Below is the transcript, lightly edited for clarity, of the entire conversation with Ray Clore that appeared in condensed form in the Spring 2023 issue of Compass Check

Compass Check: What is your Church background?

Ray Clore: I started reading Church literature at about age 12 with a baseball friend. His family was taking The Plain Truth and so we talked about some of these things. About age 17, I was baptized during my senior year in high school. I was the only one in my family in the Church of God, but later on God blessed me and I married into a large family, the Peterson family.

What did your career look like, and what drew you into it?

My father worked for the airline TransWorld Airlines (TWA) his whole career. Because I got a free pass, I was able to travel to many parts of the world. In fact, I did go all the way around the world one time, which I enjoyed doing. That history of world travel I think was one reason I wanted to have a career where I could continue to travel.

God called me as a young man and led me to attend Ambassador College in Pasadena from 1972 to 1976. I took ancient Israel history and ancient Roman history from an excellent teacher named Richard Paige, who during the time I was there, would invite students to come to his office to talk about their future career. So, I went and after we talked about various things, he suggested that I might be a good candidate for U.S. State Department employment, which I hadn't even considered.

I followed his advice, got the information from the State Department, took and passed the entry tests and I was hired within six months of graduation from Ambassador College.

During my senior year at college, I thought seriously about, “What kind of goals do I want to have for my life?” I came up with three basic goals: One, I wanted to serve God and His people in areas where ministers couldn't go for visa or financial reasons. Secondly, I wanted to serve my country without serving in the military (which at the time was a big concern with the Vietnam War ongoing). And the third thing is that I wanted to continue to see the world. So, the State Department career actually has allowed me to accomplish all three of those goals on a continuing long-term basis.

Amazing. What did you start out doing there and then what was your career path?

There are actually a wide variety of job possibilities at the U.S. State Department. There are foreign service officers, and there are also civil service positions in the State Department. There are different ways of obtaining employment with State, but if you go in as a foreign service officer, you take the foreign service test and if you pass that there are subsequent steps as well. As a foreign service officer there are basically four broad streams of work. There's consular work where you administer U.S. law, you take care of U.S. citizens abroad, you help issue passports, you help people in distress, things like that.

There's the political work, which many people think of as being that you go to parties and you negotiate agreements—there's some of that, but that's not all there is to it.

There’s economic work where you’re working to help the U.S. export products and develop markets.

And then there is of course the administrative work which includes personnel issues, general services, where you arrange to take care of the physical plant, the housing, moving people, things like that. So those are the four broad areas. A newly hired foreign service officer typically goes into consular work for a couple of years and then they go on to other aspects. But as I said, there’s a wide variety of work.

For instance, I was Director for Children’s Issues for two years. In that office we worked on international child adoption issues as well as international parental child custody issues. Different countries have different legal systems and how they handle those sensitive issues. We would work with the people involved, as well as the countries involved to try to arrange a good solution to these various situations.

I also worked 11 years in the Office of Space and Advanced Technology, which I think was the most fun that I had in the Department. hat office, among other things, negotiated the agreement that covers cooperation on the International Space Station.

I personally worked on GPS issues. Our goal was to encourage compatibility and interoperability among the various space-based navigation systems sponsored by Russia, China, India, Japan, and the European Union. They all have space-based navigation systems. Compatibility means we don't interfere with each other's signals, and interoperability means that the signals are such that one receiver can use multiple systems to arrive at a better solution. I worked with engineers and the U.S. Air Force, which is an excellent steward of this international utility and it's used by over 2 billion people each day. It's amazing,

That is fascinating. How long was your career?

39 years. In 1976 my wife and I got married the day after graduation. Within six months we were hired into the State Department and in April of 1977 we went down to our first post in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I was a consular officer there, so that meant I did visa work primarily, and I also did some international development work trying to help people have potable water, things like that.

After two years in Haiti we went to Cameroon, where I served in both Yaoundé which is the capital and Douala which is a port city. We worked there for two years. One of the interesting stories from that period was that I was coming up to my third tithe year and I thought, wow, how am I going to do this? I had this $5,000 debt because I had to buy a new vehicle to go to Africa, and I had this $3,000 debt from moving expenses. So, I prayed to God, and said, “I think I can take care of the $3,000 debt if You could take care of the $5,000 debt.

The very next day I get called up to the Ambassador's office and they said, "We have this problem down in Douala: the vice counsel there had to leave his post. Could you go down for a couple of weeks and fill in?” I said sure. It ended up that I had to continue working in Douala for about six months. During that time, I would give sermons sabbath morning in Douala, then drive to Victoria in the afternoon to speak in English there. Once a month they would fly me, my wife and my son back up to Yaoundé. While there I would give the sermon in Yaoundé and then also in Makak, about 90 kilometers away from Yaoundé. Now in the government, when you go on what they call temporary duty, you get a certain amount of tax-free money to help pay your expenses. And you know how much I got? $5,000! And during that time, I was able to serve all of God's people in Cameroon at the U.S. Government’s expense. God does one thing and it answers a multitude of needs.

Wow what an incredible story.

In fact, you know every place we went I was either the acting pastor or a local elder. I served in every location that we went. My wife played piano in all the locations, and helped out a great deal in other ways too. I also played violin, so sometimes when we didn't have a piano, I played violin for services.

After Cameroon, we went to Vancouver, British Columbia, which is a beautiful place. There of course was a full-time minister so I served leading songs and as a local elder. After Vancouver, we went to Jerusalem, where we stayed for 4 1/2 years (from 1984 to 1988).

Then after Jerusalem we came back to the United States where I worked in the Office of Nuclear Nonproliferation for two years, and then two years in the Office of the U.N. Environment Program.

And then after that I took a year of Arabic, so I was sent to Amman, Jordan, from 1993 to 1996. In 1996 we came back and I became the Director of Children's Issues from 96 to 98. From 1998 to 2000 I was the Deputy Director for Latin American programs in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and then from 2000 to 2004, I was the science counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

In 2004 we came back to the U.S. and I switched over to the Office of Space and the Advanced Technology, and then I retired in 2016.

Seems like you were moving every two to four years. Is that a pretty typical career path in that type of work?

Yes, especially at the beginning, you typically move every two to three years. When you get further on in your career the length of an assignment depends on the post. But as long as you're in the foreign service 2-3 years is a typical tour of duty.

Why that is? Is that just because people tend to get burnt out?

Basically, it's because a fair number of posts are what we call “hardship” posts, where either you're isolated or you have a lot of problems with health and medical issues. If you go to certain posts, the host government is very oppressive and you don't have free circulation so it becomes difficult, especially for families. In some cases, it’s so dangerous they don't allow the families to go, so you have to go unaccompanied. Given the number of places like that, the Department tries to keep those tours of duty at two years. They also try to make it so that everyone does their fair share of hardship posts so that someone doesn't get to do all of their career going from France to Spain to Italy to England.

Did you ever have any assignment where you weren't able to bring your family?

No, I was always able to take my family everywhere I was assigned. At one point they were wanting to send me to Kinshasa, Congo [Zaire], and that would have been an unaccompanied tour at that time. But at the last minute, things changed and we went to Amman, Jordan.

Joining the State Department was an intentional choice you made, but once you were in the service, did you have any say on any of those assignments, or did you just go where they told you?

The State Department system is that you tell them six posts that you would be willing to go to, and then they choose one of those. Once in a while they will say, “Look, you just have so much experience or language ability, or whatever, that you've got to go to this one post,” and you don't have a whole lot of choice in it. But normally they try to give you six choices, of which they choose one.

You mentioned that you took Arabic for a year, which makes me wonder: Did you have to learn languages fairly proficiently at each of these places?

If you're a foreign service officer, yes, you have to develop proficiency in at least one foreign language. Normally they like you to have two. I had taken French starting in grade 4 in elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri, all the way through high school and at Ambassador College, so when I joined the foreign service, I was proficient in French.

But going to Jordan, I had to learn enough Arabic so that I could conduct interviews in Arabic. And it’s a very difficult language.

Wow, that’s impressive. When you take the entry tests for the State Department is it usually the case that they want you to have a language already, or is that something you can learn on the job?

That's something they will teach you. You don't have to have a language to pass the entry tests and be part of foreign service.

One of the questions I ask everybody is whether at any point they decided to switch careers, but it sounds like you enjoyed yours and it was a rewarding career.

Overall, yes, I enjoyed the work. Obviously any job, any career has difficult moments, but I enjoyed meeting interesting people and participating in efforts to protect and promote U.S. interests. For example, my wife and I had the opportunity to have lunch with former President Jimmy Carter and his wife at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Having that kind of lunch and contact with President Carter and his wife was fascinating.

Another time I was gifts officer for the visit of President Clinton when he came to Jordan in 1994 when he came for the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty. While we were in Jordan, King Hussein sent his children to the American school in Amman where my children attended. And my wife actually taught music there as well. So, I've met secretaries of State, I met George H.W. Bush, George W Bush, and I even got to shake the hand of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger before he retired.

But in addition to my work on GPS, which I really enjoyed, I know I made a difference in people's lives. In several countries I personally helped abused women and their children escape dangerous situations. I can't really name the countries or the situations for security reasons, but I think for our U.S. readers, it’s good to be reminded that once you leave the U.S., the rights and legal protections that we take for granted stop at the border. And you come under the legal systems of the country in which you are traveling. So we must all respect those systems and cultures. And sometimes they're very different than what we've grown up with.

Did your wife or daughters ever have to wear head coverings, for instance in Jordan?

No, in fact I chose posts where my wife, and my daughters would not be oppressed.

What were some of the difficult situations or issues that sprang up that you didn't enjoy as much?

One time I was doing visa work in Vancouver and I came across an applicant who had a criminal rap sheet about as long as my forearm. They wanted me to issue a visa to this person. Supposedly he had a waiver because he married a U.S. citizen. You wonder about the validity of those marriages. And that person was going to be going to an area of the country in which I had relatives. In good conscience I could not legally be part of issuing his visa. So I had to figure out, “How do I say I couldn't be part of legally admitting that person into the country?” I thought that he could commit more crimes. How could I live with myself if this guy comes in and attacks or sexually abuses one of my relatives?

So I said no, I'm not going to do this. I explained my situation and kicked it up a level. In the end it was resolved because my boss issued the visa, so I didn't have my hands on it.

But that kind of stuff . . . you get sometimes these issues of conscience and you have to stand for what you believe is right. Another example: We were in Kenya at the UN Environment Program meeting and the Sabbath was coming. They were still negotiating and these meetings always go overtime. I'd already told people, “When it gets close to sundown, I’m out of here.” So I just got up and left. They all kind of looked at me, but I left because it wasn't an “ox in the ditch” type situation.

However, there were times when I was called upon to do emergency work on the Sabbath where people got into accidents, or there was a death and I had to notify them. Or there were situations where I put myself wholeheartedly into taking care of people and alleviating problems.

One question relating to your job in particular, kind of a macro level would be the ethical considerations of working for a government. I feel like a lot of people would probably just write that off entirely because they reason that we're not citizens of this world, but citizens of heaven. What's your viewpoint about that?

That’s an excellent question, and one I received a lot of advice and counsel on from many ministers, and about which I prayed a lot. This is how I understand things: We are not supposed to love the world system. We are supposed to be ambassadors for a different government. When it comes to jobs, there is a range of government jobs and you have to draw the line somewhere. What if you work for the post office? You're part of the government system, but you're also providing a needed service. What if you're a teacher? Are you part of the system? Yes, but you're providing a needed service.

By my working in the State Department, I could provide a needed service, especially to U.S. citizens. I would take care of U.S. citizens abroad if they fell into this threat or somebody died or whatever. I would help take care of things. As time went on, I realized that I could do other things as sort of a civil ministerial type position, and I believe that I made a difference.

I did have to decide, however: Do I do I want to be an ambassador? Do I want to be at the highest levels of the U.S. Government where policy is made, where you make decisions that affect other people's lives? And that's where I drew the line. I felt that if I were in a position where I am actually directing the system, or making rules for the system that would affect other people, as a Christian I could not do that.

That distinction makes sense to me.

So I rose to a high level in the foreign service, sort of like a full Colonel in the military—roughly that equivalent rank. But I did not go for the General Officer corps, because once you get into the Senior Foreign Service then you start making those kind of policy decisions. I felt that if I was in the Senior Foreign Service at the Ambassadorial rank, I couldn’t say I'm not in love with the system, because I'm helping make the system.

You talked about one example of a conscience issue with the visa situation, but were there any others?

The only thing I would like to add is that Proverbs teaches that the prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself (Proverbs 27:17). I applied that by planning the places where we were assigned for the most part, and the kind of jobs that I would do were ones where I would not have Sabbath conflicts. The kinds of jobs where you would have a Sabbath or an ethical conflict are pretty clear.

What kind of advice would you have for a young person thinking about their future and is possibly interested in work for the U.S. State Department?

I would encourage people to look into a U.S. State Department career if they have interests in things like world and U.S. history and international relations and so forth. I'd just advise them to be alert that some jobs would present ethical or religious issues, and to take steps to avoid them.

At the base you have to have a genuine interest in history and in political events going on in the world today. If you have that real interest and that desire, then you really should plan to pursue an advanced degree—a Masters is normally the base educational level for the State Department now. I did not have a masters when I went in, I had only a Bachelors of history, but after I was in the State Department, I did obtain a Masters of Public Policy. The takeaway is that you need to prepare yourself, understand history and politics, and be interested.

Another point: if you're going to be a representative of this country, you need to understand the culture and the values of our country and be prepared to present them in the most positive light. That argues for a broad understanding of music, of art, industry and how we do things.

For instance, I was in France and they were always asking, "How is it that you Americans are able to invent so much stuff?” The French have this proverb from former French President Charles de Gaulle, I think, who said "We have a lot of searchers. But we don't have a lot of finders.” I was able to try to explain to them how we have a system of innovation where universities get with researchers, and there's cross-fertilization between academic research and applied research of how you're going to bring products to market and so forth. They found it fascinating.

I should also say there are other ways of having a State Department career besides going the foreign service officer route. For instance, if you're an IT person, the State Department hires IT professionals and they are also sent abroad. The State Department web site has a lot of good information for people interested in a State Department career.

Do you have any general advice for someone in finding a career that's fulfilling to them?

I think every good human parent wants their child to accomplish more and to be more prosperous than themselves. We tried to encourage each of our children to develop their talents. So, we’d encourage them to learn one sport well, learn well one musical instrument, and also to learn a trade. Those are general skills and that approach would give a child a broad basis for accomplishments. And then we encouraged them to pursue whatever their interests were.

So, if your interests lie in working with your hands like becoming an electrician or in construction and so forth, then you should pursue those interests. Those are honorable careers and quite lucrative now.

Thank you, Mr. Clore, for taking the time and sharing your career story!

Thank you for the opportunity! Take care.

(Mitchell Moss conducted this interview)