Portrait of Darline Hobbs. IMB Photo
Jimmie Darline Hobbs, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Thailand, died Oct. 22, 2024. She was 93.
Darline was born Dec. 8, 1930, in Weatherford, Oklahoma, to the late Dr. R.W. Anderson and Margaret Anderson. She graduated from Cordell (Oklahoma) High School and attended Tulsa (Oklahoma) University and Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasha.
Darline came to faith in Christ during the summer of 1942. While she was growing up, her family made a series of moves across Oklahoma before settling in Cordell, where she spent her last three years of high school. During this time, she met Jerry Hobbs who told her he felt called to preach. They were married a few years later on Aug. 21, 1950, and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to attend seminary. In 1955, Jerry and Darline were called to a church in Oklahoma where Jerry became pastor.
While seeking missionary appointment Darline wrote, “Every once in a while during our lives together Jerry would ask me ‘Are you ready to go to the mission field?’ and I would ask myself ‘Am I ready to go?’ Jerry began to think more and more about it and to explore every aspect of a call to foreign missions and of course that caused me to examine my heart and see if I had really held my heart open to hear the Lord’s will concerning the matter. … I feel I can say that I have been led every step of the way thus far by the hand of the Lord. … And in the marvelous way known only to those who have received such peaceful assurance in answer to prayer I have been made sure of my call.”
In 1957, the International Mission Board appointed Jerry and Darline missionaries to Thailand. They served as evangelists and hostel parents to missionary kids for several years. Darline served as translator for visiting doctors in a Baptist hospital and helped to organize medical supplies at the pharmacy. She also taught English at a Baptist student center in Bangkok.
Darline was preceded in death by Jerry, her husband of 71 years.
She is survived by six children: Jeanette Doty (Ralph) of Norman; Mark Hobbs (Joy) of Tulsa; Judy Mayfield of Oklahoma City; Peggy Warren (Dan) of Bettendorf, Iowa; Pat Wilson (George) of Norman; and Carrie Engle (Todd) of Lake Ozark, Missouri; 10 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
A private family service was held.
Read an obituary here.