Jon and Heather Clapp have been missionaries in Palau for eighteen years. Today they spoke to Pastor Walton about coming to Christ and serving Him.
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Chris Harper: Welcome to harvest time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. Just one service during the summer months.
That’s at 10AM on Sunday. We have Japanese and Korean translation during that service, and that’s also the service we livestream at hbcguam.org. hbcguam.org. This week, Pastor John Clapp will be preaching on a different perspective from Psalm 136. Before we get started with today’s program, I did wanna mention that we had a recording problem with this week’s interview.
So if you notice that it’s a little bit shorter than usual, that is the reason. Here’s Pastor Walton to introduce today’s guests.
Gary Walton: Chris, glad to see you and glad to, welcome our listening audience, for this week. We have in studio with us Jon and Heather Clapp, so I want to welcome you guys to harvest time. Thank you very much. Chris just mentioned that John’s going be preaching this Sunday. Jon and Heather are here with their boys.
I’ll let you introduce your whole family here in a minute. But John is the keynote speaker for our camps, and we are right in the middle of senior high camp. In fact, as this is airing, we’ll just have finished up the last part of senior high camp. Next week will be junior camp, and Jon’s going be speaking for both of them. And right in the middle of that, we asked if he’d come and give a challenge to our people.
So let me invite you to come and join us. It’s going to be a great service. Jon and Heather are missionaries, church planyers in Palau. And I was looking back on my notes, don’t know, Jon, how long have you guys been there?
Jon Clapp: We have been in Palau eighteen years now.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Jon Clapp: Been home for our family.
Gary Walton: Yeah, it’s fantastic. Heather, why don’t you tell us about your family? You have four boys.
Heather Clapp: Yes. Travis, Lucas, Levi and Jackson.
Gary Walton: And they’ve grown up in Palau, right?
Heather Clapp: Yes. Travis was almost three and Lucas was 10 months. Levi was actually born in Palau. Jackson came quite a bit later. But, yeah.
Gary Walton: And we’re really thankful that three of the boys are here these weeks. Yes. I actually did basketball camp last week and then doing team camp and Jackson will get to do junior camp next week.
Heather Clapp: Yes. He’s very excited about that.
Gary Walton: That’s fantastic to be able to have your whole family here. If you’ve been around Harvest at all, know that we love the Claps. They fit here. We love their family. We love the ministry that God’s using them to be a part of in Palau and what God’s doing there over the last well, I’ve been here seven years and I’ve really appreciated your friendship for Harvest and just connections.
We’ve had a chance to be with you guys in Palau and all that’s awesome. I want to ask about all that. But let me back up all the way back just to get your story, your life story, where’d you grow up, and then maybe I’ll ask you some questions about your spiritual story.
Jon Clapp: Okay. Grew up myself, well actually my wife and I both grew up in Michigan, from small communities, small churches, but both of us had a desire early on in life in our teenage years for missions. We didn’t know where God would take us. We didn’t know what exactly it would look like. But both of us knew that God wanted us to be involved somehow, someway in missions, spreading the Gospel around the world wherever it was.
God used some fairly difficult circumstances in my life to bring me to that point. I had plans of my own to be a dentist. I know that sounds crazy, a little bit weird, but for those dentists out there, you know that it’s a good thing. I just love the opportunity to meet new people every day, to help people. And that was one thing that was part of me even before committing my life to missions.
I just I thought, man, I could be a dentist and meet new people every day.
Gary Walton: So that’s really interesting, John. I’ve known you for seven years. I’ve not heard this part. How do I not know you want to be a dentist? That’s fantastic.
Jon Clapp: But I graduated from high school and just before graduating from high school, we had a missions conference at our church. And God used the missionaries that were part of that missions conference and some very difficult circumstances in my life at that time to bring me to that point where I was ready to surrender to missions. And so began waiting on God. I don’t have time to tell my whole story, but I’ll tell you I waited two years from that point for God to lead me to the next step. And Pastor You spoke on Sunday about being in the waiting room of life.
Man, I was there. And I’m still there in different places of my life. But I remember those two years of waiting were very, very difficult, thinking, God, you told me you want me to be part of sharing the Gospel all around the world, but why am I not going? Why am I not doing it? But God did use those two years in my life of waiting to bring me to Maranatha Baptist Bible College.
I ended up there meeting a very good friend of mine, Anna Kinata, and she was from Guam. And she was instrumental in my life. Great friend, but she talked about Guam all the time. And she just talked about how beautiful it was and how friendly people were. And so we had the opportunity after my sophomore year in college, they were having what they call a cool school in Guam and they were looking for leaders, counselors to be part of Cool School.
My wife and I were married at the time and they were looking for lead counselors and we fit that description, I guess. We had never been camp counselors before, but we were married and a little bit, I guess, more mature. That’s at least what they thought. And so we came out. And that was back in the summer of 2000.
So twenty five years ago, this summer, we were in Guam for eleven weeks being part of Cool School. And that was when
Gary Walton: If I remember right, that was like one of the first
Heather Clapp: It wasn’t Cool School yet.
Jon Clapp: It was not Cool School.
Gary Walton: Was not yet, but it was one of the first kind of summer length ministry teams, right?
Jon Clapp: Yes. And God just used that time here in Guam. We connected with HBBC, which was back then it was HBBI, the institute. But the students were the same. They were from Marshall’s.
They were from Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk. But none from Palau. Now we didn’t know this at the time, but we connected so well with those Micronesian students that were here during that summer. And we left Guam asking God, Would you please bring us back to Micronesia someday? And again, we had never met anyone from Palau, but that was one of the things that God was doing in our hearts, even though we didn’t know.
We kept praying about Micronesia, when God would bring us back. And three years passed. 2003 I graduated from Maranatha Baptist Bible College and we had an opportunity to meet a missionary who Harvest is familiar with, Mark Zimmer, and he is serving in Yap. And we got excited. We met him and we talked about Micronesia and he told us about his brother, John Zimmer, who was taking his family to Palau.
And we had never heard of Palau. We started looking online and finding out more information about Palau and we got excited because it is part of Micronesia. And we had never met anyone from Palau, which meant that there was a need for the Gospel. And so that was in 2003, we met the Zimmer’s for the very first time, John and Jamie Zimmer. And we took a trip to Palau in 2004 and it just felt like God had put all of the pieces together.
Yeah, it’s amazing. Giving us that specific burden for this part of the world, and then leading us to this tiny island nation of Palau, which has been our home for the last eighteen years. So 2007, we arrived in Palau for the very first time with our family. We had visited Palau in 2004, but we went back to The States, raised support for our family and then returned in 2007. We’ve been there ever since.
Gary Walton: Heather, let me pull you into this conversation.
So you grew up in Michigan, Christian family. Tell me about your background.
Heather Clapp: Yeah, I was born into a Christian family. My parents thought it was really important for us to have Christian education. So I’m really thankful for that. So I went to a small Christian school, that John started attending when attending when he was, like, in junior high. But I had gone, you know, k through 12, small Christian school, but I loved it.
So I had a grandma that talked to me about the Lord before I could even talk. So she was always witnessing to me and sharing the gospel with me. And so, I was young. I was about five years old, but that’s when I you know, my grandma had talked to me so many times, but that’s when I made a decision to trust Christ as my savior. And so for me, I really, you know, wanted to serve God and love God.
But my my family life became really unstable, through a series of divorces and remarriages by both of my parents. You know, by the time I was in high school, you know, my home life was very unstable. But God had given me a church. He had given me, a school, you know, Christian school teachers and principals and coaches and all of these people that prayed for me and loved me. And so that was very instrumental in me still wanting to be, like, surrendered to God, and I wanted to follow God even though, like, my family really was not.
So I remember even in high school, like, the church that we Jon and I went to in high school was a very missions minded church. You know, they gave to missions. We had missionaries come. Missionaries were, like, the coolest, you know. So for us, it was pretty natural to, like, want to be missionaries.
So I knew that’s what I wanted to do, even in high school, even though Jon was not sure if that’s what he wanted to do at that time.
Chris Harper: Well, wanted to be a dentist.
Heather Clapp: That’s right. But eventually, he came around.
Gary Walton: Did you guys date when you were in high school?
Heather Clapp: I was a senior in high school. He was a junior in high school when we started dating. And then after that, it was long distance. You know, I was here and he stayed out of high school to take care of his parents when they were sick. And so it was kind of a long distance relationship.
But, we did eventually get married, five years after that, knowing that we wanted to go into missions. And so that was, you know, we just kinda took steps after that.
Gary Walton: Heather, just let me back up. You talked about kinda the instability in your home and the church and people of the church. Anybody specific? Like, were there, you know, some specific people that just kinda came along and cared for you during that time?
Heather Clapp: Yeah. I think more than I realized, people were praying. People would put money on our school bill. Like, we didn’t have money. Right?
Yeah. And I, you know, my parents are like, oh, you might have to go to public school this year. And I didn’t want it, you know, I didn’t want that. And so I watched God, like, provide money every year. People, I didn’t even know, put money on our school bill.
And so for me, I was like, God is providing. And I couldn’t understand why my parents, like, couldn’t trust God. Because I was like, look at what God is doing, you know. And for me, it was just very real. And, like, God cared and he was taking care of me.
And how can you, like, not trust God? So, you know, my school principal, he was also my volleyball coach. His daughter was my best friend. Mhmm. So they’re family.
I spent a lot of time with them and just, you know, nothing, like, necessarily specific, but just being with them, being with someone that cared. We I had teachers, that I knew prayed for us, people that would anonymously, like, you know, buy me basketball shoes or things that I needed. And those were just very special to me. So I just, all of those things, I could see that God was like taking care of me.
Gary Walton: Burdens. What does God have for you guys, just specifically right now in this season of life? Burdens for the church, the ministry, family?
Jon Clapp: Yeah. Be praying for our men, McLain and Garnett, as they continue to grow in their leadership. And then also pray for land for our church. We still do not have a permanent place to meet. We do meet every Sunday, but we borrow different facilities every Sunday and so it’s a lot of set up and taken down and those kinds of things.
We’re thankful for those facilities, but we would love to have our own place someday. So pray for that. And then as our boys get older, transitioning to wherever God has them, whether it’s college or life in America or back in Palau, pray for that transition. As we have one who is sophomore in college, one who just graduated high school, and another who’s entering his senior year of high school. So and then we’ve got Jackson who’s going into third grade.
Caboose. The caboose. The fishtail, as they call in Palau.
Gary Walton: Oh, yeah. I like that. I like that. Hey, we said this earlier. We love you guys.
We’re so thankful every time that you’re able to be here at Harvest. You have such a significant influence on our ministry. And, every time we can see just the, Clapp ripples, you know, going out among about people. You invest in them. We’re super excited about ministry at Camp PRCC for both of you as you serve and disciple kids.
Jon Clapp: Thank you very much.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time.
Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. We meet every Sunday at 10AM during the summer months. We offer Japanese and Korean translation during that service. We also bring you that service live here on 88.1 FM and khmg.org.
We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.