Today I am taking the opportunity to pay homage to a man that not only “talks the talk,” but more importantly “walks the walk.” Neil Millman is the epitome of someone who is the perfect example of one who is in touch with his faith and is the real meaning of Mother Theresa and Jesus of Nazareth. Neil is of the Mormon faith, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has lived a majority of his adult life in Provo, Utah.
Now, those reading this need to understand that the author of this piece is a staunch atheist, so this testimonial to Neil should not be taken “lightly.”
Neil Millman grew up in Carson City, Nevada, raised by the late Henry Millman and his wife Eleanor. They set a foundation of giving to others that has inspired Neil to do more than 20,000 hours of humanitarian work around the world; most human beings regardless of their faith do not have that track record. Neil has been in touch with humanity, the ecosystem and everything that embodies life since he was very young. He has been running with this conduit to life ever since.
His desire to help his fellow man is something that he has been doing for many years. He recently was involved in the Tijuana project in Mexico in November 2015, where students at Utah State University and Brigham Young University brought hundreds of blankets and quilts to people living in poverty who were in need. He has been involved in projects like this invariably throughout Europe, South America and Mexico.
Neil constantly says that his work is “a message and a work of love.” He and his wife Margarita have demonstrated that time and time again. In the city of Medellin, Colombia, they have worked with countless homeless people and people living in poverty to find food and clothing. What they also found was the fact that in that city, as well as others, the poor support each other even with the plethora of circumstances that makes their survival many times dubious at best. They saw drug addicts selling whatever clothing they had to get that next fix; living in squalor and conditions that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Che Guevara would describe, and who also witnessed this poverty with his many travels in Latin America in the 1950s, as outrageous.
Neil and Margarita and their circle of volunteers helped bring light and hope to the people in Medellin and helped support the very poor, where some of the people living in poverty were, in their own moral and humanitarian way, trying to mentor others even though they had very little themselves. In the community of La Questa in Mexico, Neil and Margarita saw firsthand the poverty and the level of hunger, domestic violence and degradation that they suffered. They treated these people like they were members of their own family, which certainly made a difference in the lives of the people in that community, as many there said so personally to Neil and Margarita. They brought dresses that a woman from Provo, Utah, had made for the young girls living in poverty in La Questa. That gift will be something that these youth 8 and 10 years old living in abject poverty will never forget.
More often than not, in this society we degrade, vilify and demonize those that are poor, indigent and suffering. Neil and Margarita Millman show compassion and love on a level that millions of others should emulate. Neil has been in Lisbon, Portugal, and saw the poverty and hopelessness that many experience there every day. Showing through his acts of kindness, whether it was feeding the hungry or helping local social service groups administer help to the poor there, that their “lives matter.” He continues to do this where ever he goes.
I feel fortunate enough to have met Neil Millman, and this testimonial to him should not be paid once he is no longer with us. Hopefully he has many, many years left on this planet doing “God’s work.” But this “piece” is a way of paying homage to a man who should receive these accolades now, and hopefully this letter will be an inspiration for others to follow in his footsteps. Henry and Eleanor Millman did a great job in raising someone who, unlike most people, truly embodies the meaning of “humanitarian work.”
As the late, great James Baldwin said, “It is very expensive to be poor.” Neil Millman helps pick up the tab for that every day of his life!
