Ray Miller has recently retired from Latin Link after an incredible 46 years of committed service. As you will discover below, his story has had its fair share of highs and lows, surprises and disappointments, but his sense of humour and willingness to be obedient to God shines through.

The beginning

My overseas mission journey began with the Regions Beyond Missionary Union in November 1979. I arrived with my small family in Costa Rica to start language study on the 31 December. We later went to Peru in early August 1980, with no-one to meet us in the airport and no address of any of the RBMU missionaries, plus we had a trunk of children’s clothes and toys missing! We took a ‘Lima taxi’ to the Evangelical Seminary. I say ‘Lima taxi’ as the door didn’t close and I had to hold it shut!

In Peru

Once in Peru we began the great adventure of our mission career. For the next four years I worked alongside my Peruvian mate Abelardo Calderón – together we were the national leaders of UDEC, the Peruvian Evangelical churches’ youth work. So, instead of further academic study of Spanish, I was thrown into trying to mobilise the young people in financing Abelardo and, later, a total of six other regional workers. Some had tins to fill, others sold llamas and alpacas from their herds, and some gave us sacks of coffee beans from their annual harvest.

Changes afoot

We returned for a furlough in the UK and stabilised our own support structure.  On our return something magical and scary happened. My Spanish suddenly became functional, and I could read between the lines of what people were saying. I realised that the church was highly polarised between more conservative and more progressive leaders who had trained in Costa Rica.

So I left the youth organisation to spend more time with my local church which was building a three-storey church (unlikely project manager Ray Miller –  a * * * * *  * theorist according to my practical engineer father!) We also developed a church planting team, with reasonable success, in the shanty towns of south Lima. I tentatively started to teach in the night Bible Institute in central Lima.

Enthusiasm in education

The latter caused a lot of confusion as I often had no idea of their questions. As a friend Pastor Miguel Celi later confided, “you were really enthusiastic, but actually we didn’t get a lot from that study of Isaiah.”

I mentioned that being a missionary is a career and there are often some weird stopping off points enroute. I was eventually promoted, despite my level of perceived incompetence, to Director of the Lima Bible Institute. Incompetent in terms of not having any credentials in theological education, though I had a university honours degree in Sociology, a two-year Missions Diploma from All Nations and two years of a theological degree from a small place called Cambridge University! But in education I was an enthusiast!

Painful times

The Bible College was outwardly a great success with brilliant staff and great students who, at first, didn’t want a “gringo” (a slang term for foreigner) leading, and for six months it was finely balanced. However, after writing a project proposal, we received funding to buy our own building and with that I was well on the road to sainthood in the IEP (Iglesia Evangélica Peruana – the Evangelical Church in Peru).

However, my family situation was deteriorating and when we finally left in 1994 it was clear that there was no realistic opportunity of reconciliation. As Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Sadly, I resigned from the mission and struggled through a painful divorce.

Renewed purpose

After a time of healing, in 1998 I started with the mission again, this time working alongside Claire Siddaway to mobilise Latin missionaries to the UK. It was the precursor of our Incoming Mission programme. I also met Bridget Bennett and we married in June 1999. She who oft stated, “the fact that you are a missionary doesn’t mean I will join the mission.”

Thus began a long patient four year wait for God to convince Bridget that she was destined for Latin America. Meanwhile, I had completed a post graduate course in Education (Manchester) and a Masters in Missions (Birmingham).

Fresh ministry opportunities in Costa Rica

There we started a new ministry, training Latin missionaries. We pioneered a Masters Course at the University of the Nations in San José. I was the Dean of the Social Science Faculty – in English terms a mad professor! Some years later we were head hunted by the ProMETA Online University to set up a Department of Intercultural Studies. In the past ten years or so we have trained over 100 students from different Latin Missions who are serving all over the world, but mainly in the Middle East.

Retired but still serving

Although I retired from Latin Link after the International Assembly in Peru in February 2026I still write Masters online courses for ProMETA and mentor at the Master’s level.

Passing on the baton

At each stage I have practised passing on the baton to competent national leaders. In the case of the ProMETA Intercultural studies department, the Director, now for several years, has been my colleague and close friend Aldo Cayuba. I am happy to say that he surpasses his former boss in every area! He too shares the vision of:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…” Colossians 3:23