THERE IS A PURPOSE!

MELVIN M. NEWLAND
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX

(Changed e-mail address: 21 PowerPoint slides used in this sermon are available at no charge. Due to pictures used in this PP presentation this is a large file - 1.2MB. If you have a fast download system - then no problem. But if you have a slow download system then be patient in downloading, or I can split it into 2 emails for you to reassemble. Just e-mail me at mnewland@sstelco.com with your request. 1 email: #258, 2 emails: #258A&B.)


(Slide #1 – We Remember)

As most of you here this morning probably know, my family – my parents, a younger sister, & two younger brothers – were prisoners of the Japanese during World War 2. When they had set sail for the Philippines in January of 1941 I had been left behind for further schooling – with plans for me to join them later.

But then came Pearl Harbor, the start of World War 2, & the Japanese invasion of the Philippines – & for most of the war years there was no news concerning what had happened to them. I didn’t know whether they were alive or dead.

I learned later that when the Japanese invaded their island that they decided not to surrender, but to flee into the interior, to live & minister in the high jungles among the primitive mountain peoples. After all, they had lived in the bitterly cold mountains of Western China & Tibet, so they figured that they would have no trouble surviving in the tropical mountains of the Philippines.

For 6 months they lived up in the mountains, & were even able to start 4 churches among the mountain peoples. Finally, the Japanese Army learned that they were still somewhere on the island & began extensive searches for them – but with no success for the mountain people hid them & protected them.

Then the Japanese printed leaflets & began dropping them by airplane all over the island setting a deadline for their surrender, & warning them that after that deadline no mercy would be shown & that they would be shot on sight.

So they finally surrendered, & did so in such a way that the Japanese would have no way of knowing where they had been, or what villages had sheltered them.

Thus began nearly 3 years of internment. At first, as civilians, they were not too badly treated. But then, when the tide of war turned against the Japanese, all foreign prisoners throughout the islands were moved to Manila, & there the Japanese Army began taking out its anger on them, deliberately starving them – men, women & children – even while the prison storehouses were filled with food.

For the last 10 months of their imprisonment they received only one watery cup of rice per person per day, plus salt & any weeds, grass, tree leaves or bugs that they could find to eat. During the last few weeks of their imprisonment an average of 7 men a day died of starvation. My father, who normally weighed over 175 lbs., weighed only 95 lbs. when they were rescued.

Yes, they were rescued. On February 3rd, 1945, the American Army was still 60 miles away from Manila when they learned that the Commandants of the Prisons had received orders that on the next morning all male prisoners in both the civilian & military prisons were to be executed & that the women & children were to be used as human shields against the American forces.

That’s when 900 men of the