Ron Blough

6 October 2019

Dear Phyllis,

The other day a friend wrote me a letter mentioning Ron Blough. What a flood of memories that brought back. My total time of working with Ron was not that long, but if I could compile a list of the five men of God who have had the greatest influence on my life, Ron Blough's name would certainly be on that list. This is not because Ron was deep or profound. He was a badly flawed man, but he had excellent convictions that he uncompromisingly lived by. I set the standard of my life to try to live like him.

Four months after I arrived at Yokota, Japan, Russ O'Quinn and I started the Church of the Open Door. Inasmuch as we were all transient, and we wanted the church to be permanent, we wrote to Jesse Miller of OCSC asking if they had a missionary they could send out to establish a permanent Christian service mens center. Ron had just graduated from Bob Jones University and was seeking the Lord for His next move. Ron heard Jesse's' appeal one night and came out to take the church in 1960. Ron and I were radically different. He had three men guiding him in his life, Bob Jones, John R Rice, and Jack Hyles. Ron had a one string banjo and the only message he knew was witness and win souls. I was more devotional and into prayer. The first six months were agony of conflict. But through that we developed a system of honest heated discussions where we learned how to work together.

Ron was as wild as a spring hare and totally void of sanity and common sense. When facing problems he never considered reality and whether or not something was possible. He had marvelous integrity; if he thought something was the will of God he would just do it. I was deeply impressed as I saw the Lord, time and again, move mountains and open impossible doors in honor to Ron's faith.

The Church of the Open Door ran from 1959 to 1966. When that dried up Ron took his family to Sapporo in Hokkaido. After a couple of years of language study in Sapporo, Ron felt it was time to move out into unevangelized territory. One day Ron and Marlene got on a train and road to what is almost the end of the world. They went over to Rumoi on the west coast of Hokkaido which was about as remote as you could get. After spending time several hours walking around town trying to find some place to live, Ron spotted an ice cream store. Ice cream stores were rare in Japan in those days and Ron wanted to get some to eat. Marlene protested, “Dear, we don't have money for luxuries like that”, but Ron never let that argument stand in his way. He said, “Maybe the Lord will open a door for us in there.” As they were sitting in front of the store window eating their ice cream, a large crowd of people gathered outside peering at them. Americans there were as rare as aliens. A newspaper reporter saw this large crowd of people and went over to investigate what they were looking at. When he saw Ron and Marlene he walked in, introduced himself, and ask them why they were in Rumoi. Ron told him they were missionaries and wanted to move to Rumoi, but they couldn't find a house. The reporter knew a good story when he saw one and said he would get them a house.

Half an hour later they were in the biggest house Ron had ever been in located about 1 km south of town. This huge house had been built 50 years before then to house 80 fishermen. One of the main industries of Rumoi was fishing and this house had been built for fishermen, but it had been empty for several years. Using the newspaper reporter as the go-between they were able to negotiate a deal to rent that house for an extremely reasonable price. Ron and Marlene were jubilant over this amazing miracle how the Lord gave them an unimaginable house while they were sitting in the ice cream store. They went back to Sapporo packed up their things and moved to Rumoi.

But when Ron came back to Rumoi with a large truckload of their belongings, he learned a big lesson in Nihongo (the language). In Japan it is impolite to say no. so very often, the answer to a request maybe yes even though it is impossible. (And you're supposed to know the difference.) The house owner had no intention of letting the Bloughs have that old fishing house. They were shocked when Ron took them seriously and pulled up with a truck load of belongings. A serious sodan (discussion) ensued. Ron told them how they had canceled the rent they had on their house in Sapporo, and cleared out to move to Rumoi. As he was talking to them, he said their neighbors in Sapporo had a sobetsu kai (farewell party) and gave him a neck tie. When the house owners saw the neck tie, that made everything different. If the neighbors had had a sobetsu kai for them an gave them a farewell present, that closed the door so they could never go back there. That meant the Bloughs must live in Rumoi. There was a great deal of discussion among the family and then the elder brother, who was the main man, said, “We will give you a one year contract and see how things work out”. One year later, Ron took the rent money and spoke to the elder brother asking him if it would be possible to extend the lease. The brother told him, “Burau san, that house is yours for as long as you want to live there. I am a commercial fisherman. The day we made the decision to allow you to stay in that house I caught the biggest catch of fish I had all year”. That's the Lord for you folks. The Lord gave the Bloughs the best house they ever lived in through eating some ice cream and a neck tie they got at a farewell party. Plus Jesus put His hand on the situation by giving the house owner the biggest catch of the year.

The Bloughs couldn't have done more to get to the end of the earth in Rumoi, and yet they were some of the best known missionaries in Japan. They were the featured article in the Hokkaido Graph, which was the Life magazine of Japan. Twice NHK did a one hour national special on them about having babies and raising children They were national celebrities. Ron was like an angry bear to reporters coming to him for stories. To one reporter from Sapporo, Ron told him flat out, “I will not talk to a dishonest reporter. You promised the last time not to change the story and you did.. I won't talk to a liar like you.” When the end finally came, the day the Bloughs left to go home, the headlines in the Rumoi Times was “Blough goes home today”, and JR put on a special car to take them to Tokyo. I know of no missionary as celebrated as they were.

Ron had been in Japan for 18 years when one day he woke and said to the Father, “I have finished the work which You gave me to do.”, and in typical Ron Blough fashion, packed up and went home. It had been several years since the last I saw them and I went up to Tokyo to see them off. I asked Ron, “After you land in San Francisco, which way will you be headed?” Ron replied, “The only thing I can tell you for certain is that it will not be west.” They got in a car with six kids and drove from San Francisco to Maine. There they turned around to head west again and wound up locating in Little Town NH. Ron pastored a church and started a very popular Christian school. Then one night Ron had a squall with their oldest daughter who had made a decision to go a way that her father felt was was dishonoring to Christ. In typical Ron Blough fashion he submitted his resignation as pastor because he felt that a child of his was not following the Lord. As a returned missionary and a disqualified pastor Ron loaded his family in a car again to drive to the end of the road. He drove up the ALCAN Highway until he found a logging camp in Alaska that had no witness for Christ. There they stayed for another 20 years

I have not seen them since they left NH. Ron and Marlene are retired now living just outside Greenville, SC. There is talk that Ron might write his autobiography. If he does, it will be a good one, but one that will be hard to believe. God never made a man who was less concerned about what other people thought of him and more concerned to live a life totally devoted to the honor of Jesus. 2 Chron. 16:9 tells of God searching the earth for a man with a special type of heart. He certainly found one in Ron Blough. It was a privilege to be his friend.

bill