Portrait of Shirley Clark. IMB Photo
Shirley Clark, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Venezuela, died Dec. 24, 2024. She was 105.
Shirley was born Dec. 2, 1919, in Kansas City, Missouri, to the late David Frank Risk and Clara Belle Van Hoy Risk. She graduated from Beaumont High School in St. Louis and received the Bachelor of Arts from Harris Teachers College in St. Louis.
On a Sunday morning at the age of 8, she accepted Christ as her Savior. Her father, who was also her pastor, baptized her the same night. Upon graduation from high school, she entered college where she helped organize a Baptist Student Union and became involved in city- and state-wide BSU work. Following college, she worked on staff at Ridgecrest Baptist Encampment (now Ridgecrest Conference Center) in North Carolina for several summers and experienced a growing awareness of foreign missions. During this time, she met Charles Barton Clark. They were married on May 3, 1945, and moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Shirley taught school and did social work while Charles was in seminary. She was also active in the work of Lake Dreamland Baptist Church, in an underserved industrial area, when Charles became pastor there.
While seeking missionary appointment, she said that during a missions emphasis day, when the invitation was given for those who would be willing to do foreign missions service if God should lead, she and Charles went forward feeling the need overseas was greater than the need at home.
In 1951, the Foreign (now International) Mission Board appointed Charles and Shirley missionaries to Venezuela. After a year studying Spanish in Costa Rica, they arrived in Venezuela in 1952. In their almost four decades of missionary service, Shirley raised four children; supported frontier work in evangelism, discipleship and church planting; worked with university students; and hosted visitors from other areas of the country. She also served as treasurer for IMB missionaries in Venezuela. She was integral to the start of the Woman’s Missionary Union of the Venezuelan Baptist Convention, which led to the establishment of the Siomara de Nunez Christmas offering, the equivalent to the Lottie Moon Offering, supporting Venezuelan Baptist national and international missions programs. She also taught English at the newly established Venezuela Baptist Theological Seminary to help equip students to read seminary resources.
Shirley was preceded in death by her husband of 72 years, Charles Barton Clark.
She is survived by her four children, Shirley Gay Merritt (Merlin), Judith Lynn Zoch (Don), Charles David Clark (Karen), and John Mark Clark (Lynn); 12 grandchildren; and 19 great grandchildren.
A funeral service was held Jan. 11, 2025, at Parkway Place Senior Independent Living chapel in Houston, Texas.
When Shirley turned 100, the IMB featured her in a video with her son Charles, sharing her prayers that more unreached people groups would hear the gospel in the next 100 years.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Lottie Moon Offering, IMB, 3806 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA, 23230, or online at the memorial giving page In Honor of Shirley Clark.