Robert G. Rev. Johnson

Missionary, Architect, Bible Translator and Author Rev. Robert G. (Bob) Johnson, 94, a Baptist missionary to the Chin people in the western mountains of Burma (now Myanmar), died of complications from pneumonia on June 9,2009 at the Health Center of Plymouth Village, Redlands, California. Rev. Johnson was born in Chicago, Illinois, graduated in 1938 from Wheaton College in Illinois. He was married to the former Elizabeth Luella Kortum of Decatur, Illinois in 1941. The couple were commissioned as missionaries of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and designated for service in Burma. War intervened, and Rev. Johnson served as a Navy chaplain in the south Pacific during World War II. Rev. and Mrs. Johnson began their missionary service in 1946, passing through Assam, India to enter war-torn Burma. The Johnsons served in the Chin Hills for twenty years, raising three children there while running Bible schools, touring remote areas accessible only on foot or by pony, running a dispensary, and doing translation of the Bible, Sunday School materials, and hymns. Rev. Johnson designed and oversaw construction of many wooden-framed and rammed-earth Bible school buildings in both Falam and Haka (now Hakha) in the Chin Hills. Toward the end of this missionary service, understanding that the mission field in Burma was closing to foreigners under the new socialist military government, Rev. Johnson designed and oversaw the construction of a large stone church in Haka built almost entirely by hand, with the only powered machinery being a stone saw powered by a single-cylinder kerosene engine and a war-surplus truck to haul stone and other supplies. Rev. Johnson, a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, received the Doctor of Divinity degree from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in recognition of his missionary work in Burma. The Johnsons relocated to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, near the mission headquarters in Valley Forge in 1966. Rev. Johnson served on the Board of International Missions, overseeing mission work in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Zaire, with continuing work on Bible translation into the Haka Chin language, until his retirement in 1980. From then until 1988, Rev. Johnson immersed himself in research for writing and self publication of a massive two-volume History of the American Baptist Chin Mission, a serious and authoritative record of the introduction of Christianity into the Chin Hills of Burma by missionaries of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society between 1899 and 1966. Rev. and Mrs. Johnson moved to Moreno Valley, California in 1988 and then on to the Plymouth Village retirement community in 2001. In 2007, Rev. Johnson released a book entitled "On the Back Road to Mandalay", on his and Mrs. Johnson s twenty years of life and work in the mountains of western Burma. Rev. Johnson is survived by his wife of nearly 68 years, Elizabeth (Betty Lue), three children Richard Johnson of Churchton, Maryland, Kristin Knutson of Riverside, California, and Martha Martens of Dallas, Texas, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. There will be visitation at Emerson/Bartlett Memorial Chapel at 703 Brookside Ave., Redlands, Ca. (909 793-2311) from 6-8PM on June 14, 2009. A memorial service will be held at Plymouth Village at 2:15 PM on June 14, 2009. Following the memorial service at First Baptist Church, Redlands at 10 AM on June 15, interment will be in the Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, California at 2 PM. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory, designated for the Chin Christian College to: Friends of Burma 548 Home Ave. Ft. Wayne, Indiana 46807