Robert Alan Cole was born on January 21, 1923, and baptised in the Protestant Church of Ireland by Canon T.C. Hammond at the Irish Church Missions chapel in Dublin. Starting with Gaelic in his earliest school years, Alan nurtured a special gift for new languages, learning four others before finishing high school. He then studied Classics at Trinity College Dublin. 

After a crisis and renewal of his Christian faith in 1941, Alan became involved in the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF) student ministry. Hiking on Croaghaun’s slopes in western Ireland in July 1945, he received a call to mission work amongst Chinese people, and resolved to enter ministry training. In mid-1946, he moved to Oak Hill College in London, tutoring Greek and Latin, whilst studying theology under L.F.E. Wilkinson and Alan Stibbs (an ex-China Inland Mission or CIM West China missionary). Both encouraged his missionary calling. He completed his Dublin PhD in 1948, his London BD (learning two more languages) in 1950 and MTh in 1951.

Alan was invited to deliver the Tyndale Lecture^[1] in Cambridge in July 1950, when he finished tutoring work at Oak Hill. He became a curate in South London at St Luke’s Deptford, and was ordained to Anglican priesthood in Southwark Cathedral in May 1951.

Far away in Australia, Shirley Skelton Powys was born on November 16, 1921. Her father was a Sydney diocese Anglican parish minister. Having a musical mother, Shirley played piano for Sunday school and her father’s Sunday afternoon prison services, from the age of 10. A keen Christian and organ scholar in high school, having medical mission interests, she trained as a paediatric nurse. From 1948 she worked at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital London and attended All Souls Church, Langham Place, where she and Alan met in early 1949.

T.C. Hammond was by then principal of Moore Theological College (MTC) in Sydney. He had sent Marcus Loane from the faculty to study in England, and asked him to find new staff to come to Sydney. Loane was happy to find that Shirley (well-known in Sydney) was engaged to be married to Alan (well-known to Hammond). They travelled separately to Australia and were married in Sydney in September 1951. Alan immediately started teaching at MTC. The newly-weds offered to serve with the CIM despite uncertainty surrounding China. After their first son’s birth in June, they left Sydney in September 1952, going to Taichung in Taiwan to study Chinese. Alan acquired a strong northern accent from his Manchurian teacher.

Alan worked as a pastoral assistant at Grace Church, Taichung Park, developing his life-long habit of preaching and teaching directly from the Hebrew or Greek Bible, into the language of his hearers, helping make the words of the Bible “come alive” to those listening. Their second son arrived in November 1954 and a year later, they moved to Cheung Chau (in Hong Kong) for Alan to learn Cantonese. By mid-1956, Alan could speak, teach and preach fluently in both Chinese and Cantonese.

As with West China in the past, CIM which had become the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), decided to allocate most of their Anglican ministers to one diocese, and decided on church-planting work in Malaya, in Perak’s new villages. At the height of the communist insurgency in mid-1956, Alan was sent to pastor a congregation at Mambang-di-Awan new village, near Kampar. 

A return to Sydney for furlough in mid-1957 allowed Alan to resume teaching at MTC, and a daughter arrived in October 1957. When Marcus Loane, the MTC principal, was made a bishop in 1958, Alan assumed his teaching load. Though asked to become the new MTC principal by Sydney Archbishop Howard Mowll (previously CIM bishop of West China), Alan declined, preferring to return to mission work in Perak in late 1958.

From their timber house at 210 Jalan Kampong Bahru, Alan and Shirley worked in church-planting at Slim River new village, where several young men (including S. Batumalai) were growing strong in their Christian faith. As OMF policy shifted towards work in towns^[2],  they moved in 1960 into the new brick vicarage at St Luke’s Teluk Anson (now Teluk Intan). Systematic expository preaching through the Old and New Testaments was fundamental to Alan’s Sunday ministry. Strong children’s and teenagers’ groups developed at Teluk Anson, and Alan laid down a church badminton court for their use. He and others were active in open-air evangelistic outreach in villages near the railway line between Tapah Road and Teluk Anson. 

Alan was asked to write the Tyndale commentary on Mark’s Gospel^[3]. Starting with Sunday sermons and having only the Greek text and a few reference books, this was completed by the end of 1960. With an invitation to teach at Trinity Theological College (TTC) Singapore, Alan became strongly attracted to Bible college work, but OMF refused to release him for that, so he resigned and returned to teach at MTC in 1961.

The family moved back to Singapore in mid-1962 in fellowship with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Australia. At TTC, Alan taught Old Testament, Greek and Hebrew, in English and Chinese language streams. As well as writing introductory handbooks about the Church as the Body of Christ^[4] and the Christian’s guide to the New Testament^[5] , Alan also wrote the Tyndale commentaries on Galatians^[6]and Exodus^[7]. All commentaries are still in print (2022), and have been translated into other languages, including Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Italian, German and Portuguese. 

Shirley taught music, piano and English to many women students at TTC, while Alan was warden of the Anglican St Peter’s Hall. They both had a weekend ministry at St Matthews Neil Rd, as pastor and organist in a new English-speaking congregation, with Alan pastoring as an assistant in the Cantonese-speaking congregation as well.

The family returned to Sydney at the end of 1968, with Alan teaching at MTC and writing a short commentary on Joel^[8]. In 1973, he became the founding Master of Robert Menzies College, a new residential college at Macquarie University, that had been established to support Christian ministry on the university campus. He often spoke at student conferences about the need for outreach in Asia and ministry^[9] and wrote about St Paul’s missionary life and ministry^[10].

Mission work was always on Alan’s heart, and he was happy to accept Archbishop Marcus Loane’s invitation in 1979 to become federal secretary of CMS Australia. He often travelled to encourage and strengthen CMS workers in Africa, Asia, South America and the Australian outback, and was active in the early stages of the Lausanne movement. He was allowed to visit China, encouraging local Christians, including Pastor Wang Ming-dao in Shanghai. Alan retired from that CMS leadership role on his 65^th birthday in January 1988.

His retirement lasted just four weeks, as they returned to Singapore in February 1988 to teach theology and English at TTC for a further 6½ years, which they said were the most fulfilling years of their entire ministry.

After returning to Australia in 1994, Alan continued teaching in Chinese in a Bible college in Melbourne, spoke at student conferences, and supported multiple Chinese congregations in Sydney. He was an active Bible study group leader in his own local church and tutored MTC students in Greek.

Alan and Shirley Cole were invited to return to West Malaysia and Singapore in September 2002, on the 50^th anniversary of the work in the Perak new villages. They were mightily encouraged to see new villages that had grown into towns, and small congregations into large churches, sending their best young adults into Christian ministry.

Alan Cole faithfully and regularly preached in four Chinese congregations in Sydney until the end of his life, with undiminished vivacity, intellect and enthusiasm for the gospel. The day before a sudden stroke robbed him of the power of speech and movement, he had spoken at the mid-year Christian university students’ conference in Sydney about opportunities for mission and ministry. With lunch delayed, he gratefully accepted another 20 minutes’ speaking time! On the day of his stroke, Alan had led his usual weekly Bible study group.

Alan died at the age of 80 on August 7, 2003, two weeks after the stroke. A memorial service in St Andrews Cathedral Sydney, partly in Cantonese, included addresses by Sir Marcus Loane (who described Alan as being “a man in whom the Spirit of God is”^[11]) and Donald Robinson, former Archbishops of Sydney and MTC teaching colleagues. The service was attended by people from many places in Australia and even Southeast Asia.

Dr S. Batumalai wrote: “I would like to acknowledge him with thanks for enabling me and others at St Gabriel's Youth Camp in 1959 to receive Christ... Alan was one of the best teachers I have known. He prepared me for baptism and confirmation at Slim River (along with James Chee and Michael Leong) and later for BD at Trinity College in 1970... though I was ill-equipped in English, Alan could explain the profoundest truth (e.g. the Trinity) in a simple form in confirmation class. He taught, among others, Batumalai and Lim Ching Ean (now bishop) at Trinity College.”^[12] 

Shirley continued to play the piano at local nursing home services, until her eyesight failed. Despite needing full-time care in the last years of her life, she attended weekly Christian fellowship meetings in her nursing home, until her death on Ascension Day in May 2020, aged 98½ years.

Alan and Shirley Cole are buried in the rural churchyard at St Marys Denham Court, New South Wales, beneath an Irish Celtic high cross made of Fujian green marble. The memorial headstone is inscribed with words from the Book of Joshua: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”^[13]