Skip Navigation

Nothing Wasted: The Story of Paul and Helen Miller

Jim Ruff, Associate Director of Center for Excellence in International Ministries

When the journey is hard, and closed doors abound, true warriors of the cross are proven. From ABWE’s history in the 1940s, comes the story of God’s grace in the lives of Paul and Helen Miller.

In 1945, with a burning desire to reach the neglected tribes of Southeast Asia, Paul and Helen Miller approached Dr. Commons and the ABWE Board about the possibility of going to Tibet. The idea of ministry in that part of the world was not completely off the ABWE Board’s radar, but this would not be a quick and easy decision. 

While waiting for a response, the Millers began studying Chinese with a refugee couple in Seattle. Since the Chinese had claimed sovereignty over Tibet, this was an important language to learn for diplomatic purposes. It was during this first period of waiting that the Lord took home the Millers’ unborn child.

Two years later, in March of 1947, Paul and Helen were appointed as ABWE missionaries to western China for work on the Tibetan border. In their first prayer letter, the Millers wrote, “Begin to pray now for this ‘tribe,’ the Poba Tibetans, to whom no missionary has ever gone. It will be two years of language study before we can ever see them, but two years of prayer is very little to expend to prepare these people for the first hearing of the gospel after Satan has had them in bondage for over two thousand years.”

Over the next two years, the Millers attempted twice to enter Tibet through China, but were unsuccessful because of the spread of communism in that country. When they tried to enter through India, the New Delhi government refused to grant them a permanent visa. Their belongings, which had been sent to India earlier, were stored in Calcutta, and eventually Paul and his family were granted an extension of his temporary visa, which allowed them to travel to Calcutta in March of 1949 to retrieve the luggage.

During the next five years, the Millers relied on repeated extensions of their temporary visas to stay in India, and their family increased by the addition of Grace and twins Vernon and Sharon. Several moves took them further from the cities of India and closer to the border where there were more opportunities to minister to Tibetans. Paul became comfortable with the language and began submitting papers to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which elected him a member. Another mission entrusted to him a rediscovered manuscript of the Gospel of Mark, translated by one of their missionaries. Although their visas limited the “religious activities” they could be involved in, Paul’s translation ministry was fruitful, and both Paul and Helen had the joy of leading friends to Christ.

When they went to the United States for furlough in 1953, they were assured that there would be no objection to their return to India. However, when they were ready to go back, repeated requests fell on the government’s deaf ears. In April 1955, two Canadian missionaries departed for India with approved visas, but in August of the same year, the Millers’ requests were once again refused.

As Victor Barnard later wrote of the Millers, “They tried again and again with little success. It seemed that everything everywhere was against them and against the gospel, too. But one of the characteristics of a missionary is that he never gives up: his great quality is ‘stick-to-it-iveness.’ ”

When the door to Tibet was apparently closed, the Millers sought God’s will for their next move. At this time, ABWE missionaries Dick Durham and Victor Barnard were surveying Pakistan, and in October 1955 the ABWE Board voted to open East Pakistan. In line to go as the first ABWE missionaries were the Durhams, the Barnards, and the Millers. This was not an easy decision for the Millers, and Helen openly admitted that she struggled until, “The Lord who knows how to gently direct our hearts to [His will] directed me to a new surrender to Himself.”

When they arrived in East Pakistan in early 1957, the Barnards knew some Bengali, but the Millers had to immerse themselves in language study once again. In March, they trekked into the Chittagong hill tracks, an area not previously reached by missionaries. On their journey of 278 miles, their minds were filled with the people and sights they had seen, and they asked: “When would a new day dawn for these primitive peoples, who are already endeared to our hearts and memories?” Over the next two years, Paul, in his usual way, gobbled up the Moghi language and put together tools for the translation of the Word of God and the instruction of missionaries to follow.

Just two years later, in 1959, Paul celebrated his forty-second birthday, and in May of that year, the Lord took him home. He had set out on a grueling trip to visit a fellow missionary in Chittagong, but after his arrival he became sick. He was rushed to Dacca, where the doctors determined he was suffering from polio. Before an iron lung could be procured, Paul died. Helen and the children knew nothing of Paul’s death until after he was buried. Yet in these difficult days, Helen did not collapse, but smiled in the knowledge of God’s presence and encouraged her children and colleagues.

“I thank the Lord for the privilege to have been there and to have seen some fruit,” she said. “The host of tribespeople that have come to know the Savior: that’s a joy and rejoicing to my heart.”

Though they never lived in Tibet, spent years preparing and waiting for doors to open, and Paul had barely begun his ministry to the Chittagong Hill Tribes when he died, not one hour of the nearly fifteen years was wasted in self-pity. Those hours were filled with ministry wherever they were. They valiantly regarded God’s will as higher than their own, and they held on, even in the face of repeated disappointment. This year ABWE celebrated fifty years of ministry in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan). It is neither the length of days served, nor the number of goals met, that counts with God. Rather, it is lovingly showing Christ everywhere and faithfully following as He leads.