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Stephen Arnold Metcalf (23 October 1927 - 7 June 2014) was a British Protestant missionary to Japan, the son of George Edgar Metcalf and Elizabeth Mary (Donnelly) Metcalf, China Inland Mission missionaries to the Eastern Lisu/Lipo minority of Yunnan Province. He was born in Kunming, China. [1]
Metcalf was educated at Chefoo School, the China Inland Mission school in Yantai, Shandong Province. On 5 November 1942 the school was closed by the Japanese occupying army and the staff and pupils interned in an American Presbyterian mission compound on Temple Hill, Yantai. Metcalf was amongst those interned and had no contact with his parents and his elder sister, Ruth (b. 24 June 1924, d. 18 January 2010), until his release in 1945. While in this POW camp, Metcalf made a Christian commitment.
In September 1943 the Temple Hill civilian internment camp was closed and the internees moved to another camp at Weihsien (Weifang), Shandong Province. At Weihsien, Metcalf was befriended by Eric Liddell, the Olympic medallist, and greatly influenced by Liddell's attitude to the Japanese to pray for his captors. Just prior to his death Liddell gave Metcalf, a keen runner, his running shoes. Metcalf was a coffin bearer at Liddell's funeral in the camp in February 1945 and at the ceremony committed himself to serve as a missionary in Japan. The Weihsien civilian internment camp was liberated on 17 August 1945.
In 1945 Metcalf relocated to Australia in November 1945 and trained at Melbourne Bible College. He was accepted by OMF International as a missionary to Japan in 1952. His sister, Ruth, was also accepted as a missionary by OMF International and served in Thailand from 1952 to 1965.
Metcalf arrived in Japan in November 1952 and entered the OMF International language school at Karuizawa, Honshu. In 1953 he was designated to work in Aomori Prefecture, planting new churches. On 3 July 1957 he married Evelyn Robinson, an OMF International missionary from Northern Ireland. They have five children, four boys and one girl. They were responsible for the successful establishing and consolidation of new churches in several towns of Aomori Prefecture, in Otaru (Hokkaido), Hachinohe (Honshu), Sendai (Honshu) and Urayasu city, Tokyo.
The Metcalfs retired from missionary service in Japan in August 1990, with over seventy years of service between them. In retirement Metcalf served in ministry with the Japan Christian Fellowship, London, for a further fifteen years. In 2005 he delivered the Eric Liddell Memorial Speech at the sixtieth anniversary of liberation of the Weishien civilian internment camp. He has been the subject of two biographies – Take the Torch Shining in the Dark, published 2005 in Japanese, and In Japan the Crickets Cry, published 2010 – and has featured in TV programmes and documentaries about Eric Liddell.
Eric Henry Liddell was a Scottish sprinter, rugby player and Christian missionary. Born in Qing China to Scottish missionary parents, he attended boarding school near London, spending time when possible with his family in Edinburgh, and afterwards attended the University of Edinburgh.
The Cambridge Seven were six students from Cambridge University and one from the Royal Military Academy, who in 1885, decided to become missionaries to China through the China Inland Mission. The seven were:
OMF International is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.
Mary Evelyn Previte was an American Democratic Party politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly, where she represented the 6th legislative district from 1998 to 2006.
Arthur William Hummel Jr. was a United States diplomat.
Robert Alexander Jaffray was a missionary to China, Indonesia and several other countries, with The Christian & Missionary Alliance, who served as the founding principal of the Alliance Bible Seminary, in Hong Kong, and principal contributor and editor of the Chinese language Bible Magazine. Jaffrey founded the first Chinese missionary society called the "Chinese Foreign Missionary Union" (CFMU) in 1929. His life is chronicled in the biography, Let my people go!: The life of Robert A. Jaffray (1947), by A.W. Tozer.
Alfred James Broomhall, also A. J. Broomhall, was a British Protestant Christian medical missionary to China, and author and historian of the China Inland Mission.
Herbert Hudson Taylor, British Protestant Christian missionary to China, author, speaker and eldest son of James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission and Maria Jane Dyer. He served there for over 50 years – the last three as one of the prisoners of the Japanese at the Weifang internment camp during World War II along with Eric Liddell and 1500 others.
In the early 19th century, Western colonial expansion occurred at the same time as an evangelical revival – the Second Great Awakening – throughout the English-speaking world, leading to more overseas missionary activity. The nineteenth century became known as the Great Century of modern religious missions.
The Chefoo School, also known as Protestant Collegiate School or China Inland Mission School, was a Christian boarding school established in 1881 by the China Inland Mission—under James Hudson Taylor—at Chefoo (Yantai), in Shandong province in northern China. Its purpose was to provide an education for the children of foreign missionaries and the foreign business and diplomatic communities in China.
Cheeloo University was a university in China, established by Hunter Corbett American Presbyterian, and other English Baptist, Anglican, and Canadian Presbyterian mission agencies in early 1900 in China.
Arthur Reynolds (1909–2001) was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China (1933–1951) and Japan (1952–1970) under the auspices of the China Inland Mission, which later became the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. He published a number of books, some of which he authored and some of which he translated from the Chinese.
Norman Howard Cliff (1925–2007) was a British Protestant author who wrote about Christianity and the history of Protestant missions in China.
Paul Mulligan Thompson was a British sinologist and pioneer in the field of Chinese computer applications.
The Weixian Internment Camp, better known historically as the Weihsien Internment Camp, was a Japanese-run internment camp called a ”Civilian Assembly Center” in the former Wei County, located near the city of Weifang, Shandong, China. The compound was used by the Japanese during World War II to intern civilians of Allied countries living in North China. The camp operated from March 1943 until October 1945 and more than 2,200 civilians were interned for all or part of the time the camp was open.
Watson McMillan Hayes was an American Presbyterian missionary and educator in China.
George Edgar ‘Eddie’ Metcalf, Chinese name 王懷仁 Wáng Huáirén, was a British Protestant missionary serving in China with the China Inland Mission and credited with the first translation of the New Testament for the Eastern Lisu/Lipo minority.
John McKim was an American missionary who became Anglican Bishop of Tokyo and Chancellor of Rikkyo University, which was part of the infrastructure he helped rebuild after a severe earthquake in 1923.
Reginald Victor Bazire was an Anglican priest: the Archdeacon of Southwark from 1967 to 1973; and of Wandsworth from 1973 to 1975.
Ted McLaren was a Scotland international rugby union player.
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