the government, but God gave them a special promise of protection. While they were there the angel of the Lord saved them from great danger. One night they we driving down a highway, way out in the country, in a small bus, together with their children and seventeen other people. Some communist rebels had set up a road block on the same highway. The rebels were stopping every car and robbing, kidnapping and killing the people  - especially any Americans. John and his family were about seven minutes away from them, when the engine in their bus mysteriously broke completely down.

This was strange because they had just checked the engine before they left and everything was OK.

They did not know that it was a great blessing in disguise. The next problem was to get the bus fixed. It is difficult to find a mechanic out in the country but the Lord lead them to a person who was able and willing to fix their bus. This man had to take the engine out of the bus and completely tare it apart - fix it, and then put it all back together. The repair job took two days and when it was all done they asked the man how much money they owed him? "Nothing at all!" he said. On the same night that they stopped in that place, the army sent an armored car down the highway, which ran right into those communist rebels. A fire-fight followed and the leader to the rebels was killed.

One of the bodyguards was captured when he fell into the river, which was right next to the road. The other rebels fled in the night. That same night they had planned to come down that highway and attack an army base, which was only one hundred yards away from where the missionary's bus had broken down. God sent his angels and delivered them twice in one night.

By the time they got to Taiwan they had just enough money left to last for two months.  John tried to get a job teaching English but could not find much of any work and was about to give up trying. At the end of two months there was no food left in the cupboards and just enough money to pay their tithe. If they paid that tithe then they would have nothing left. They took a great leap of faith and gave God the money.

The very next day someone called and gave John an excellent job teaching English. It was someone who had only heard of him but had never met him. The day after that a large duffle bag came in the mail, which was full of presents from his home church. In the bottom of the bag was six hundred dollars. Five days later a check came in the mail for one thousand dollars.

What a marvelous answer to their desperate prayers! For the past sixteen years they have continued to live by faith and God has wonderfully supplied every need. In the past, they have rarely ever asked anyone for money or even mentioned their financial needs. The only person they told was God.

In order to give their children an education, they home-schooled them for four and one half years. When they entered High School they took them home to America so that they could finish their education in an American High School . Since that time their oldest daughter Koreen became involved with YWAM (in Hawaii ) and then married a young man who was working for the same missionary organization.

They now have two children - a little boy and a baby girl. Recently they moved to Minnesota where Koreen's husband has become the youth director in a Lutheran church. Sharlene , their second daughter, also became involved in YWAM and fell in love with Hawaii . She has traveled on short term missionary trips to Indonesia , Nepal and India . At the present time she is living in Hawaii and attending the University of Hawaii and is in the end of her third year.

Their youngest daughter Christine is living in Seattle and attending a Community College. Some years ago she also went to Hawaii to go through the YWAM program there and has gone on short term missionary trips to the Philippines , China , Nepal and India . Last year she went to Italy and took a course on teaching  English as a second language.

John's wife Hyoncha is Korean and speaks the Korean language and has learned conversational Chinese. She has translated for him and another evangelist named Tony Abram when they have preached in various churches in the country of Korea . She also speaks excellent English, which she learned as a second language.

Her language abilities have been a great blessing to her husband because his own language ability is close to zero.  Hyoncha also has a special talent in relating cross-culturally to people of other races.  Many missionaries have gone to other countries and learned the language and preached the Gospel but were not able to relate to people of another race on a personal level.

From the very beginning of their stay in Taiwan, they have been involved in evangelism. This began as they first attempted to arrange evangelistic meetings for other preachers whom they had come to know. Over the years the Holy Spirit has opened the doors to churches both large and small, all over Taiwan , for many special meetings.

These meetings have included city-wide crusades. As they became involved with other ministries, God also gave them more and more opportunities of their own to minister in churches. In the beginning, John was not much of a preacher but through his association with these great men of God, their ministries began to strongly effect his own.  Doors opened in other countries as well, and they began to travel all over Asia conducting evangelistic meetings.

One Summer John and his family were back in Seattle again and John was teaching the Wednesday night Bible study in his home church. He decided to try teaching on a totally new subject - Family relationships and inner spiritual healing. After some weeks on this subject, it seemed to be a total failure and he had decided to go on to some other more interesting subject. At the very same time, a pastor and his wife came to visit them from Osaka , Japan and were staying at their home.

This pastor wanted to come and hear John's Bible study on Wednesday night. When John heard that he wanted to come, he was very embarrassed because it was his last night on the subject of relationships. The pastor from Japan came and greatly enjoyed the teaching that night.

To John's very great surprise, he invited him to come to Japan and teach in his own church on the very same subject. John went to Japan and the Holy Spirit greatly blessed the special meetings, which he had there. This experience changed the course of his ministry and now he preaches everywhere on the subject of family relationships and God's plan for healing the heart.

One of the other things that came out of this experience was John's new book, which he uses as his own text book for his teaching seminars.  The greatest inspiration for writing this book was his sweet wife, Hyoncha.  The title of it is: "God's Plan For Healing The Heart"