I live with my wife Helen in one of the Philadelphia suburbs in the USA. Together we have six children and 17 grandchildren. I’m retired, having been laid off from my position as Principal Engineer in AMEC’s environmental division in 2011, at age 80. Since then, I have served off and on as a consulting contractor in the fields of groundwater computer modeling and computer programming.
I was a lay rural missionary to India under the United Church Board for World Ministries (UCBWM) and served two terms under that Board 1956-61 and 1967-71. I did development work in a village area of South India during the first term and served as a Soil and Water Specialist for Action for Food Production (AFPRO) headquartered in New Delhi and then Madras (Chennai) during the second term.
At home in the United States, I have worked for several environmental engineering firms from 1972 to 2011 as a groundwater hydrologist. I served as principal investigator and project manager on sites having groundwater contamination or sites requiring increased groundwater supply in the eastern U.S. From 2014 to 2019 I served as a part-time computer programmer specializing in the Visual Basic, VBA, and C# languages.
I’ve always viewed the world as belonging to the Lord. And each of us has been put on earth to care for one another and to be good stewards of our planet. Because of this, much of my spare time has been filled with activities aimed at lifting up vulnerable people and trying to prevent wars, particularly wars of choice the U.S. has undertaken since World War II. This has involved my participating in several activist organizations and writing op-eds and letters to the editor in local newspapers.
As an example, in March 1965, I helped organize a busload of 35 residents of northern California to travel to Montgomery, Alabama, where my fellow bus riders and I participated in the last day of the Selma to Montgomery march. I’ve also been active over the years with Witness for Peace (WFP) to try and limit the degree to which my country can impose its will on the people to our south. WFP sponsors two-week delegations/tours to selected countries in Latin America. In the 1980s, they operated by accompanying and supporting the people of Nicaragua fearful of becoming victims of Contra atrocities. Today they support the pleas of the poor in several Latin American autocratic countries whose policies are designed to keep the poor down and to commit human rights abuses against them when they try to rise up.
I started writing Home in India: A Pilgrimage with People and Poverty in South India in June 2020 when we were just starting to take the Covid-19 pandemic in this country dead seriously. I wrote the book because one of my granddaughters, Hannah Jordan Mills, urged me to write it. One day, she and I were talking, and she kept asking various questions about my work in India. I realized it was all too complicated to lay out for her understandable answers in any reasonable period of time. One question just led to another question and another. A second reason for my writing the book was to share with as wide an audience as possible some of the enriching experiences and wonderful people I encountered in India.
In the same way, I wanted to share my experiences in justice and peace activities with my family, friends, and other people sympathetic to justice and peace in our country. That’s why in 2021-22 I wrote Reporting for Duty: My Urgency for Justice and Peace.
I hope you will enjoy reading at least one of my two books: Reporting for Duty or Home in India.
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