TH E K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S
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On the GRIPSHOLM, some 900 missionaries r e t u r n e d to the United S t a t e s .
By ROBERT M. C H R K M A N '
Thailand—And God s Word to Me I T HAS BEEN my privilege (and I use the word advisedly, in the light of Romans 8:28) to pass a deeper sense, the meaning of those texts. And my trip home from Thai land accentuated that meaning. Guided by God covering 125 miles, in something like twenty hours. The greater part of the trip was over roads unbelievably bad—really nothing m o r e than ox cart trails.
through the bombings on our station during the Thai-Franco, border inci dents, and to experience six months’ internment in a concentration camp at Bangkok. Through it all I have found, in a new and blessed sense, that God's Word means just what it says. I still possess a few well-worn bits of cardboard, portions of my mother’s Promise Box. They are among the very few things that were not con fiscated. Back in 1930, when Mrs. Chrisman and I first set sail for Thai land, my mother had opened my packed suitcases and had pinned to my shirts and other clothing a few of the cards from her Promise Box. My wife and I began at once Jo learn, in *Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Chrisman (Esther Ender, Biota. *27) are missionaries of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, having spent ten yehrs in Siam, now known as Thai land. Upon advice from the State Depart ment, Mrs. Chrisman and their two children returned to the United States late- in October o f 1941, but Mr. Chrismpn remained at his mission post. He left Bahgkpk' for repatria tion to America on June 29, 1942, and after traveling 16,090 miles arrived at the port of New York, August 25, 1942. Mr. Chrisman is now using his knowledge of the Thai lan - gouge fo r m e xiot/erntrccnc in life ptimccatiutt of the war. He is associated with the Pacific Bureau o f the Overseas Branch o f the Office of War Information ( O.W.I.) at San Fran cisco •
May I take you back to the morn ing when Pearl Harbor Was attacked, and briefly sketch the events that followed? The morning of December 8 (Thai land time), as Paul Gunther, Peter Voth, and I were eating breakfast, we were stunned to hear, from a Manila radio station, the report of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Tension had been high in our country for many months, but little did we dream that the Jap anese would make such a bold attack, nor did we believe that Thailand would yield with practically no re sistance. We were fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. Follow ing telegraphic advice received from the American Minister to Thailand, we began immediately to try to es cape into Burma. Then it was that one verse from the Promise Box took on new bright ness for us: “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for ever more” (Psa. 121:8). And He did. We three men, together with Mr. and Mrs. Case, took the first lap of that journey in a Ford two-ton truck,
We reached a little outpost on the edge of the jungle, and from there it was our plan to go on elephant back, hoping that after ten days of such travel, we could cross over into Brit ish Burma. We were stopped in this strange little town, arrested as being enemy aliens, held in miserable quar ters for eight days, and then re turned to our home town riding over the truck’s rear wheels, sitting on packing cases filled with opium, and under the guard of drunken police captain. Uncomfortable but '‘Satisfied” After miserable delay, we finally reached the city of Bangkok and were interned in the newly constructed camp, along w i t h o t h e r “ enemy aliens.” There were over 300 Ameri can, British, and Dutch interned— men, women, and children. We were under the custody of the Thai army. They had converted part of the build ings and campus of the University of Moral and Political Sciences into a camp enclosing a four-acre plot of ground with a high barbed-wire fence which was to keep us from the out side world.
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