Wanda Clark ABFMS – Haiti alumna, called home

Wanda L. Clark, American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS) alumna, passed away on May 9th, 2024, at the age of 84, in Key Largo, Florida.

Wanda Lee Lehr was born on June 29, 1939, in Long Beach, California. She was raised in a Christian home and was baptized about the age of 12 at the Calvary Baptist Church in Long Beach.

In 1960, Wanda attended a college age retreat at Thousand Pines above Los Angeles. Wes Brown, missionary from Congo spoke at the camp. Wanda wrote about her experience that weekend: “I feel that at that time I had a real experience with Christ, and I also felt a definite call to the mission field.” At about the same time Wanda was at the retreat Hollis was with a group of Baptist youth volunteers working on a summer project in Haiti. These two experiences confirmed their desire to pursue mission work together.

In April of 1961 Wanda was engaged to Hollis Clark. Hollis had been discharged from the military and was doing his undergraduate medical training in Long Beach.

Wanda and Hollis were married on August 25, 1961. In subsequent years, while Hollis was studying at the University of Miami School of Medicine, he served four times as a volunteer in Haiti. With each new experience came a deepening of his love for the Haitian people which would then be shared by Wanda following their commissioning as missionaries.

In May of 1969, Hollis and Wanda were appointed by the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS) to serve in Haiti. They welcomed their daughter, Linda, shortly after their appointment. In 1970 the family moved to Limbe where they served at the Good Samaritan Hospital.

In one of the Clarks’ letters they wrote, “What are we doing here? We are doing what thousands before have done and are doing daily. We are sharing our faith. The place just happens to be Limbe, Haiti.”

Later Wanda and Hollis worked in St Michel at the Good Shepherd Clinic in central Haiti. While at St Michel, Wanda and Hollis realized the tremendous need for an eye center. In 1989, the Cap Haitian Eye Center was founded.

Wanda and Hollis were continually training and encouraging local people. In a letter the Clarks wrote to the partners of the Cap Haitian Eye Center thanking them for their support, they said, “My continued prayer is that our emphasis will not just be on providing excellent service but that the Eye Center patients and their families might realize that…. because…He came…. we came.”

On March 31, 2007, Wanda and Hollis retired and moved to Key Largo, Florida. For a period of time, they continued assisting the Eye Center in Haiti.

What did Wanda do? Linda writes: “Mom took care of Dad and me when she was young too! In the days before technology, she would do little things like write all the checks for dad, avoiding his embarrassment of misspelling forty and ninety. She would lay his clothes out for him all freshly ironed since he didn’t want to have to dig in the closet to decide what to wear. She cooked our favorite foods (mine were hot biscuits with pineapple mango jam or veal cutlets with sauce pois), typed missionary newsletters, kept an orderly home, homeschooled me while Dad ran the clinic, made Christmas cookies plates with me for all the staff, kept the bills, colored with me for fun, did the laundry with a wringer washing machine while the generator was running briefly, hung clothes on the line in the sun, bumped along on dirt roads, taught me to sew, maintained a pantry while only traveling to the grocery store every 6-8 weeks because of the roads, told me stories of her childhood in the States, prayed with me while I kneeled to accept Jesus as Lord……she lived out the call to the mission field of our family and Haiti.”

Wanda is survived by her daughter, Linda and husband Trey Bray and granddaughters: India, Poppy, Lily, Quilla, Sparrow, Jubilee and grandson Hananiah.

Hollis passed away April 15, 2022.

As requested by Wanda, there will be no memorial service.