Eric Liddell and the Internment Camp Garden

In 1943, Olympic gold medalist Eric Liddell — the Scottish sprinter whose story inspired Chariots of Fire — found himself behind the walls of the Weihsien internment camp in Japanese-occupied China. He had not chosen this place. He had come to China as a missionary, not a prisoner. Yet behind that barbed wire, Liddell made a decision that echoed across the centuries to the exiles of Babylon.

Rather than withdraw into bitterness, Liddell threw himself into the life of the camp. He organized chess tournaments and softball games for restless teenagers. He tutored children in science and math. He carried coal for elderly missionaries too frail to manage the work themselves. Fellow prisoners later recalled that he was the one person in camp who never seemed to be looking out only for himself.

Liddell understood something the prophet Jeremiah pressed upon the displaced people of Israel: your calling does not pause when your circumstances turn harsh. "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you," the Lord declared through Jeremiah. Build. Plant. Pray for this place — even this place.

Eric Liddell died in that camp in February 1945, just months before liberation. But the seeds he planted in those bleak years bore fruit in hundreds of lives. God did not waste a single day of his exile — and He will not waste yours.