In his moving book, Miracle on the River Kwai, Ernest Gordon tells his story of life as a Japanese prisoner of war among the men building the infamous Burma Railway. They endured horrific conditions with what seemed to be no hope or purpose to life.

A few Christians, however, formed Bible study groups, which began to bring about amazing transformations within the camps. POWs who had stolen and cheated from one another became men who cared for and gave their lives for their friends. Those death camps became a place of hope and life because God's Word was at work.

Gordon recounts:

During one work detail a shovel went missing, and the Japanese guard shouted, insisting someone had stolen it. Striding up and down before the men, he ranted and denounced them for their wickedness, working himself up into a paranoid fury. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty one step forward to take his punishment. No one moved; the guard's rage reached new heights of violence. "All die! All die!" he shrieked. To show that he meant what he said, he cocked his rifle, put it to his shoulder, and looked down the gun sights, ready to fire at the first man at the end of the line.

At that moment one of the men stepped forward, stood stiffly to attention, and said calmly, "I did it."

The guard unleashed all his whipped up hatred, he kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fists. Seizing the rifle by the barrel, he lifted it high over his head and, with a final howl, brought it down on the soldier's skull, who sank limply to the ground and did not move. The men of the work detail picked up their comrade's body, shouldered their tools, and marched back to the camp. When the tools were counted again at the guard house, no shovel was missing.

Gordon later completed theological training and became Dean of the Chapel of Princeton University.