Portrait of Robert Hardy. IMB Photo
Robert “Bob” Dean Hardy, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, died June 5, 2024, in Birmingham, Alabama. He was 95.
Bob was born April 29, 1929, in Logan County, Kentucky, to the late Robert Osborne Hardy and Myrtle Sears Hardy. He graduated from Russellville (Kentucky) High School and received the Bachelor of Science from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and the Bachelor of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville.
After graduation, Bob passed the Kentucky Pharmacy Board examination and became a licensed pharmacist. In 1951, he enlisted in the United States Air Force as a pharmacist and served in Japan during the Korean War.
Bob came to faith in Christ during a revival meeting when he was 13 years old, but it was not until enlisting in military service that he began to consider God’s will for his life. He became an active member of a young people’s group at a local church during basic training, and it was there he learned about and began to pray for foreign missions. While seeking appointment Bob wrote, “I began to wonder if God did not have something more for me to do than I had been doing. This conviction grew as I went to Japan and saw the tremendous spiritual need in the lives of the Japanese people. There in Japan, on Thanksgiving Day, 1954, I definitely felt that the Lord was leading me to be a foreign missionary.”
While deployed in Japan, Bob met Mavis Shiver who was serving there as a foreign missionary. They became engaged, and Bob returned to the U.S. and enrolled in seminary. When Mavis was home on furlough, they married on June 6, 1957.
In 1958, the International Mission Board appointed Bob and Mavis missionaries to Japan. Bob served as a pharmacist and hospital chaplain and later as associate to the area director for East Asia and treasurer for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.
He was followed in death by Mavis, his wife of 67 years, on July 30.
He is survived by three daughters, Joy Derzis (Cooley); Cathy Compher (David); June Hardy Dorsey (David); a brother, George Hardy; six grandchildren; and one great grandchild.
A memorial and celebration of life service was held July 27, at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Read an obituary here.