The inspiring journey of Mark and Jan Yokers offers a unique perspective on building a resilient marriage grounded in faith, grace, and restoration. As they share their story of love and ministry, listen to how they overcame economic struggles, parenting differences, and critical spiritual crises. This episode promises to impart valuable lessons to couples striving for growth and fulfillment in their own marital journeys.
Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh. Do you ever wonder what makes some marriages not just survive, but truly thrive over decades? Well, on today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, we’re gonna introduce you to a couple of everyday heroes who know how to go about that firsthand. Mark and Jan Yokers have spent nearly 60 years strengthening marriages through their ministry of grace and restoration. Their journey began at a Christian college where they fell in love. But the real story is how they weathered life’s challenges together. And boy, did they come through some big ones. Most remarkably, they stood strong even as they watched hundreds of marriages around them literally crumble during a devastating church scandal. But instead of becoming casualties themselves, Mark and Jan emerged with deeper wisdom about what makes marriage relationships last. And now they’re helping other couples transform their marriages by applying the timeless principles they’ve discovered. The story of Mark and Jan Yokers reminds us that extraordinary marriages aren’t about avoiding problems. They’re about growing through them together. Let’s join today’s host, our own Gary Bauer, for this inspiring conversation on today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to the Dr. James Dobson Family Talk. We are the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Dobson Policy Center and the host of Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast. Today is another episode of our Everyday Heroes series. and we’re getting a lot of great feedback about this. We’re glad that you enjoy these shows, and I think you’re going to really enjoy the one that we have today with this lovely couple. Now, imagine being raised to love the Lord, and then you head off to a Christian university, and There you meet the person of your dream. Well, that’s the basic love story of our guests today here on Family Talk. They are Mark and Jan Yokers, and they have spent nearly 60 years ministering to families and married couples with a message of grace and healing, and restoration. Their own lives have been a story of grace, healing, and restoration. This wonderful couple has not experienced an easy journey like many of us don’t. And we want to hear from them today on how God helped them overcome a lot of challenges, economic challenges in their marriage, how they overcame all that to become everyday heroes of for the kingdom. So Mark and Jan, welcome to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Oh, fantastic. Well, look, I hope I’ve tantalized our audience that you all have an interesting story. So why don’t we begin about how you did grow up and then go on to attend the same college and met? Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I was born in a family of six boys. My dad was a Lutheran pastor, and my early years were in Michigan. And he decided to—our parents decided to move us out to Idaho into a small farming community town. And part of it was because we were already in gangs in Saginaw, Michigan. And he wanted to get us out of that environment and out of that atmosphere. And we just loved it there in American Falls, Idaho. We grew up there and just have great, great memories and loved growing up there. My folks were wonderful people. They loved us. They gave us a whole lot of freedom. We grew up in that farming community working early. Interestingly enough, my journey there was quite interesting. We’ll get into that in a minute. What about your upbringing, Jen?
SPEAKER 02 :
It was very different for me. I was an only child, so I didn’t have all those brothers to have adventures with. And grew up quiet family, Lutheran family, went to church regularly. My dad was the president of the congregation, and my mom was the president of the ALCW women’s. And I met the Lord when I was four years old, and that was totally revolutionary in my life, absolutely life-changing. And so I had Jesus with me throughout my life, and I prayed at different times. And the one thing I remember in junior high, I started praying for my husband. And I think I may have kept him out of a lot of capers that he could have gotten into. Amen to that. And so when I went to PLU, I was not looking for a husband. I had had a real major supernatural encounter with the Lord, and it just radically changed my life. I had a tendency towards depression, and the depression was gone. I had so much joy. And I had such a relationship with him that I felt like I wasn’t looking for boys at that time. And it wasn’t too long when this big football player took cuts in line in front of me. And just spunky. Wait a minute, Jan, what was that again? He cut in line in front of you? He did. And, you know, that was kind of, I didn’t like it when people took cuts. And so I was spunky. And I said, hey, just because you’re so big doesn’t mean you can take cuts in front of me. And he turned around and looked at me.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. I lost my life right there. And actually, at that point, I had—at Pacific Lutheran, there was a couple of professors that did not teach the Word of God as it says. And they kind of nixed the miracles and other things. And I had a real crisis of faith. I was a part of Campus Crusade. I committed myself to the Lord, but it was almost as if I couldn’t trust the Bible anymore. I encountered the Lord just eight days before I met Jan in that line. And in such a way, it transformed me completely. And I just felt His presence. He just took things out of my life and showed me very clearly how real He was. And then I began a love relationship with His Word because as soon as I opened His Word— And after that, he was talking to me and it was alive and it was real and it was factual. And then I knew that he did multiply the fishes and the loaves and it wasn’t some other story. So eight days later, I met Jan and when I, you know, I was hungry and it was a long line and there was like, I think three of us and Let’s just take cuts. People will understand, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you were an athlete, right? You probably felt a certain sense of entitlement. And lo and behold, God used that moment for you to meet your future wife. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And when she said that, and I look back at her, Gary, I still have that picture seared into my mind today. She was a brunette, short hair, and just glowed. And that glow is what captured me. Because when I encountered the Lord like I did, He removed lust from my life. And I was just free. And in fact, later I thought, I’m never going to get married. I’m going to be like Apostle Paul. And so there wasn’t any romantic attraction at all. But she was glowed and it was so attractive. We started talking and found out that we’d both experienced the Lord in this remarkable way. And we just went and had dinner together and shared and talked and Jan could play the piano.
SPEAKER 02 :
And what did we do? Yes, we went back to my dorm and I played the piano. I was the church organist and I played the piano for about two hours and we sang these songs and We kept saying, oh, look at those words. I mean, it’s like we’d never seen those words before. They were just alive in our hearts.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. And so we became very active on campus in sharing Jesus with others. And we saw many come to Christ and just had a wonderful time in ministry. And Jan and I were just good buds. And we were part of a group there on the campus that were united together in the same heart and faith and love.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, we did a lot of ministry to hippies at that time. That was late 60s. And we would pray all night together and pray them down off of their drugs and lead them to the Lord. And so it was a pretty remarkable time. And we’d sing on the way up to church and on the way to ministry. We grew close and we got to know each other.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, we grew close. And that was a problem because I’m going to be Apostle Paul, right? Yeah. She became more and more attractive to me, which was a problem. And I knew she liked me. I could tell that there was some sparks going on. So after about a year, we were on a… an outreach down to LA. And David Wilkerson with Teen Challenge, Sonny Argonzoni had an outreach there in LA. And we went down and we were part of that for a while. And while we were down there, I just knew I had to decide. I had to figure out, God, what are you doing? Because she’s just really this wonderful person. And I just spent, I don’t know, two, three hours in prayer and just sought the Lord. And at the end of it, I knew that She was to be the one. So I told her, I said, you know what? I think I need to talk to you.
SPEAKER 02 :
And then we went outside. It was nice weather. Went outside, sat on a wall, and he said, I think God wants us to get married. And I said, I agree.
SPEAKER 03 :
You just played the high card there right away, right? Made it clear that God was in the center of this.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we’d never held hands. I mean, we’d never, I don’t know if we’d hug.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, we’d never acknowledged each other as close like that.
SPEAKER 04 :
But there was such a unity and such a oneness in our ministry together and for the Lord. And so… That was our engagement. And we walked out of that little area holding hands and everybody on the outreach said, uh-oh, look what’s happened here. I was a sophomore at this point and Jan was a freshman.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yep, 1967. When we met…
SPEAKER 04 :
And then in 68, actually it was on Christmas Day 68, we got engaged. That’s when I asked Jan, I said, I think God wants us to be married. That’s a little bit easier to do than just saying, will you marry me maybe? I don’t know. But that’s just where we were at. That was our mentality. And it was beautiful.
SPEAKER 03 :
The poor lady had to say yes, Mark. I mean, she’s basically told that you and God are asking her yes. Oh, that’s right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it was tough to say no to just him.
SPEAKER 03 :
So it’s a great love story, and you have this wonderful engagement, and then you get married, and everything’s been smooth sailing since then, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Life, life. Life came.
SPEAKER 04 :
In this world you’ll have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. So we’ve had a lot of tribulation.
SPEAKER 03 :
When did you start your family? Soon after that or? That night. When we got married. This is a family show, Jan. I don’t need any details.
SPEAKER 04 :
So nine months later after our wedding, we had our first girl. And we ended up having four girls by the time we were 29. Wow. They are the love of our life. They all love the Lord. And it’s just unbelievably beautiful.
SPEAKER 03 :
Isn’t it wonderful when… You know, you raise your children, you try to do it in the right way. Dr. Dobson, of course, has spent a whole life giving us advice and counsel on how to do that. But at the end of the day, you know, God gives us this thing called free will. And, you know, we’re taught that if you raise them in the right way, they’ll end up the right way. But not always. I hear tragic stories all the time. So when you see your adult children and see them following the path that you first introduced them to. It’s one of the greatest blessings you can possibly have.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it definitely is. This morning in prayer, we were just praising the Lord for, you know, our whole family and how they’re serving God and how one of our sons-in-law’s really turned around. And he’s just a remarkable Christian, hearing from the Lord and following him. And that’s just a joy to see that happen in people’s lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
We regularly pray with all of our girls. Three of them are in Seattle. One of them is in California. And we’re on the line with her a lot. And we see the others a lot. One of our daughters is the CEO of our business. And so we have a lot of interaction with her, but we’re all close, and we’re so grateful.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in those opening years, how were you putting food on the table? What was your livelihood? And I understand there were some interesting things that happened then that seemed small, but God used a little side business. But talk to us about that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I immediately went to Bible college. I went to PLU for three years, but my hunger was for the Word of God. And it was a new starting Bible college in a church that we became a part of to get food on the table. Now, Jan’s pregnant, right? At that time, I was an iron worker, and I’d started that when I was in college. And I did that at first, but soon after we got married, I started roofing. And so I did that for about three years steady. And from roofing, I hurt my back. And so— Roofing’s hard in the back. I had graduated and became a teacher in that same Bible college. But I love the Word of God and still do. It’s my life. And that was a fun transition.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, a lot of couples today struggle with needing to have a couple of jobs. During these early years, you’re starting your own family, you’re beginning your careers and so forth, you didn’t necessarily have the same marriage and parenting philosophy. Jan, talk to us a little bit about that and how that was a struggle getting on the same page.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it was. Mark was the fun dad. And he always just said, oh, sure, go do it. Have fun to the kids. And there were certain precautions that I had. And I would often feel like the bad guy because dad said yes, and I had a tendency sometimes to say no. So that caused a lot of conflict. And he was pretty permissive, and he’s really able to concentrate. So even though he’s in the room, he’s studying for his Bible college classes. The girls do something or say something, and I’m the one doing almost all the disciplining.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t know how severe it was for you all, but this is not an unusual problem, and it’s not good. My wife Carol and I, when we were raising our family, we had different philosophies about the kids eating their meals. My view was you sat there until you finished your meal because that’s how I grew up, and Carol was a lot more – flexible on that. And of course, the kids were smart enough to play us off of each other. So if you’re young people out there and you’ve just gotten married, it really is important to try to get on the same page on child rearing and so forth, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. And you know, Dr. Dobson really helped us with that. We went to his first film series that came out when he was in his rust-colored leisure suit. Do you remember that with the big sideburns? Yeah. And so our church was not real great on having us go hear from other people. It was all maybe in-house. That was part of the problem where we went. And so we kind of snuck over to another church and watched those. And That helped us so much. I mean, Dr. Dobson helped us in many areas get on the same page in child rearing. We listened, even when Mark was window washing, he listened to Dr. Dobson every day. And I’d listen to him when I went for walks in the morning. So I felt like I knew him really well. We went on walks together.
SPEAKER 04 :
As far as our upbringing, it was worlds apart.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
At the dinner table, we were laughing and joking. And, you know, it’s just loud and busy. And when we took baths, you know, whether we needed them or not, we took a bath once a week. I mean, we were in the woods. We were out in this dirt. We were everywhere. But we’d take a bath once a week and we’d share the water. So the oldest would take the first bath and then the next one, and mom would scrub on us and whatnot all the way down through number six. Now, number six, the water was a little bit brown by then, but that’s all right. We’d tile him off and he’s good, you know. Whereas Jan was scrubbed on by her mom all the time. She couldn’t have a speck of dirt on her. So it was a totally different world. That’s right. And so I grew up with all the noise and activity and things going on. And you had to be able to concentrate. Whereas for her, it was quiet. And she, you know, and be quiet, Jan. And you know what I mean? It’s so totally different worlds. And when we tried to mesh working with the girls, that’s when it became tough. Yeah. And as far as discipline and everything else, it was a lot of challenges there.
SPEAKER 03 :
And this is exactly the sort of thing that Dr. Dobson has spoken about and written about so many times. And our paths crossed many times in recent years at events for the James Dobson Family Institute. And I know that the help and guidance that you heard from his radio programs and the various events he did in those early years of your marriage, that has linked you with the Dobsons and with this ministry. And that link has lasted for decades, which is a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it really is. We’re so grateful.
SPEAKER 04 :
We are super grateful because he was a lifeline to us. And we got all his books, read them, went to his seminars to understand that The impact of marriage in our lives, you kind of have to know what we went through. And the church that we were a part of, we’d raised our kids there, and by 1988, we were actually asked to leave. What had happened is that God was moving in a powerful way in that place, but pride entered in. and a love for spiritual experience in a way that wasn’t healthy. And the teaching on family wasn’t very good. And it ended up that that arrogance brought us to a place where we felt like we were better than other churches. But we became more and more ingrown. We quit reaching out the same way. We weren’t in touch with the body of Christ very much. And then a terrible spiritual happening happened. Began to change people, and they thought it was the love of God to be with somebody else’s spouse. And it happened all throughout the church.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness. What a terrible thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
And there was teaching to try to support it, and it became a reason for 230 divorces within a matter of years. And we saw friends that we loved, dear people. I mean, these are wonderful people. And we have many, many friends from the church still that we were in at that time. But it imploded and it was destroyed. There were satellite churches. Lives were just wrecked. But the biggest hurt was really for the kids, wouldn’t you say, Jan?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, yes. Yes. In fact, at that time, someone from Dobson’s ministry called us to pray and I just wept and said, pray for the kids because the kids still today have repercussions from that and just don’t want to have anything to do with God because of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
A terrible deception.
SPEAKER 03 :
It sounds like something you would see in a bad movie or something, you know?
SPEAKER 04 :
Or worse. And David Wilkerson said, he said, I think this is the greatest deception I’ve ever seen, the worst deception. And it just destroyed marriage. That was the devil’s primary target was marriage. And we struggled. We were a part of it for a while and just feeling very uneasy. And one day I had a visitation from the Lord. The Lord came to me and totally broke me down with his truth and his love. And he told me three things, Gary. He said, number one, go back to your family. Because it was just crazy. The love between people, the adults across marriage lines had become an important factor. And the kids were left behind. Number two, he told me, he said, get out of the ministry. And so I left the ministry and haven’t been back then, although we minister a lot. We just, I left the ministry. And number three, he said, I’m going to grind this system to powder and scatter the people to other churches to get healed.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mark and Jan, this life story of your relationship and you’re married, this is just really incredible and it’s inspiring. But there’s so much more I want to ask you about. And I think so much more that you could share with our audience. Could we impose on you to come back and do a second show with us? Sure. Certainly. We’d be glad to. Fantastic.
SPEAKER 01 :
Every enduring marriage carries battle scars that when healed by grace become badges of honor and wisdom. You’re listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk as we just concluded day one of our conversation with Mark and Jan Yokers. Their remarkable journey from college sweethearts to marriage ministry leaders demonstrates how God can use even the darkest seasons to bring unexpected light. Now, if you missed any portion of today’s broadcast or you want to share it with someone you love, visit drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. Well, as we’ve been hearing from the Yokers, strong marriages don’t just happen by accident. They are built through intentional choices, biblical wisdom, and the grace that comes from walking with Christ. And that’s exactly why the work we do here at Family Talk matters so much. Every day we hear from couples who tell us how these conversations have helped save their marriages, strengthen their families, and deepened their faith. Right now, you have an incredible opportunity to help us reach even more families with this life-changing content. Recently, a group of dear friends established a historic matching grant for the JDFI ministry. It’s the Dr. James Dobson Memorial Matching Grant. It provides matching funds now through December 31st, 2025 for up to $6 million. This gift is an incredible memorial and a statement of confidence for the only organization entrusted by Dr. Dobson himself to carry out his legacy and expand his work to new generations and geographies. As we work to promote the institution of the family, your doubled gift will make all the difference in helping us continue this ministry throughout the year ahead. Now you can make a secure donation online at drjamesdobson.org. That’s drjamesdobson.org. If you prefer, you can make your tax-deductible donation over the phone when you call 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825. Or if you prefer, you can send your contribution through the U.S. Postal Service. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, and on behalf of all of us here at the James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to tune in again next time for the conclusion of Gary Bauer’s conversation with Mark and Jan Yokers, continuing their discussion on everyday heroes who are helping couples take their marriages to new heights. That’s coming up right here on the next edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
