Though Janie and Neal Blough brought closure to their four and a half decades of service in France through Mennonite Mission Network on Oct. 1, their mission activity continues. Join a virtual celebration of their ministry, Dec. 14, 12-1 pm ET by clicking here.
GOSHEN, Indiana (Mennonite Mission Network) — After 45 years of Mennonite Mission Network ministry based in France, Janie and Neal Blough describe their new status as "reorientation," rather than "retirement." They continue to teach in seminaries and congregations throughout France and Switzerland and in their Parisian suburban community. They continue to present at conferences and maintain relationships throughout the French-speaking world. And they continue to write, as well as invest in the publication of French-language Anabaptist literature.
Gratitude for the Bloughs’ extensive academic ministry is interwoven with appreciation for their equally wide-ranging network of friendships.
Siaka Traoré, a Mennonite church leader in Burkina Faso and chair of the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Deacons Commission, described Paris as an international center, where it is important to have a Mennonite "embassy."
"Neal and Janie are Mennonite ambassadors," Traoré said. "The Paris Mennonite Center has been a refuge for so many of us from Burkina, Chad, Congo, Canada, and the United States — even people from France. We have all enjoyed the Bloughs’ legendary hospitality."
Traoré credited the diversity of the Mennonite churches in Paris to the Bloughs’ teaching ministry and their openness to other cultures. César García, general secretary of MWC, added to Traoré’s praise.
"A cross-cultural ministry has a cross-cultural impact," García said. "This is especially true in the lives of Neal and Janie Blough. Their [ministry] in France has been honored beyond Anabaptist circles. On a global scale, we are profoundly thankful for their work and their ongoing teaching ministry in the areas of theology, church history, liturgy, and peacemaking. Their lives continue to be a gift for our global communion."
When Anne-Cathy Graber, the Bloughs’ friend and Paris Mennonite Center colleague, thinks of them, hospitality immediately comes to mind. Graber said that although she was always offered generous and delicious meals at the Bloughs’ table, she has also been nourished by their warm embrace of the ideas of others.
"[Janie and Neal] knew so well how to knit together [physical and spiritual] hospitality!" Graber wrote in a tribute to the Bloughs. "I’m deeply grateful that in so doing, [they] didn’t just create the Paris Mennonite Center, [they] created the Franco-American Inn of Paris with a typically Mennonite welcome."
In reflecting on their interactions with people from many parts of the world, Janie Blough referred to Hebrews 13:2, which encourages hospitality through which angels may be entertained without knowing it.
"Angels indeed, in some of the most unexpected and unimaginable ways!" she said. "The experience of offering hospitality has truly been an expression of God’s grace."
Janie Blough said that two words characterized the over-arching vision of the couple’s ministry: hospitality and multiculturalism.
Mennonite Board of Missions (MBM — a predecessor agency of Mission Network) commissioned Janie and Neal Blough to work in France. After their arrival in 1975, the Bloughs spent a year in language study before joining their MBM colleagues, Eleanor and Larry Miller, who were creating Foyer Grebel — a home for African men and women pursuing studies in France. At the time, racist attitudes made it difficult for African students to find lodging in Paris. The city was unwelcoming in other ways too, with its cold climate, its reserved culture, and its secularism.
Foyer Grebel opened with a handful of students. The Miller family and the Bloughs had evening meals and weekly Bible studies with the students. At its peak, Foyer Grebel hosted 30 students at a time — a dozen in the original building and others in a network of off-site housing. Attendance at Bible studies increased, and in 1981, regular Sunday services were added. French people, who were not students, began joining in worship and provided stability to the growing congregation, Communauté Chrétienne de Foyer Grebel. Hundreds of students’ lives were touched by the love of Jesus shown at Foyer Grebel. The congregation eventually joined the national French Mennonite structure.
Within the first decade of the Bloughs’ assignment, their vision of Christ’s body as a multinational, multicultural, multiracial church sharpened, though guidance from passages like Ephesians 2. The chapter speaks of Jesus breaking down dividing walls of hostility and building all people into a dwelling place for God’s Spirit. They also found direction in Revelation chapters 21 and 22, which describe a new heaven and a new earth to which all nations gather with their gifts.
"A sign of the future God wants for the world is the birth of a multicultural church," Neal Blough said.
Foyer Grebel evolved with the times, moving its location in 1987, and eventually closing, due to a 1990’s urban renewal project. The building that had housed Foyer Grebel became home to the Paris Mennonite Center and to the Blough family.
The Paris Mennonite Center nurtures Anabaptist theology through a missional perspective and relationships with French-speaking Mennonite churches around the world. It encourages Christians to unite for global peace. With Janie and Neal Bloughs’ engagement at the Paris Mennonite Center, along with their passion for continual learning and teaching, new ministries developed.
Neal Blough held a half-time, salaried position at the Vaux-Sur-Seine Evangelical Seminary, outside of Paris. He also taught at the Catholic University of Paris and the Mennonite Bible school in Bienenberg, Switzerland. He is often called upon for conferences throughout Europe and beyond — Congo, Guadeloupe, Ivory Coast and Morocco, to name a few. In 2009, La Vie, a Catholic magazine, named Neal Blough one of 100 most influential Protestants in France, noting the importance of the Mennonite stance on non-violence.
Two aspects of the Paris Mennonite Center’s ministry that have developed since 2000 give Neal Blough great satisfaction: publishing Anabaptist literature and the creation of the Mennonite Francophone Network. Perspectives anabaptistes has made 20 titles available in the past two decades. And the network of relationships between French-speaking Mennonites in Africa, Europe, and Quebec is flourishing under the auspices of Mennonite World Conference.
Janie Blough launched her teaching ministry with English classes at the city hall to reach out to community people. At first, the neighbors were apprehensive, thinking that the Bloughs belonged to a strange religious sect. But after 30 years of respectful exchange of ideas, the English class participants have become a close-knit group, supporting each other through life’s crises and joys. Janie Blough often chose Mennonite themes for conversation topics, such as the importance of peace and non-violence in human relationships.
Janie Blough also teaches at Nogent Bible College in Paris’ eastern suburbs; at Bienenberg Bible school in Switzerland; at the Vaux seminary; and in several other continuing education assignments. She speaks at conferences and leads worship workshops in congregations. Annual Psalt gatherings are one of her favorite venues. There, week-long teaching on the biblical and theological foundations of worship culminates in a glorious worship experience.
Janie Blough said that she and Neal appreciate that Mission Network gave them an elastic assignment, which allowed their ministry to expand as God’s Spirit led. She likens their awareness of their calling to a patchwork quilt with blocks of learning and experience stitched side-by-side; the pattern only later becoming discernible.
"You don’t really understand what you are doing until you look back on it," Neal Blough said. "Half a century is not really very long. But, during that time, my strong Anabaptist vision has been tempered by multicultural learning and new perspectives on colonialism and North-South relationships. We must de-ethnicize our Mennonite identity and be more consciously involved in efforts to promote Christian unity."
Janie and Neal Blough will continue all of their ministries during "reorientation," except for the work of the Paris Mennonite Center. Matthew and Toni Krabill, who began serving with Mission Network early this year, have taken responsibility for the Center. The Bloughs hope this will free up more time to dedicate to the families of their three children, including three grandchildren, who live within a 10-mile radius.
