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Meet Andrea
Hello. My name is Andrea Clark, and I am the Counseling and Prayer-Team Director for New Hope Ministry and Counseling Center. I want to share with you my testimony of salvation in Jesus Christ and how I came to work at New Hope.
My siblings use to call me “The Princess,” and oh, how I hated that! I knew they were name calling, telling me that I was selfish and self-centered. Unfortunately, they were right. I did think the world revolved around me. I thought I should always be the center of attention and always get my way. I was very proud of my strengths, talents, skills, and appearance. I wasn’t interested in the concerns or needs of others, only what I could get or how something affected me. I sought success and awards, but failed miserably in relationships. I had a group of friends that I spent time with through my junior year of high school, but because I was really only interested in what they could do for me, they became fed up and decided they wouldn’t be my friends anymore. I had a very lonely and fearful senior year. I stopped attending church while in high school. It did not hold my attention or meet my needs. It seemed like a boring social meeting to me. Besides, even though they would tell me to do and be better, I knew I didn’t have any power to change myself.
I went to Iowa State University with no other purpose than to follow a boyfriend there. I was very frightened by the whole college experience. I knew that I would have to work really hard if I was going to make it in this demanding environment. I was often anxious as I went to classes, studied, wrote papers, and took tests. I also felt very insecure. The experience of losing my friends in high school left me fearing rejection and feeling unworthy of friendship. I met kids who introduced me to drinking. I knew that there had been kids in my high school who drank alcohol and did drugs, but I considered myself a “good kid”. Plus, my father was a policeman, so I never considered getting involved with these things while living at home. But now I was ready to try it. I found that when I was drinking I didn’t feel insecure or inhibited. I was fearless and outgoing, so I drank a lot on the weekends. I was content to live my life according to the mores of the secular college world.
During my sophomore year of college I started dating my husband, Scott. We had met each other in 6th grade and had been friends since then. I worked hard to get him to embrace my bar hopping ways, but he resisted it. Things were going well in my relationship with him, but college was becoming a greater and greater burden, and I was becoming weak and worn down from the pressure.
One night, a group of young people came to our dorm floor to share their faith with anyone who wanted to listen. I was curious, so I stuck around to hear what they had to say. They started to tell us that they knew for sure they were going to heaven when they died. I didn’t really understand all they were telling us, but I was angry that they thought they knew they had done enough good things to earn their way to heaven. I thought no one knew that until they got there. They gave us cards to write down questions for them, and I blasted them for being so arrogant! Well, they had my name and number, so one day one of the girls called me up and asked if I would be willing to meet her for lunch and talk about my card. I was not good at telling people no, so I told her I would meet her. I thought this girl was strange. She brought her Bible and started reading to me. I couldn’t understand what she was talking about, and all I wanted to do was get away from her, just as soon as I was done with my free meal. I thought I was finished with her after that, but she kept calling and wanting to meet with me. One day, she invited me to a special meeting right there in my own dorm commons. I was still having trouble telling her no, so I agreed to meet her there. I didn’t know it then, but this was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I went to this meeting and I recognized several people from the dorm complex and from campus. I was really surprised that “normal” people were at this gathering. A man got up and started telling his life story. I was very interested, because his life sounded so much like mine. He talked about how he had put his trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Lord of his life and how his life had changed for the better. Sure, I had heard about Jesus Christ in Sunday school and church, but I hadn’t heard about Him the way this man was talking about Him. As I left, someone handed me two things, a pamphlet entitled, “God’s Answers to Man’s Questions” and the Book of John from the Bible. I was actually excited to hurry home and read them. As I did, God opened the eyes of my spiritual understanding, and He revealed the truth of the Gospel to me. I agreed with God that I was a sinner, for I was very aware of that, and I prayed the prayer that was written in the pamphlet. I knew that Jesus Christ had come into my life. I felt His love and peace fill me. I felt like I could conquer the world! I wanted to tell everyone in my life of what Jesus Christ had done for me! I was saved! My boyfriend also accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior a week later, and we were married the summer before our senior year of college. I later graduated with a B.A. degree.
The Holy Spirit started teaching me and slowly my life began to change. The Lord eventually brought me to the place where I surrendered my life to Him, and I understood the importance of being filled with and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. I loved Him and was serving Him. In 1982, our first daughter was born. Shortly after this, I experienced a postpartum depression. I didn’t know what was going on. I knew that I had wanted this child very badly, but I started crying every time I took care of her or did anything else. I was suffering greatly and was terribly miserable! I was so ashamed. I was a Christian and I thought Christians should never suffer from depression. I went to the elders of our church to be prayed over according to James 5:14 & 15. One of the elders took me aside after that meeting and shared his own experience with depression. He told me of the doctor he went to who helped him. I made an appointment and had a good visit with him. He was very caring and compassionate, and he understood what I was suffering, because his own wife struggled with depression. He put me on an anti-depressant which enabled me to sleep more normally, because I was not sleeping well. It took three painful months, but I finally recovered and began enjoying life once again. I was no longer ashamed to talk about my trial and the Lord brought other suffering people into my life, so I could teach them what I had learned from my experience. I vowed that I would never get depressed again.
In 1998, while traveling back home from visiting my parents, we had a car accident. There were three horses on the highway, and by the time Scott could see the black one, it was too late to stop. We hit the horse and it slid up the scoop nose of our van, came into the car, peeling back the top. I do not remember anything from the accident. The horse thrashed around in the front seat of our van and I was knocked unconscious. Scott called everyone’s name and our two girls answered, but I did not. Scott was afraid I was dead. I sure could have been killed, when we saw all the damage that was done to our van. The Lord sent someone along who had a cell phone and she called 911. An ambulance took me to a hospital back in the town we had just left. From there, I was life-flighted to Des Moines. I stayed in Methodist Hospital for three days, and I was “out of it!” I was in a lot of pain and I couldn’t think right. God had protected me and my family from more serious injuries, but I had a hard time recovering. I was weak and I had to sleep on a recliner for weeks due to dizziness. I couldn’t remember things or think normally. I was in constant pain and even simple chores zapped my strength. I became more and more depressed. What I vowed I would never let happen to me again, was happening. I was spending more and more time crying. I was also withdrawing from my family, because I was trying to avoid the normal stresses of family life, but also because I did not want them to worry about me, but they were. Finally, Scott said it was time to go to a doctor and get help. I felt ashamed to go, but I knew he was right. Once again, they put me on an antidepressant, but this time the doctor encouraged me to get counseling as well. I didn’t really consider this, because I would have had to travel out of town to find a Christian counselor, and I was not interested in doing that. I recovered from the depression, but I was still having many physical problems. After about a year, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. God gave me a wonderful doctor, and some effective treatments, and I slowly improved. I am now functioning well and trusting the Lord for complete healing and wholeness.
The Lord gave me many opportunities to grow mature as a Christian and to serve Him. I have been involved with many ministries. I look back and see how God was training me for my current assignment. He does not waste anything, including suffering. The Lord had placed in my heart a desire to help people who suffer mentally and emotionally like I had. I had a desire to counsel them and teach them God’s Word. The problem was that I was too old and too busy to go back to school to learn how to be a counselor. Besides, where could I go to learn to be a Christian counselor instead of a secular one? God had placed people in my life who encouraged me and prayed for me concerning this dream. He had also placed me in a prayer group who met once a week to pray for awakening, revival, and transformation in our community and surrounding area. We prayed for the non-Christian, we prayed for the body of Christ, we prayed for pastors and churches, and we prayed for God’s future work in Appanoose County. We met and prayed faithfully for years in the upstairs of one of the leader’s husband’s law office. We were trusting God to do great things in Centerville, Iowa and Appanoose County.
In 2003, I had a friend begin telling me about her daughter and how the Lord had called her to start a Biblical counseling center in Centerville. She wanted me to meet her daughter. I didn’t know why this woman would want to meet me, but I agreed. We met for lunch and she began to tell me of the vision God had given her to start a Biblical counseling center in Centerville. I listened and then asked her what this had to do with me. She said that she had heard good things about me from her mother, and she wanted me to pray and seek God about whether I would be called to the Center’s Board of Directors. I was surprised, but I told her I would pray. As I did, I did not receive God’s call to be on the Board, but I called Cindy and started giving her ideas for the Board Members’ Manual she asked me to read. She said she was greatly interested in having me meet with her to discuss and revise this manual to best fit New Hope Counseling Center’s ministry. I didn’t think I had much to offer, but I agreed to meet with her. So began my long involvement as a member of New Hope Ministry's editing committee. One thing just kept leading to another and I agreed to be the New Hope Prayer-Team Director, but I still kept asking the Lord why I was involved with all of this.
Even though I had helped edit the original counseling handbook, I decided I should attend a New Hope seminar, so I could become some sort of a volunteer for the Center. As I went through the several week seminar, I started to experience God’s nudge to apply to be a counselor. I realized that I could follow the handbook and actually teach and counsel people with it. There was only one problem, I had had two clinical depressions. I thought that would eliminate me from being considered for a counselor. I finally got the courage to tell Cindy that I believed God was calling me to apply as a counselor, but I had had two depressions. To my surprise, Cindy told me that I would make an excellent counselor, because of what I had experienced, and because of what God had taught me through it. She said I would understand the suffering of the people God would bring to the Center. I applied and have been a counselor for several years. Praise God, my dream had become a reality.
Read the Story of the Upper Room Prayer Group