Jerry Hobbs, 1929-2022
IMB Photo
Jerry Hobbs, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Thailand, died Jan. 12, 2022. He was 92.
Hobbs was born Feb. 6, 1929, in Rocky, Oklahoma, to the late Seab and Moneta Hobbs. He moved to Cordell, Oklahoma, at age 13, and graduated from Cordell High School. There he met Jimmie Darline Anderson, at a church event when she was 14 and he was 16. They were married August 21, 1950, during his senior year at Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, where he received the Bachelor of Arts.
When seeking missionary appointment, he wrote that Darline’s encouragement was a factor in his surrendering to the ministry during his junior year in high school. Beginning during his college years, Hobbs was pastor of churches in Oklahoma and Texas.
His call to missions began while he was in seminary, he wrote. “I do believe that God has made sufficiently plain my call to missions above and beyond my call to preach.”
In 1957, the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board), appointed the Hobbses as missionaries to Thailand, where his primary assignment was evangelism. During 34 years of missionary service, he and Darline first served in Nakorn Nayok and Prachinburi. They then served as hostel parents to missionary children in Bangkok for three years. He also served as chaplain at Bangkla (Thailand) Baptist Hospital. In their later years in Thailand, Jerry served as the Thailand Mission Administrator in Bangkok.
The Hobbses retired in 1991 to Norman, Oklahoma, where they became active in First Baptist Church.
Hobbs is survived by his wife of 71 years, Darline; six children: Jeanette Doty (Ralph) of Norman; Mark Hobbs (Joy) of Tulsa; Judy Mayfield of Oklahoma City; Peggy Warren (Dan) of Iowa; Pat Wilson (George) of Norman; and Carrie Engle (Todd) of Lake Ozark, Missouri. He is also survived by 10 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; and three of his seven siblings: Linda Pence of Shawnee; Dan Hobbs of Norman; and Jane Davis.
A private service was held.
Read an obituary here.