October 27, 2025
Ann Clark: A Nurse and Educator FOR both Body and Soul
WBS student Ann Clark is a recently ordained GMC Deacon who serves as Pastor of Missions at Lake Waccamaw Methodist Church in eastern North Carolina. She is also a veteran Nurse Practitioner and a nursing professor with East Carolina University. She loves teaching and applies her educational skills to leading Bible Study. But she also excels at helping people become “practitioners” of their faith. Just since April, her church’s crew of over 25 skilled volunteers have completed 23 mission projects in their community, including the construction of a wheelchair ramp for an amputee on the morning we conducted this interview.
“My parents were not regular church attenders when I was a child,” she recalls, “but they laid a moral foundation for me of hard work, honesty, and integrity.” Through a church-run kindergarten, she was introduced to a personal relationship with Christ, and grew in her faith by attending Sunday School and Vacation Bible School classes with friends. She was able to influence her sister and then more members of her family to become part of the church, and it became central to her own family as she began raising children.
As far back as Ann can remember, she wanted to be a nurse. She fondly recalls working in a free mobile clinic based in a 40-foot bus, serving underinsured people in rural areas. “You have to reason carefully, make good assessments, and be frugal and creative with limited resources,” she says of that work.
While serving in that role, she helped to train many student interns. A colleague recognized her teaching abilities and encouraged her to pursue a career as an educator. After earning her Doctorate in Nursing Practice at Duke University, she became a full-time instructor while maintaining clinical practice.
In a surprising twist, at age 45, the Army National Guard recruited Ann to bring her skills into service for the nation. Every two years, she would deploy for three months or more. Eventually, she was appointed Chief of Clinical Operations for US Army Africa.
In what has been perhaps the greatest test of her faith, she was stationed in Italy when the COVID pandemic hit. The virus hit early and hard in that nation with a high elderly population, and Ann found herself having to make life-or-death decisions with limited medical resources. She was working 15-to-17-hour days, seven days a week, while also serving members of her team who were sick themselves. “There were times when I was angry with God, and I still don’t have answers to all the ‘whys’,” she says, “but I also know that it was my faith in Christ that kept me going in the face of overwhelming fear and danger.”
Ann Clark at her ordination as a Deacon in the GMC, with fellow ordinand Chris Eason, both WBS students.
After she returned home, Ann became increasingly involved in her local church. Once again, others noticed her abilities as an educator. Her pastor encouraged her to explore a call to ministry and begin taking seminary classes. Eventually, that encouragement led to her ordination.
“WBS has been wonderful,” she says. “Every class is just amazing. As an educator with online teaching experience, I’m pretty critical, but I’ve been blown away by how exciting it has been to learn from the WBS professors. Our live sessions feel like going to church. It’s not just head knowledge, but also the spiritual formation that I love.”
For example, Ann says her Inductive Bible Study classes with Dr. Rick Boyd have opened her eyes to so much more in Scripture, and she now advocates that it should be a prerequisite for every preacher. As for the Course of Study program, although Ann did not feel she needed another degree, she loves that the rigor of the WBS program is on par with master’s-level work. “They bring you up to the bar rather than lower the bar,” she says. “I love the support they provide for student success.”
After all the grief she experienced in the pandemic, her calling into ministry is like a breath of new life. And yet in another sense, it is a continuation of lifelong evidence of God’s gifts in her to care for people, and to educate others to care for people as well. “I don’t know what the next step for me will be,” Ann admits, “but I’ve learned to simply trust and obey Jesus.” Perhaps that is what it looks like to be a “faith practitioner.”