Mr. Ronald C. Hill

Ronald Callahan Hill loved lots of things. He loved books. He loved Gospel music. He loved family history, the North Carolina mountains and Tar Heel basketball. He loved bad puns and corny jokes. Put simply, he loved life. But most of all, he loved Evelyn and family and learning – and he loved the Lord and Savior he devoted his life to.

The ninth in a family of 10 children, Ronald was born July 31, 1927, in Rutherford County to Robert Martin and Lucy Callahan Hill. Growing up in a close-knit household headed by his beloved Mama Hill and Daddy Hill, he left Spindale to enroll at Mars Hill College, where he met a blue-eyed missionary aspirant named Evelyn Pittman from Whitakers, N.C., and eventually felt the call to ministry himself.

Completing his bachelor’s degree at Baylor University, he returned to North Carolina and married Evelyn on Aug. 13, 1948, and the two took off for studies at the Baptist seminary in New Orleans, a fittingly exotic introduction to the cross-cultural life they were embarking upon. When the communists closed the door to their first goal for service, China, the couple was persuaded by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) to refocus on Thailand, where they traveled in 1952 with two young sons, Robert and Neal, in tow. A daughter, Deborah, and a son, Jonathan, were born in Bangkok.

Often working side by side during their 41-year career, Ronald and Evelyn concentrated on their first love, planting churches, helping start or nurture congregations in Chonburi, Bang Khla, Bangkok, Chanthaburi and Lampang. But there were other assignments, too: Ronald served as director of mass communications in the 1960s and ’70s and later as mission administrator, overseeing operations and strategy for the Thailand Baptist Mission.

The couple also dived into relief work as Cambodians fleeing the Khmer Rouge in 1975 poured across the border and into refugee camps. For his role then and on a task force later that coordinated relief efforts, a member of the Thai royal family in 1982 presented Ronald with the Red Cross Medal of Honor, which he promptly dedicated to the Baptist mission he represented.

During furlough and back in Thailand, Ronald managed to earn his doctorate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and this scholarship joined with years of practical experience enabled him to serve as a visiting teacher at his alma mater, at Southeastern Baptist seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He also wrote and published on various missions-related topics, including a small volume on Bangkok evangelism strategy and a chapter about Buddhism in a world religion textbook.

When the Hills retired in 1993 and settled in Greensboro, N.C., their active role in ministry was far from over. Ronald served as interim pastor at Friendly Avenue Baptist, their home church, and at Rolling Roads Baptist. They frequently spoke at IMB training sessions for new missionaries. And they strove to nurture start-up congregations for Southeast Asian refugees, including a thriving Karen church at Friendly Baptist and a Laotian church at Immanuel Baptist, where Ronald taught theology classes for the group’s leaders.

A series of health crises struck Ronald during the past decade, but his passing came relatively quickly on Aug. 11, 2013, less than two weeks after his 86th birthday, in the Friends Homes West Health Care Center. He is survived by his wife, Evelyn, and daughter, Deborah Hill, both of Greensboro; sons and daughters-in-law, Robert and Ellen Hill of Harrisonburg, Va., Neal Hill and Mychelle Mollot of Ottawa, Ontario, and Jon and Mary Jane Hill of Carrboro; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

The funeral will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, 4800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro, NC, 27410. The family will receive friends Saturday from 1:00 p.m. until service time.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made to the Lottie Moon offering for Southern Baptist missions c/o Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, to Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro, 2500 Summit Ave., Greensboro, NC 27405 or to the Karen fellowship at Friendly Baptist.