Our Biography
Ron was raised in a Catholic home. At the age of 12, he started asking the priest and nuns how to get to heaven. They told him he had to live a good life and after he died, he would have to spend 1,000 years in purgatory. If his relatives lit candles and said prayers for him, he could go to heaven after those 1,000 years. Ron asked how to go directly to heaven. One priest said, “There is a way. If you live an almost perfect life and perform two miracles before your death then after 35 years the church will dig up your body, examine the decomposition and if it is determined to be miraculous, the church will pronounce you a saint and you will be allowed into heaven.”Even as a child, Ron recognized the fallacy and lack of biblical support in this statement. He began to ask other religions how to get to heaven. No one seemed to know until one day he asked an Independent Baptist. This man took out his Bible and showed Ron how to be saved. Though Ron was not saved at that time, he began to attend an Independent Baptist church.
In 1981 Ron entered Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College in San Dimas, California. It was during his second year that he realized fully his need for salvation and he asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins and save him from eternal punishment in hell. Having been raised in a Catholic home, it took seven years for Ron to realize the biblical meaning of salvation, repentance, and Jesus’ death on the cross.
It was also during Ron’s second year of Bible College that he met his wife, Kathy. An Independent Baptist preacher had knocked on her family’s door when she was only two years old. That preacher led her mother to the Lord. Her father was already saved so together the family started attending church. Thus Kathy was raised in a Christian home. She made a profession of salvation when she was six years old and made assurance of her salvation her second year of bible college. Kathy is not sure whether she was saved at six or at twenty years old, but she knows she IS saved.
Ron and Kathy were married on July 16, 1983. They graduated from Bible College in 1984 and moved to Boise, Idaho where they interned under Pastor Bob Hines at Broadway Ave. Baptist Church. After two years at BABC, God called Ron to start a church in the Portland area. Corridor Baptist Church in Hillsboro, Oregon had its first meeting in June 1987. Many souls were saved and baptized over the next six years.
In April of 1993 Ron felt the Lord calling him to be a missionary in the country of Russia. When he first told his wife about this burden, she said, “Keep praying!” The Lord worked on Kathy’s heart and they surrendered to be missionaries. Ron wanted the church to call a pastor who shared the same burdens and doctrines of the church so he stayed on until the church called Pastor Steven House to be their new pastor. Corridor Baptist Church became the sending church for Ron and Kathy. Pastor House’s first Sunday as pastor was the Reasoners’ last Sunday at Corridor.
Ron took a survey trip in December of 1993 and started a work in Smolensk, Russia. He sent faxed sermons to his interpreter in Russia who then preached these sermons in Smolensk while Ron traveled throughout America raising support.
The Reasoners were on deputation for eleven months and left for the field of Russia on September 4, 1994. They have raised five children on the mission field (click here for Family). The reasoners were also privilege to have seen ten churches started during their 17 years in Russia.