The humanitarian work of Paul and Janice Jones grew naturally out of their lifelong dedication to medicine

Within six years of Kalnin’s visit the couple had sold their house and joined a team through Compassion and Mercy Associates (CAMA Services) at a Cambodian refugee camp. By that time, their oldest daughter had moved with her husband to Indonesia to develop a written form of tribal language and their youngest daughter had married. Paul’s brother was a medical missionary in Cameroon and that also helped influence the Jones’ decision to dedicate ten years of their lives to foreign aid work.

The Jones’ work with international aid groups grew naturally out of their lifelong dedication to medicine. Influenced by a cardiologist brother, Paul earned his M.D. from Duke and enjoyed an eighteen-year neurology career at Sacred Heart. A high school interest test suggested Janice had an aptitude as a mechanical engineer, but as a woman in the 1950s she was encouraged to go into physical therapy instead. Dissatisfied, she entered nursing school at the UO. Jan stayed at home after Paul was in his internship and their second child was born. They eventually had five children. When the youngest child entered high school Jan decided to renew her nursing license in preparation for foreign service.

While abroad, the Joneses were struck by tremendous cultural differences. “One fellow walked twenty-one days just to get to the plane to fly down to where we trained them in Thailand,” Paul recalled. They trained the Rawang people—a tribe in northern Burma—who sometimes travelled a thousand miles to learn about sutures, pulling teeth, and “how to treat major illnesses like malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery and the things that kill,” Paul said.

Today, the Jones’ house reflects their international inheritance. Sequined Thai elephants adorn the walls, a large teak-wood carved screen from Chang Mai decorates the living room and hand-woven baskets seem to be everywhere. The Joneses say they receive about three baskets a year as gifts of gratitude from their students. They’ve trained at least thirty-eight doctors, treated thousands of cases of malaria and worked as a team under two international relief organizations: CAMA Services and Samaritan’s Purse International Relief.

Sitting in their home in Eugene, the Joneses can calmly recall the dangerous situations they’ve encountered, often finishing each other’s sentences.

“We were in a refugee camp up above Kigali (Rwanda) and we could see the shelling going on down in Kigali,” Janice explained. “A lot of people had fled from the city to get away from the slayings. We saw women and children that had been slashed with machetes on their neck and had gotten away.”

Alongside the horrifying memories are equally impressive stories of triumph, such as their successful rejuvenation of an abandoned hospital. “The first week we had toilets like this,” Paul said, pointing to a picture of a grotesque, black-stained, overflowing toilet. By the second week, however, they had completed enough work to begin admitting cholera patients. In the third week, the national doctors and nurses returned to work, and by the month’s end hospital supervisors had returned. “We went from commode cleaners to consultants in four weeks, which I thought was a brilliant career move,” Paul joked.

Despite being captured once and evacuated on three occasions because of hostile action, Paul and Janice’s confidence in their cause is unwavering. Although they shared their religious faith with other cultures, they never considered themselves “forceful.” They trained a few doctors, who then provided aid for entire villages. They brought healing to some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world. And when asked, they shared their purpose for doing so. “If your credibility is good, you can tell people … what your religious beliefs are,” Paul said and added, “But you have to do good work and be benevolent about what you do.”

—JC

When they are not providing aid in other countries, the Joneses host international students at their home and volunteer at the University of Oregon’s International Resource Center. Since none of their twelve grandchildren live in Eugene, they put their energy into helping foreign students navigate American culture.