DR. JIM MCMILLAN HAS B EEN PROMOTED TO GLORY.

 With WW11 drawing to an end, I was discharged from the Repatriation general Hospital on the final day for admission for the first term at the Adelaide University School of Medicine. When we needed a home, for we had been with Mother’s parents, my dear wife and I knelt deliberately, reverently, and earnestly prayed.   During war years, transfer of real estate was forbidden.   God planned otherwise.  A former missionary from China Inland Mission had lived at Broadview and desired to sell his home.   He had prayed that the Lord would send a missionary-minded family.   He readily agreed to the sale, which the government endorsed; funds from army discharge were deposited.   It was a major response to prayer.   Still dramatic, sixty years later.

Broadview became our family home for nine years, during medicine and preparation for Java.

Jim McMillan offered to help with Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology, where I had missed    weeks, and especially many physics   experiments.   Jim explained the work clearly and competently :   a teenager tutoring one who had lived through a ‘generation’ during the years of our medical unit.   My deficient memory was slowly restored.   Jim explained many processes to me, as I copied his practical manuals. University staff cooperated marvelously, where many of us faced adjustments normally unknown in university classes.    Mother sat with me nightly, wrapped in army blankets,   wood for the fireplace being beyond our means. She listened as I read aloud, often repetitively, my notes. ‘When I complained , intending to abandon it,   Mother   objected that we must fight on and the Lord would help me through.   Jim at University and Mother at home under girded me.   I owe an immeasurable debt to them.

Jim cruised through a brilliant medical course:   growing in grace through the fortified bible teaching of home,   fellowship and Evangelical Union.   Jim went with the Open Brethren to India to teach in hospital life. On our travel to Outer Harbor, Jim realized that he had left his passport and health record at home.   We retraced our steps to recover these documents, laughing at this , finally arriving at the wharf where many had gathered to   farewell him.    He needed a help-mate. When God sent Doreen from our home state to assist him, it was the Lord’s masterpiece to bring husband and wife together.   The Lord richly blessed their un ion, as their children witness.

I had followed Jim’s recent, grievous stroke, praying with Doreen, and sensing the gravity of Jim‘s condition.   However, when Win Carson rang to inform me, I slipped away weeping at the memory of Jim who with Mother had been my strength during those frail   days.

Woodcroft Christian Centre, where Jim and Doreen had ministered for any years burst into praise-   ‘Abide with Me’ and   ‘Be Thou My Vision’ were triumphantly and convincingly sung.

The amazing account of Jim’s life unfolded.

Jim incisively studied the Scriptures as he had during the years of our medical training.   He competently taught the Scriptures to beloved Indian brethren.  Jim had not grasped that the Lord had adepted him in languages with freedom using their most common dialect, Kanorese. Soon he commenced writing; compiling more than 20 devotional books in Kanorese.    An unprecedented linguistic achievement.   Jim also acquired Marathi, and was able to translate from one Indian language to another. His Indian publisher told of the deep impact of Jim as a man of God.   His Indian languages enable him to trace many Indonesian words.  

This scholarship vastly enhanced his missionary enterprise.

Jim’s two sons and daughters spoke highly of their father’s encyclopedic knowledge of God’s Word ; his love for his Lord and family and his wide grasp of poetry, having international recognition.     Jim prayed for and   supported many Christian missionary activities.
After Evangelical Union, Dr John Hughes recounted that he had gone to PNG; Jim to India and I to Indonesia. He affirmed that their partnership in Bedford Clinic enjoyed God’s benediction. Bruce Coventry told of their Indian ministry   where Jim had advised in a differing language.

I told of Jim’s influence in the medical school: especially of his   support in my adaptation . We   spent time with Dr Geoff Pike, who had practiced surgery for a generation in North India; Dr Willem Booree, the clinical psychologist; Dr Don Nicholls, after half a century in Taiwan, physician and theologians: the surgeon, Neil Macintosh, now retired but still teaching the Word.   Medical men of faith rejoiced at the freedom God had given Jim to publish the Word of God. An air of rejoicing pervaded the occasion.  

Present medical staff from Bedford Clinic honored Dr Jim in   suspending their practice.  

Former OAC(Open air Campaigners ( Alan   and Lorraine Bailey) and MMM ( Mobile missionary maintenance voiced their gratitude for Jim’s sacrificial life.

God had given a panorama of the rich gifts lavished upon one special servant of the Lord.

Psalms in verse are Online ( available on the intern et ) so that the world can appreciate their beautiful harmony.   Jim versified 150 glorious   psalms, God’s heritage of his remarkable gift.   They continue to bless believers around the world.   Do pray for this ongoing ministry.

I had taught the bible in Jim’s assembly.   When leaving,   I received a copy of my notes   in verse, marveling at the surpassing thoroughness of Jim’s notes. He remained a dear friend during these 60 plus years.   I bless the Lord for this faithful servant of the Lord who loved the dear Savior, cherished Doreen and their beloved children and grandchildren: and his brethren deeply. He practiced medicine in two continents , unveiling the character of the Great Physician.   

Our dear brother Jim is seated at the throne of Christ in heaven, delighted at the beauty of the Lamb of God.   He waits now for the Rapture, when the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout , the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.    He knows that ‘We that are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds   to meet the Lord in the air.   And so we shall be forever with the Lord.’

                Jim knew and treasured this blessed truth while he walked this earth.   1 Thessalonians 4.