Wilma Miller didn’t want to go to the Paris air show, not since her husband’s heart had failed him and left her life a cavern of loneliness. But her son urged her on, and now she sat beside him in a taxi outside the Paris airport.

“We need to go, Mom,” he had urged. “Dad had looked forward to this trip, and even though he’s not here, he would have wanted you to go.”

Doctor Miller flew for 40 years, often leading mission trips and fly-in clinics around Mexico. After retiring from medical practice, he and his wife Wilma continued their mission trips, spending much of their retirement working in Southeast Asia.

“The years in the Cambodian refugee camps were the best,” Wilma remembered. “We dispensed medicines, set bones, distributed food, and hugged children. Most of the kids were orphans, and we wanted to give every one a loving home.”

“Dad always carried peppermint candies in his pockets, and the kids followed him like the Pied Piper. There was one family especially, a thin girl and her even-smaller brother, who caught our hearts. Dad repaired her fractured leg, and her little brother slept under her cot while she was in the hospital. One day, Dad gave the boy a small red fire truck—a simple gift that came with armloads of love.”

Wilma’s Cambodian memories had guided this morning’s choice of Paris taxis.

“Dad would have wanted an Asian driver,” Wilma told her son, pointing to a young Asian standing beside a taxi.

“Where were you raised?” Wilma asked once they were in the cab.

“Cambodia,” the driver answered.

“Were you in one of the refugee camps?” she pressed.

“Yes, my older sister was adopted by a French family, but my other sister and I were lost in the camps for several years till she found us. We’re with her in France now.”

Wilma dug deep in her purse, found a wrinkled photo, and pushed it eagerly toward the driver.

“Did you ever meet this man? He’s my husband, and we worked together in the camps. He was a doctor. A very good doctor!”

The driver slowed, guided his taxi to the curb, stopped, and pulled a small package from deep beneath his seat.

“Yes, I knew Doctor Miller,” he said, holding the package for Wilma to see. “Doctor Miller was my friend, and he gave me hope.”

In the driver’s hands was a small, well-worn red fire truck.

Dick Duerksen is the "storyteller" for Maranatha Volunteers International. Readers may contact Dick at dduerksen@maranatha.org.