Thirst No More

By Andrea Lorenz Friday, 19 March 2010

CEDAR PARK — When news of the earthquake in Haiti broke Jan. 12, people all over the world learned of the devastation that the 7.0 quake left behind. The news caused one Cedar Park man to book a flight for the next day.

Craig Miller is the president of Thirst No More, a Cedar Park Christian organization that goes to places most people only read about in tragic news articles: Darfur, Sudan; Beslan, Russia, where a terrorist attack in 2004 killed hundreds of people; and Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001.

Craig Miller’s initial mission in Haiti was to deliver medical supplies to another nonprofit organization called Mission to Haiti whose camp lost five children in the earthquake.

“When I arrived in Port au Prince, there were still bodies in the streets, dust in the air, sporadic looting and chaos,” Miller described in an e-mail sent from Haiti. “The roads were blocked at night with stunned people everywhere and thousands of homeless sleeping in the street.”

Miller slept on a hammock on the grounds of a local church, where he said he was stunned to see the demonstration of faith in the displaced people who could not return to their homes but gathered to sing and worship every morning and evening. The organization’s mission in Haiti has grown from one man with a hammock to an operation with a four-bedroom house that serves as a base for the organization and other groups that want to help.

“Over the course of the month, our efforts grew into coordinating medical team visits to areas that hadn’t received any treatment,” Miller said. “We also continued to take a hands-on role in logistical support—food and supplies—to poor and neglected communities.”

Craig and his wife, Vicki Miller founded Thirst No More in 1995. It started small but over the years has grown to several staff members, including four in Cedar Park and three in Haiti, and hundreds of volunteers. The organization also has one staff member coordinating an effort to repair water wells in Zimbabwe, which has experienced flooding, then a drought, and continued poverty and political unrest. Another volunteer is in Asia in a country that cannot be named in order to protect the security of the operation, Miller said.

“We are a Christian organization that works in many places that do not value, or sometimes permit, religious freedom and democracy,” Miller said. “We work in some of the most difficult areas of the world where there is corruption and political instability.”

One of those places is Darfur, where the organization was repairing water wells before being forced to leave last year along with other aid groups after the government seized all supplies.

Miller has plans to keep the organization’s operations in Haiti for the foreseeable future, possibly adding home reconstruction to the organization’s work there.

Miller called the networks of churches that the organization has relationships with its “rapid response team.”

“When disaster strikes, they swing into action by raising the necessary funds and recruit the manpower to respond to the need,” Miller said.

These actions have multiplied the group’s efforts, Miller said.

“I feel like my experience the past month has been similar to the story of the boy with fish and loaves who gave them to Jesus, who in turn fed 5,000,” he said.