John Blake

John Blake resides in Clive, Alberta, Canada where is is active with the Deaf Ministries of the Seventh Day Adventist Church - Alberta Conference. He has four children, all whom are active in the SDA church and it's deaf ministries. He is widely known for his appearance in the film 14000 Miles (2021) where he talks with Bjorn Stickle on his views pertaining to God. In 1968 John and his wife had a daughter, Judy, that three months after birth got a serious case of chicken pox. Her temperature became dangerously high leaving her almost stone deaf. By nine months, the family had it confirmed, with a brain scan, that Judy might hear the rhythm of sound, but was profoundly Deaf. Blake's wondered why God might have allowed this. Gradually they came to the conclusion that maybe God wanted them to become involved in Ministry to Deaf as John was already a pastor in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada. But - how could John train? They discovered that a program was just being started at the Inter-Provincial Deaf school in Amherst for the training of teachers of the Deaf. Perhaps that was a way to train. John applied, and so did his wife, Alberta, who already had taught in a church school in BC. Blake's were rather shocked when Alberta was accepted, with only a two year teacher training diploma, and John rejected with an M.A. in Religious Education from Andrew's University. It seemed that the new director for the program, Ann Kennedy, was not anxious to have someone in her first class who really did not want to teach as a profession. Blake's deaf daughter, Judy, ended up as a student at the Inter-Provincial school, while her mother, Alberta, took the one year course. This helped the whole family, with their two hearing children, Joan and Jean, to start learning sign language. Gradually Blake's became involved with the Deaf, though mainly to start - with parents of the Deaf. In 1973 they took a little deaf boy, David, as a foster child and Alberta began working educationally with both Judy and David. In 1974 Blake's got a call to move and pastor in the Trail/Grand Forks area in B.C. There Alberta began teaching both Judy and David in 'Home School" in cooperation with the local Trail church school. In the 1970's, Blake's were very concerned to see an SDA deaf school start in North America. Many letters were written to the General Conference of SDA and tentative plans started to be made for a school, but when the GC leaders looked at the huge costs of a 'boarding school', they felt that it was just too costly, and the plan died. In 1977 Blake's moved to Hope, BC, where for two years John joined the crew in building the new SDA camp meeting location. While at Hope, from 1977-78 Alberta Blake joined with her sister, Edna Reimche, in starting a school for the Deaf in buildings at the new camp ground. However, the attempt failed when Edna got married and chose to no longer teach. Blake's also found it too difficult to have a student in the home 24/7 and also be "teacher". Two years passed at Hope and Blake's moved to McBride, BC. were John returned to being a pastor. Alberta continued her plan of having the two deaf children work at home on the more difficult subjects. She then worked part time with them at the local church school in classes that were easier to combine with both Deaf and Hearing students. In 1982 Blake's deaf children were now 12 & 14 years and an opportunity came for them to join with the already established 'Christian Deaf Center' [CDC] in Arkansas. This three year period is covered in the section on CDC in the USA section. In 1985 Blake's returned to Canada while Pastor Blake's father helped support the family as John worked to set up a formal ministry to Deaf in the Alberta Conference. Judy took a few classes at Parkland SDA Academy and David went to the Alberta government deaf school in Edmonton. During the next two years, Blake's taught sign language on both the high school and college level at Canadian University College, now Burman University. They tackled producing a public cable TV program for the Deaf called, "Deaf Family Magazine". They succeeded in getting 8 programs on cable in both Edmonton and Calgary and on the new SDA satellite network, 3ABN. They also had a Family Life Seminar Program with Thompson Kay in Edmonton, and a cooking class for Deaf. They worked to have two full series of evangelistic meetings in Edmonton interpreted for the Deaf. John Blake's wife Alberta passed away on July 23rd, 2019