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Miracle on the River Kwai

In The Christian Leader, Don Ratzlaff retells a story Vernon Grounds came across in Ernest Gordon’s “Miracle on the River Kwai.” The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labor on a jungle railroad, had degenerated to barbarous behavior, but one afternoon something happened. A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot.


The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others!… The incident had a profound effect.… The men began to treat each other like brothers. When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors … (and instead of attacking their captors) insisted: ‘No more hatred. No more killing Now what we need is forgiveness.’”

Sacrificial love has transforming power.

The Christian Leader, Don Ratzlaff.

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