Hunger, thirst and the inability to gain access to proper medical care are three things many people in Peru experience on a daily basis.
Naomi Miller, an advanced-practice registered nurse from Melbourne, has been working to help those people for more than 20 years.
Miracle Village International Inc. and Villa Milagro Inc., its sister organization in Peru, aim to make a difference in the communities they reach out to.
“Jesus gave the disciples the Great Commission when he told them to ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.’ For some people, their world is next door. For others, their world is in other countries. I feel like my world is in Peru, and I feel called to support the work there,” Miller said.
Miller said her uncle, Doyne Robertson, and his wife, Martha, served as missionaries in Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They formed friendships with Larry and Joy Johnson, who were also missionaries.
Miller said that when her uncle moved back to Arkansas to work as a pastor 20 years ago, he began talking to a dentist in the church about going to Peru on a mission trip to provide dental services to people who couldn’t afford them.
“He was going to take just a small group of guys, including my brother David Miller. I sort of invited myself along, having no idea what I was getting into,” she said.
The group ran out of medications during the trip because so many people needed to be seen, many just wanting access to Tylenol or vitamins for their children.
“We stayed with Larry and Joy Johnson at their home, Villa Milagro in Cajamarca, Peru. I was overwhelmed with the crowds of people who had walked hours to be seen and would wait all day, so I started recruiting help for future trips,” Naomi Miller said.
Miller said her brother, David, handles logistics, while she gathers medical professionals and supplies for the trips.
“We go to Cajamarca, Peru, north of Lima in the Andes Mountains. We have made three trips to the jungle farther north on the Amazon and its tributaries,” she said.
Miller said that on their second mission trip on the Amazon River, a boat they had rented to transport 50 people — missionaries and volunteers — sank a few weeks before they planned to use it.
The group ended up renting a large boat that was typically used to move produce and livestock, and a small tourist boat. The small boat couldn’t move as fast as the barge, so the group ended up tying the boats together to travel up the river, stopping at villages to have clinics.
“It turned out that the barge was great for clinics due to the size, with dental, eyeglasses and photos on the top deck, medical on the middle deck and pharmacy in the hull. Some people got a lot of exercise escorting patients up and down the stairs. One day we saw over 900 people,” she said.
“It was fun seeing boatloads of people pulling up to the bank, wanting to be seen,” she said.
Miller said that while she has gone on mission trips with other groups to Brazil and Romania, her heart is in Peru.
David and Naomi began organizing the mission trips to assist their uncle shortly after the couple began going on the trips. They formed a nonprofit organization to support the mission work in northern Peru, she said.
“The work includes drilling water wells; building churches, a school, a clinic; providing bread for 18 schools in the area; providing scholarships for students attending college; and more. Drilling water wells is probably one of the biggest projects. One water well can provide clean water for a village and reduce infant mortality by 50 percent,” she said.
Naomi said everyone pays his or her own way to go on the trips, and some participants do their own fundraising.
“I feel like I am giving only a little, but I have to depend on God to multiply that into spreading the Gospel and other good works in that part of the world,” she said. “Over the years, I have seen what a difference has been made by all the teams who go — teams from all over Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and other areas.”
Naomi said her favorite thing about the trips is getting to know the volunteers and the Peruvians who work with them. She said Facebook provides an easy way to stay in touch with friends, regardless of how far away they are.
David said he and his sister travel to Peru three to six times a year with groups.
“We’re religious-based, but we provide a lot of humanitarian-type efforts. I was raised in church, and the best witness you can have is not what you say, but what other people see you doing,” David said.
“It’s easy to get someone who is hurting to say ‘I believe this’ or ‘I believe that,’ but if they see you living it and giving them something without asking for anything in return, they want to know what causes you to do that,” he said. “They want to seek out what you have and they need, and that’s God in your heart.”
David said he has been blessed with a good life and feels like he owes his service to people who haven’t had the opportunities that he’s had.
He said groups have gone into communities and provided well water, and in turn, local teachers have said that absentees drop in schools because kids are healthier.
“Whatever we can do for them, it improves their quality of life, and the teams we take make a massive difference,” David said.
David said the organization has even brought people from Peru to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for cochlear implants, heart surgeries and brain-related procedures.
He said Dr. John Lambert of White River Medical Center in Batesville performed surgery years ago on a young man from Peru who had cancer and was expected to die.
“I saw him last week in a village, and he’s doing fine,” David said.
Naomi said that on their most recent trip, their group went to a poor village that a medical group had never provided care to before.
The people were so appreciative; they prepared the group a lunch that consisted of fish, corn and cabbage. The corn and cabbage came from their gardens, she said, but they bought the fish in Cajamarca.
“It was humbling because you know they really didn’t have the money to spend on that fish. It just makes you want to do more when you know they are giving so much of what little they have,” Naomi said.
Naomi said she and her brother wouldn’t be able to do anything without the volunteers who have gone on trips with them over the years.
It takes a variety of people with a variety of skills and responsibilities to make a mission successful, she said.
“It’s amazing how generous people can be, spending their own money, using vacation time and being away from their families to go to another country and work. We’ve been blessed with some great groups,” she said.
“Our main goal is showing God’s love for our fellowman through our actions,” David said. “Just knowing that there are going to be people who are better off because of what we do — that has to be what the motivation is.”
Staff writer Kayla Baugh can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or kbaugh@arkansasonline.com.