Gerald Bond Clayton, 1927-2021

Gerald Clayton Bond, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel among the Sub-Saharan African Affinity Peoples in Ghana and Togo, died Feb. 14, 2021. He was 93.

Bond was born July 26, 1927, in Dido, Louisiana, to the late John D. and Ada Hinson Bond (later Dauzat). He received the Bachelor of Arts from Louisiana College, Pineville, and the Bachelor of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

When seeking missionary appointment, Bond wrote that as a young child he began to envision himself as a preacher after his father was ordained a deacon in the small Baptist church near their home. At age 11, he wrote, he reached a turning point when “Christ accepted an invitation to come into my heart.”

Two years later, at age 14, Bond accepted God’s call to the ministry. While still in high school, he preached his first sermon and began to feel an awareness that God was leading him toward foreign missions. His senior year, he became pastor of a part-time church.

When he met Helen Terry at Louisiana College, they shared a feeling that God was calling them to foreign missions. They married in 1947.

Bond served as pastor of churches in Fullerton, Clearwater and Melder, Louisiana, and in Columbia, Mississippi. From 1954 to 1956, the Bonds worked in R. G. LeTourneau’s industrial mission program in the West African nation of Liberia.

“Seeing the vast spiritual needs convicted us that we should … return to Africa for a lifetime of service,” Bond wrote.

The Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed them in 1958 and they served 30 years in evangelism and other roles in Sekondi and Accra, Ghana, and in Lomé, Togo.

After retirement, the Bonds returned to Louisiana where they worked with international college students, moving later to be near family in Texas.

Wherever they lived, said their daughter Kay Bundrick, they raised awareness and prayer support for international missions in churches where they were: First Baptist Church of DeRidder, Louisiana; First Baptist Church, Kingsland, Texas; and High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas.

Bond is survived by his wife of 73 years, Helen; daughters, Sandra Hayashida (Nelson) and Kay Bundrick (Jimmy), and son-in-law Jeff Stuart; five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Brenda Stuart.

A funeral service was held July 17, 2021, at High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, with burial later in Pitkin, Louisiana.