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Odds & Ends
The Sound of Silence
By Jim Plunkett

Vernon Miller was a young and enthusiastic Baptist missionary like many other missionaries around the world, trying to help the less fortunate. What made his mission unique was the fact he was deaf.

Middle School Students at EFATA

After considerable experience working with the deaf in his native United States and in Jamaica, in 1970 he decided to establish a mission in Peru, where the deaf population exceeds 1.4 million. Upon arrival, he found the deaf reading lips, unfamiliar with sign language, and few who could read or write. His first challenge was learning Spanish and local cultural customs, not an easy task.

Vernon chose a simple house in Chosica, 40 kilometer east of Lima, where the sun seldom fails to shine. There he started his school, EFATA. Two deaf children were sent from the jungle and there were three other local children. It wasn't long before it grew beyond capacity.

Back home while seeking financial and spiritual support for his new mission in Peru, he met and fell in love with a pretty young and deaf blond at a missionary gathering. Despite the desire to come and marry in Peru where they would carry on their work, they were obliged to take their vows in the U.S. Why? Peruvian laws prohibited marriage between the deaf, alleging they couldn't properly convey their true consent to each other in the eyes of society, let alone the Lord!

Another setback they ran into was Peru's prohibition for the deaf to hold a driver's licence, under the assumption that they can't hear the horns of the friendly taxi and bus drivers trying to force their way through traffic. What local officials don't realize is that in the United States, where there is no such restriction, the rate of traffic accidents among deaf drivers is much, much lower than those without this handicap!

In 1974, Vernon and his wife Melva were offered a share of a parcel of land in Villa El Salvador with a Baptist missionary school. This was a rather desolate area in those days, with lots of squatters in shacks, and barren and miserable in winter, but they couldn't turn it down. With support from a group of Dutch, the Baptist church of Hammond, Indiana among others, and private donations, they built their new school.

Dealing with local educational authorities and politics has never been easy, especially during the formative years. Children with hearing deficiencies were isolated from other students and there was little support for establishing sign language and texts, let alone teachers. The local deaf organization, the members of Manos Que Hablan (Hands That Talk), had never been able to agree on a common sign language, and some resented the introduction of foreign sign language that would compete with their improvised gesticulations. Thanks to the Millers, today the Peruvian deaf are communicating efficiently with at least 40% of “imported” sign language that is common internationally.

Pastor Joe and Lisa Kotvas

In 1999, Vernon was suffering from severe pain. He required a delicate operation on his spinal column and spent 12 hours at the hands of one of the best specialists in the U.S. who promised him nothing. After a quick recovery, he yearned to return to his Peru to be with his children. It was extremely difficult for all involved. He was called by his church to return to his native Florida for a well-earned retirement.

Through one of those divine experiences, Vernon had hosted a young missionary volunteer named Lisa who came to Peru in 1987 from her own Trinity Church in Jacksonville Florida, where Vernon had preached to over 60 deaf members of the congregation. Lisa found his work most fascinating.

Meanwhile, back in Jacksonville, she met a young Navy man named Joe Kotvas. After completing his duty, Joe and Lisa studied educational methods for the deaf and worked at a rehabilitation center. Then he decided to use his Navy reserve experience by joining the police force. After school, they married and were assigned to Ft. Meyers Florida. There Joe felt a divine calling to serve as a preacher, and he continued as a deputy sheriff while preaching, always looking to help the deaf.

In December 1999, while visiting their old friends, Vernon Miller and his wife in Peru, they couldn't resist the call to serve. Giving up a good job on the police force, a friendly local church on the tropical Gulf of Mexico, and all the comforts of home, they made the big move with their family to Villa Salvador, one of Peru's poorest areas with a population of over one million people trying to survive.

Today the Kotvas family, Joe, Lisa, their seven children with one on the way, and a little eight-year-old boy they are adopting, continue the mission of Vernon and Velma Miller. They are assisted by the school's director, Gladys Jiménez Aguirre and a fine staff including several deaf adults that were Vernon's initial students. They attend the educational, social, and spiritual needs of 53 deaf students from kindergarten through high school. Approximately 80% attend on scholarships; 35 are residents, and several students commute daily from areas as far away as Los Olivos, a two hour bus ride each way.

Shortly after my visit to this overgrown and rather hostile district decorated with gaudy signs offering cheap shows, Internet service, shady eating places, and moto-taxis flying about like mosquitos, I made a re-entry into my comfortable Miraflores habitat. Tourists were sipping cappuccinos in front of a well-groomed park, while artists offered their fresh paintings to the strollers near Pizza Alley, and modern patrol vehicles cruised by occasionally to give me a sense of security. Sitting in a small café, I heard the background music playing:

And the vision that was planted in my brain…still remains
Within the sound of silence.
And the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share… and no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

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