Add your caption(Photo: © CMS)A SAMS mission partner who pioneered a Theological Education by Extension programme that spread throughout the world, is appreciated by Doug Milmine
Tony has been my friend and colleague since we met over 62 years ago.
It began when Tony was the vet of Ilfracombe and I was the new curate of St Philip & St James Church in 1947.
Our vicar was the renowned Guthrie Clark. Tony left to train for ordination and when Guthrie moved to Slough, we both (Tony and I) became his curates. Then the Lord called Tony to work for SAMS among the Araucanian Indians at Chol-Chol in south central Chile. Off he went at the end of 1952 with Peggy, Terry, Rosemary and Hilary.
Our call, to the Milmine family, came through a letter from Tony who saw a place where he thought we were needed. So off we went (Doug, Ros and four children) at the beginning of 1954.
We laboured together among the Chileans, and were soon joined by Reg Bartle, David Pytches and others. We all saw the need for the then 60-year-old Araucanian Mission to become the Anglican Church of Chile. By God’s grace this came to pass, and by 1983 it became part of the 27th Province of the Anglican Communion, covering seven republics.
Before long, God led Tony into full-time leadership of SEAN, the vast, worldwide movement to enable believers to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ the Holy Scriptures.
Tony started the very beginnings of SEAN in a little Bible School of mostly Indians on the small mission farm. After Tony and his family of five children moved on to Paraguay and then Northern Argentina, SEAN grew and grew and most other Christian denominations also wanted it.
Even after retirement to his family cottage in Devon, Tony continued enlarging the work on his computers, until handing on to his son Terry. (Do send for SEAN literature at
www.seaninternational.com.)
Tony was always of a retiring nature and would consider himself an ‘unworthy servant’, but now this gallant Bible warrior has heard his Lord’s welcome: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of thy Lord.”