Chapter 17: A Woman at War

It was as if the Lord had prepared her many years before.  Darlene Diebler was a missionary in the jungles of New Guinea.  She was actually one of the first European woman to follow her husband into the Baliem Valley to bring the gospel of Jesus to an area known for cannibalism.  She had braced herself for these hardships, but there was one she hadn’t prepared for.  In September of 1945, the Japanese invaded New Guinea and Darlene, her husband and her colleagues were carried off to a Prison of War camp.

They tried to take everything from them.  The separated the men from the woman, gave them limited rations of food, and tried to take away their faith.   But there are some things that just cannot be taken.

“As a child and young person, I had had a driving compulsion to memorize the written Word.  In the cell I was grateful now for those days in Vacation Bible School, when I had memorized many single verses, complete chapters, and Psalms, as well as whole books of the Bible.  In the years that followed, I reviewed the Scriptures often.  The Lord fed me with the Living Bread that had been stored against the day when fresh supply was cut off by the loss of my Bible.  He brought daily comfort and encouragement—yes, and joy—to my heart through the knowledge of the Word.

Paul, the apostle, wrote that it was through the comfort of the Scriptures that he had hope and steadfastness of heart to believe God.  I had never needed the Scriptures more than in these months on death row, but since so much of His Word was there in my heart, it was not the punishment the Kempeitai had anticipated when they took my Bible. “[1]

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[1] Pg. 14.  Evidence not seen:  A woman’s miraculous faith in a Japanese prison camp during WWII/ by Darlene Diebler/Rose.  San Francisco, CA  Harer and Row 1941.