A Legacy of Faith and Care
John and Aurie Miller envisioned a program to provide medical education in Congo when they founded the Christian Medical Institute of Kasai (IMCK) with Dr. Bill and Effie Rule in 1954. IMCK was initially located at Lubondai but, after independence in 1960, was moved Tshikaji near the more urban, populated city of Kananga. The school reopened at Tshikaji in 1963. When the need for an adjoining hospital became apparent, the Rules and Millers worked with the Women of the Presbyterian Church in the US to raise $400,000. Johnny helped oversee the construction of the Good Shepherd Hospital, which opened in 1974, and helped to identify a site for a hydroelectric dam on the Lubi River to provide power and water for the hospital.
Both John Miller and Aurie Montgomery were the children of Presbyterian missionaries. Aurie grew up in China and attended high school at the Pyongyang Foreign School in Korea. She graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1944, where she majored in biology and music, and completed a Master of Science in Bacteriology at Sophie Newcomb College in 1945. She worked at the CDC in Atlanta on furloughs and received an Honorary Degree from Agnes Scott College in 1980.
John grew up in Congo where he graduated from the Central School for Missionaries Children. He attended Davidson College, graduating in 1943. He then received an MD and MPH from Tulane University Medical School in 1946 and 1947, respectively, followed by general surgery training for 18 months. He received a second MPH from Harvard in 1965, completed a pediatric residency in 1970, and received an Honorary Degree from Davidson College in 1980.
More than anything else, Aurie and John loved problem-solving and taking care of people. Aurie, who trained as a microbiologist, often lamented that she hadn’t also studied nursing. Her children recall going with her to the village where leprosy patients were undergoing treatment. She moved from home to home talking and commiserating with patients, spending hours with the sickest and most isolated, taking food and other small, handcrafted gifts.
John loved children and all living things. Blessed with curiosity and humor, he marveled equally at the resilience of sick children and all creatures in Congo’s natural world. After the mid-1960s, John focused on maternal and child health, creating clinics for children under five in rural and urban areas, mobile baby clinics, vaccination campaigns, and residential nutrition clinics for mothers and malnourished children. He opened many air dispensaries and flew frequently to see patients and collaborate with local native doctors. He facilitated bringing medical students from Kinshasa to complete their clinical internships at Good Shepherd Hospital in Tshikaji. In mid-career, he received a second MPH from Harvard, completed a residency in Pediatrics at Grady Hospital, and turned his focus to the health of mothers and children.
Over many years, they both taught nursing, laboratory, and dental students while working with Congolese and American colleagues. Aurie served as a mentor and mother to many and was well-known for her local Babula Cuisine cookbooks. She quilted, raised African violets, spoke English, Mandarin, Tshiluba, and French, and taught her children through 4th grade.
In addition to his medical work, John was well known for legendary story-telling, love of flying, fishing, carpentry, fixing things, boating, crocodile, hippo chasing, and snake collecting! His love of nature resulted in his collecting and cataloging the reptiles of Central Africa, eventually sending his collection to the Smithsonian.
Aurie and John loved their careers in Congo and maintained ties with their friends and colleagues long after their retirement in 1987. Johnny died in 2004 and Aurie in 2013.
Thanks to the vision and faith of the Millers and the Rules, IMCK has grown into a vital health care institute that has greatly improved the quality of life for thousands of our Congolese sisters and brothers.