Guide to the David and Polly Miller Papers

David V. (Vines) Miller was born in Johnson City, Tennessee on August 23, 1926. He was the son of Earl Matson Miller (1888-1962) and Caroline (Carrie) Hewes Miller (née Wharton; 1892-1975). After high school, David served in the U.S. Navy aboard the battleship "Indiana" from 1944 to 1946. He attended East Tennessee State College from 1946 to 1948 before transferring to Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, where he graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree. Polly Jean Yandell was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on July 3, 1927. She is the daughter of Benjamin F. Yandell (1893-1967) and Mildred Lorraine Yandell (née Miller; 1898-1984). Polly attended Mars Hill College (Mars Hill University in Mars Hill, North Carolina) and earned an A.A. degree in business. She then attended the General Assembly's Training School for Lay Workers (later called the Presbyterian School of Christian Education) in Richmond, Virginia. Polly and David met while he was attending Davidson College.

In 1951, David entered Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. On June 6, 1952, he and Polly married. David graduated in 1954 with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He was licensed on July 13, 1954, then ordained by Holston Presbytery on August 1, 1954. After studying French at the Colonial School (Colonial University of Belgium) in Brussels, the couple were assigned to Luebo Station (American Presbyterian Congo Mission) in the Belgian Congo in August 1954, which began the couple's careers as missionaries of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS). David and Polly's children, David, Nancy, and Edward, accompanied them as well.

David and Polly spent 23 years in the Congo (in the Belgian Congo, the Republic of the Congo [Léopoldville], the Democratic Republic of the Congo [Kinshasa], and the Republic of Zaire), where David worked as an itinerating pastor, as a translator, and in the Evangelism Department of the Presbyterian Church in the Congo (Église Presbytérienne au Congo; EPC) and served as Moderator. In July 1960, Polly and the children evacuated during the events of Congolese Independence. In 1977, the Board of World Missions (PCUS) assigned David and Polly to serve with the Lesotho Evangelical Church (LEC; Kereke ea Evangeli Lesotho), where David was Projects Officer and oversaw projects pertaining to evangelism and church growth, village water systems, school buildings, Christian education, and agriculture. During David and Polly's time in Lesotho and during their time living in Harare, Zimbabwe, David worked as the Coordinator/Liaison for Southern Africa and with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s (PC(USA)) Evangelism, Church Growth and Theological Education Project (also referred to as PECGA, the Project for Evangelism and Church Growth in Africa), part of the Global Mission Unit. PECGA's purposes were to assist in building new centers of worship and witness in urban and rural areas, to assist in renovating and rebuilding churches in areas of limited local resources, to support formal and informal ministerial training for candidates, to provide support for construction and renovation of church-related educational facilities, and to support local and national church officer and Christian educational training initiatives for Presbyterian and Reformed churches, particularly in Southern Africa.

David and Polly retired from mission service in 1994 and left Zimbabwe to return to the U.S., where they settled in Black Mountain, North Carolina. They continued to itinerate throughout the PC(USA) to promote mission involvement. David died on December 23, 2019.