Bill Griffin

I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. I went forward at a tent meeting held by my home church when I was 9 years of age and made a decision but I later had questions about whether I was truly saved at that time. When I was 14 years old I got it settled. I count this as the time I was saved. I had the privilege of being in a great missionary church from the time I was born. Colonial Hills Baptist Church had a strong Bible teaching pastor in Dr. Paul R. Van Gorder. He also had a great burdon for missions. The first missions conference in the church was held in 1945. At the missions conference in 1950 one of the speakers, Dr. Oswald J. Smith of Canada, challenged the church with Faith Promise giving. The church began Faith Promise and gave millions of dollars through the years to missions. I believe Colonial Hills Baptist Church was one of the first if not the first church in America to use Faith Promise.

I married Gwen in 1962. We met in high school. I attended Tennessee Temple and graduated from the college in 1967. I worked as an associate pastor in Richmond for almost a year. It was during this year that I finally answered God's call to be a missionary in Japan. God had been dealing with me about this for several years. In April of 1968 Gwen and I were accepted by BIMI and began deputation in June of that year. We went to Japan in June of 1969. We worked with Don and Virginia Sisk during our first term as we learned Japanese. Later we moved to central Japan and worked with Roland and Sandra Simeonsson. We worked for twenty years with Japanese Nationals. For the next 14 years we worked with the United States military in Japan.

Since the summer of 2003 we have been back in the states where we have served as Director of Enrichment, done militry relief work overseas, and spoke in churches where we helped promote missions and BIMI.

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