On April 10, 1946, Bill and Louise Medling were appointed by the SBC Foreign Mission Board as missionaries to Japan

William R. (Bill) Medling was born May 28, 1914, in Fukuoka, Japan, the fourth of five children of Southern Baptist missionaries Paul and Lenna Medling. The Medlings had been appointed missionaries in 1907, but their tenure was relatively short. Paul Medling died of pneumonia during the flu epidemic in 1919; Lenna Medling returned to the United States with the children the following year and died in 1942.

When the family returned to the United States, moving to Jackson, Tenn., Bill Medling was 5 years old. He graduated from Union University in Jackson in 1935 and from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1938. He met Louise Gulley (b. 1915) at seminary while she was a student in the Woman's Missionary Union Training School in Louisville. They married May 26, 1939, and had four children: twins Paul and Edward, Bob, and Carol Ann.

Medling served as a pastor in Slayden, Miss., from 1938 to 1942. He entered the United States Army in 1943, attending Chaplain's School at Harvard University for three months and then serving as chaplain at Deshon General Hospital in Butler, Pennsylvania. From 1944 to 1946, he served in Shemya, Alaska. He was discharged from the Army in March, 1946.

On April 10, 1946, Bill and Louise Medling were appointed by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention as missionaries to Japan. From June 1946 until October 1947, they studied Japanese at the University of California, Berkeley. They arrived in Tokyo in the late fall of 1947, devoting most of their first two years in Japan to language study.

From 1949 to 1960, the Medlings worked in Kumamoto. Bill engaged in evangelism and church planting, while Louise taught Sunday School and worked with women and young people. They served in Okayama from 1960 to 1964, moved to Okinawa, and served there from 1965 until 1978. They retired in 1979 to Nashville, Tenn., where they continued working with Japanese nationals through local church ministries.

– William R. (Bill) Medling Collection, 1907-1989, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives