October 13, 1954 - March 31, 2025
The Life & Ministry of L. Ruth Milligan from God’s Perspective.
Oh, my precious daughter, Ruth, you have suffered long enough. Come join me in my eternal heaven and enjoy the life you were created for. Your time in the earthly shadowlands is done. Come be reunited with your parents, Don and Launa Davis, and your two young children you never had a chance to know well, Matthew and Tiffany.
I created your spirit on the day you were conceived, then months later you were born in Garden City, Kansas, to your parents, Don and Launa Davis, who were serving Me as Village Missionaries at Pierceville Federated Church. Not long after that, I called them to serve Me as Bible translators with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea. So, they, along with you and your older brother Steven, boarded the SS Oriana and set sail for PNG. While you were there, your two younger sisters were born, Becky Davis Campbell and Jean Davis Archer.
Back then parents didn’t take their children to the village much. So, when your parents were in Wantoat, I had you and your siblings cared for by My servants the three Aussi Aunties, Olive, Doris and Elsie. I arranged for and was brought much joy when Lloyd got to meet 2 of them years later. They instilled many good values into you, including having a cuppa morning Aussi tea with milk. You also acquired a bit of their Aussi accent, which you worked so hard to shed when you came home to college. So, you and your siblings got your early education at Ukarumpa Elementary School and graduated from Ukarumpa High School in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The 8 other students in your graduating class are all My servants today.
Then I lead you to attend Wheaton College. There you got your Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Ed. To everyone’s surprise (but Me), your first year at Wheaton College of all places was the only time you ever got malaria, though the rest of the boys in the family got it regularly, especially Zack. All the doctors there were running around crazy wanting to see live Malaria on your blood slides in the lab. When you graduated, I opened the doors for you to teach at Christway Academy in Dallas. Then you heard my voice and taught missionary kids in a one room schoolhouse for 2 years in Brazil. I rejoice that you served Me that way! I loved it when you showed everyone that adventurous spirit, I gave you in taking a ride on a hammock boat all the way down the Amazon River by yourself. You sure did have a love of travel…a love I used to shine My light through you all over the world.
You also went on to get your Master’s degree in Special Ed at the University of NorthTexas at Dallas. But before that, I had another adventurous person I wanted you to meet. So, I kept having your old Chevy Vega break down and Lloyd Milligan would keep fixing it for you. I put a thing in him for redheads, so he didn’t mind. I loved bringing the two of you together to form a team who would work wonderfully together for 45 years in so many different ways.
I remember when you two love birds were engaged in the rotating restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower in Dallas on the first day of April 1980; I know it didn’t miss Lloyd’s attention when I brought you home to Me exactly 45 years later on the last day of March 2025.
From there, I led you and Lloyd to join Wycliffe to get your linguistic and literacy training before heading to PNG February of 1982. I smiled because I knew you really didn’t want to go back to PNG. You’d been there and done that. You wanted a NEW adventure. But since you and your family were familiar with Highlands cultures, you heard My voice and came to know that working in the low lands on an Island was going to be a satisfying new life adventure.
I sustained you through some hard times during your jungle camp training and those first 9 weeks in Lavege village with no radio and no transportation. But I strengthened you through it.
You were just getting ready to move into Lavege village, when you started having problems with your pregnancy with Kaleb. Because you’d already lost baby Matthew in utero, I called you home to the US where both you and Kaleb, who was born premature at 3lbs 3oz, could get better care. I remember guiding the surgeon’s hands as you had a lifesaving hysterectomy. Even though those times were hard, I protected you and Kaleb. And now look, he is 6’4” and a far cry from that puny birth weight. Then, because I love you so much, I continued to bless you with children through adoption.
I was with you every step of the way as you and Lloyd returned to PNG to begin your Bible translation work among the Mangseng people on the Island of New Britain. Lloyd was still learning Tok Pisin, a language you grew up speaking as a child. You guys built your house and settled into village life analyzing and learning to speak the Mangseng language. With a lot of My help, Lloyd was able to translate the book of Mark and you got it published before you came home on furlough.
During that next year and a half in the States, I blessed you with your daughter Kara. She was born December 23, 1985 in Ft. Worth, TX. She was considered hard to adopt, but that didn’t stop you. I used your Special Ed training to show you that she didn’t have Cerebral Palsy, like so many thought. She just had strong muscle tone from birth; something I enjoyed watching throughout the years as she used those muscles to beat all the boys at BMX races. That was near the beginning of your stay in the US, then at the last minute, well 13 days’ worth of last minutes, I blessed you with Zachary, born May 29th 1987 in Renton, WA. They flew him down to you in San Diego. You barely got his adoption finalized before getting on the plane back to PNG. I laughed as both Kaleb and Kara thought babies came from the airport for a while.
Four years later you rushed home, because a friend of Lloyd’s sister Sandy wanted you to adopt her baby. I only let you have Tiffany for 2 months when I called her home. I know you and your family were devastated, but I was with you. I remember the constant talking we did as you took that month-long trip up the west coast to grieve and recover. And when you returned to San Diego, I surprised you with another adoption waiting for you, Katie. I gave you the blessing to be in the next room when she was born on July 27th 1991 and you and Lloyd got to cut her cord and wash her up. Something most parents don’t even get to do. So now your family was complete. 2 boys, 2 girls and 2 in heaven.
Those next 9 years when you were in the village, I had you raise your children in My ways, in part, by homeschooling them as Lloyd trained villagers to help in translating the New Testament into Mangseng. With more of my help, even more than you and Lloyd knew, I had you finish your assignment in Papua New Guinea when Lavege village dedicated the Mangseng New Testament on July 1st, 2000.
But your heart was so great for me that you both kept serving Me in Wycliffe. First, Lloyd taught linguistics for a year and a half at Biola University then 6 years at Bryan College in Dayton TN. All the while, you were about my business as you held numerous Cultural Dinners for students, hoping to expand their horizons and interest them in mission work. Then you organized and led numerous Get Global trips, some back to PNG so college students could experience what the life of a Bible translator might be like. Then you began training new Wycliffe missionaries, helping prepare them for overseas service. Thank you for your heart and service my dear daughter.
As your children grew, they began to marry. First Kara married Wesley Cherry and gave you 3 granddaughters, Nyla, Dallas and Oshun. Katie brought you 3 grandsons, Maddox, Lincoln and Jones. When Katie married Jeffrey, Leona and Jeffrey Jr. came along into her family as well. Zack married Carol and gave you grandson Wren and now granddaughter Robin. Unfortunately, you never got to meet her in your earthly life. So, I’ve blessed you with 10 grandchildren. Not quite the 12 you were hoping for from your four children, but still, a pretty full quiver.
In 2019 symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease started manifesting. Still, I was with you and Lloyd through those last 5 years as things got worse and worse. Now finally I have called you home, my precious daughter. Well done my good and faithful servant. You loved me with your whole heart and followed the leading of my Holy Spirit in you. You impacted the lives of many and drew them closer to Me. Enter into your rest. Again, I say, “Well done.”
P.S. Ruth has written 2 books:
“God of the Impossible” (Stories of the) Milligan Family in Papua New Guinea
Available at: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/god-of-the-impossible-ruth-
milligan/1139663082
“Zack and Kenidi and Krockie – Best Friends”: Based on a true story. Cynthia Pearson
illustrator.
Available at: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zack-and-kenidi-and-krockie-best-
friends-cynthia-pearson/1139367469
Graveside Funeral services for Ruth will be held on Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 12:00 noon at Rhea Memory Gardens with Rev. Jim Woychuk officiating.
Celebration of Life services for Ruth will be held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. at Calvary Chapel Aiken in Aiken, SC.
Celebration of Life services for Ruth will be on Saturday, May 10, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. at Grace Bible Church.
Please share your memories and photos of Ruth on her online guestbook at www.vanderwallfh.com.
The family is being cared for by Vanderwall Funeral Home in Dayton, Tennessee.
In Lieu of Flowers
2017-2019 Ruth was supervising Joe and Emily Armfield in their work in Cameroon. When she heard that both of their mothers had passed away, she volunteered to become their "Mom". She was even with Emily at the birth of their 2nd son.
So in lieu of flowers, we request that people donate to the Wycliffe ministry of The Armfields: ministry account #242646. Or at this website:
https://wycliffe.org/partner/thearmfields
To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of Launa Ruth Milligan please visit our Sympathy Store.