In Japan the Crickets Cry

How Could Steve Metcalf Forgive the Japanese?

Steve had suffered under the brutal regime of his Japanese guards. He and his classmates at Chefoo school in China ' for the most part the children of missionaries ' had been interned in 1942. Resentment of the Japanese was a way of life. Could he possibly pray for them? Painfully, reluctantly, he found that he could, and his prayers sank deep. At the end of the war the China Inland Mission was seeking young men willing to go to Japan . Steve trained, packed and went. Thus began Steve's lifelong love of Japan. Over the years he would tussle with a culture where courtesy wins over truth; where suicide is an honourable choice; where to be foreign is to be forever alien. Time after time he would encounter miracles of healing, provision, and protection as God looked after him, his wife Evelyn and their growing family. In a resistant culture he would see many come to Christ. This is the story of how a boy's grudging prayers were remarkably answered.