By Chen Hao, China

One morning in November of 2004, I went to an elder sister’s house to attend a gathering. Just as I was about to knock on the door, the door suddenly opened, and a pair of hands grabbed me and dragged me inside. Staring me down and speaking in a deep, growling register, a man threatened me, saying, “Don’t you dare speak!” Another man grabbed me by the throat and kicked me in the shin while asking what I was doing there and how many people would be coming. I realized these men were police and, feeling a bit anxious, said, “I’m just here to deliver water and collect the water bill.” One of them said, “You’re Chen Hao, aren’t you?” I was caught off guard—how did they know my name? Before I had time to react, they started searching me, confiscated a notebook and over 600 yuan from my pockets, and then they put me in handcuffs. I heard someone say, “It wasn’t a waste to stake this place out for a month after all.” I realized that they had been monitoring the house for quite some time. About five minutes later, three plainclothes police officers arrived. One of them looked at me with surprise and said, “What are you doing here? What are you doing getting mixed up with these people?” This man was named Liu and his little sister was a co-worker of mine when I believed in the Lord Jesus. He was particularly vicious and sinister and he had his subordinates take me away. I thought of how when other brothers and sisters had been arrested previously, they had often been subjected to all manner of torture and some had even been beaten to death, I felt very scared. I didn’t know whether the police would torture or even kill me, and so I prayed to God, asking Him to protect me and give me faith and strength to stand firm in my testimony to Him. I then thought of how the Lord Jesus said: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). That’s right, the police could only kill me physically—they couldn’t rob me of my soul. With the guidance of God’s words, I felt a little less scared.

After that, they brought me to the local police station. Affecting a sincere tone, the man named Liu told the policemen that brought me in, “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s an honest person and we go way back.” Then, with a fake earnestness, he said to me, “Just tell us what you know. A little religious practice is no big deal. If you come clean you can just go home. It’s been over a year since you were last home, right? Think it through. When it comes time, just tell us what we want to know and I guarantee you’ll be fine.” When I heard him say that, I faltered a bit, and thought: “Given that we’re well acquainted and he’s the head of the special investigation team, maybe if I just divulge some less important information and gain his confidence, he’ll let me go.” Just as I was considering this, I suddenly thought of God’s words: “At all times, My people should be on guard against the cunning schemes of Satan … so as to avoid falling into Satan’s trap, at which time it would be too late for regrets” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 3). I realized I had almost fallen for Satan’s cunning plot. This Officer Liu was a crafty and conniving person—how could I believe what he said? He just wanted to get information from me about the church and make me betray God. Having come to this realization, I kept my mouth shut. Then another officer asked me, “Where have you been evangelizing? Who have you been gathering with? Who is your leader? Where does the church keep its money?” But no matter how he grilled me, I didn’t say a single word.

At around 3 p.m. the same day, they transported me to the county detention house. An officer there took me into a room and ordered me to take off all my clothes, raise my arms and then spin around in circles. When I wouldn’t start spinning, he gave me a swift kick and then told me to do three deep squats. I felt enraged and humiliated. After that, I was taken to a jail cell crammed with over thirty inmates in a space of less than 20 square meters. As soon as I entered the cell, two inmates twisted my arms behind my back, pulling up and pushing forward to parade me around the room before kicking me to the floor. I hit my forehead on the ground and it began bleeding. The inmates just laughed and one said, “Looks like the airplane didn’t put on the brakes.” Another said, “We’ve got a lot to teach you. You’ll learn in time.” I thought to myself: “I’ve only just arrived and they’re already tormenting me like this. How will I ever survive in here? Will I be able to put up with this?” Inwardly, I prayed to God, beseeching Him to safeguard my heart so that I could stand firm in my testimony. Just then, I thought of God’s words, which say: “It is tremendously difficult for God to carry out His work in the land of the great red dragon—but it is through this difficulty that God does one stage of His work, making manifest His wisdom and His wondrous deeds, and using this opportunity to make this group of people complete. It is through people’s suffering, through their caliber, and through all the satanic dispositions of the people of this filthy land that God does His work of purification and conquest, so that, from this, He may gain glory, and so that He may gain those who will bear witness to His deeds. Such is the entire significance of all the sacrifices that God has made for this group of people” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Is the Work of God As Simple As Man Imagines?). Thinking over God’s words, I realized that God is using this environment to perfect our faith. It was with God’s permission that I had been arrested and tormented by the police. He hoped that I would stand firm in my testimony for Him to humiliate Satan. It was truly an honor to have the opportunity to testify for God. I thought of how the Lord Jesus was crucified to redeem humanity and how after God incarnated in the last days to save us, He was subject to the pursuit and persecution of the ruling party, the libel and rejection of the religious world and suffered all manner of hardship and humiliation. Yet, despite that, God still expresses the truth and sustains us. What was this little bit of suffering compared to the opportunity to follow God, pursue the truth, and be saved by Him? Realizing this, I felt a bit stronger and thought: “No matter how they torment me, I mustn’t divulge any information about the church or betray God.”

On the morning of the fourth day, the police came to interrogate me again. They grilled me on various details regarding the church and showed me several photographs of people and asked me to identify them, saying that these people had already identified me. I knew this was another of their cunning plots—they wanted to trick me into selling out my brothers and sisters—so I just ignored them. Eventually, seeing that I wasn’t going to say anything, they sent me back and put me in a different cell. As I entered, I heard the officer tell the inmates in the cell, “This one’s a believer. Make sure to ‘take good care’ of him.” Then a young inmate came up to me and said he was going to “clean my ears out” for me. He and another inmate both pulled on my ears in opposite directions. I started trying to push them away, but they suddenly let go and I fell to the ground. Just when I was about to get up, someone held me down by my shoulders, preventing me from getting to my feet. Then another inmate came over to me saying he was going to “strip the bark from the tree.” He rolled up my pant leg and then with one hand, he pressed down hard on my leg while vigorously rubbing the skin of my shin with the other hand covered in a laundry detergent bag. He rubbed so fast that before long, my leg turned blood red and began stinging with pain. The other inmate that was holding me down kept wringing my ear. They tortured me like that for more than twenty minutes. Pain shot through my ear and my shin was badly bruised and seeping blood. After that, the young inmate gave me a hard kick on the back, sending me lurching forward. Then he kicked me in the stomach so hard that my back arched in pain. It felt like my internal organs were going to split open. Another inmate came over and kicked me on the back, sending me careening to the floor, after which they threw a blanket over me and began kicking and punching me. My whole body was coursing with pain—there was a cut on my forehead and blood dripped from my nose. They rubbed laundry detergent into my hair and forced me to take off all my clothes and take a cold shower. It was December at the time and snowing outside. The cell’s water was melted from the ice in the water towers and was bone-chillingly cold. I was freezing from the frigid water and shivering all over. After that, an inmate took half a glass of laundry detergent dissolved in water and said, “You look like you’re freezing. We saved half a glass of ‘beer’ for you. Go on, drink up.” When I didn’t drink it, he said, “What? Not enough for you?” and poured some more cold water in. Foam from the detergent rolled down the side of the glass. Seeing that I still refused to drink from the glass, he said: “If you don’t drink it, how are we supposed to make you ‘set off firecrackers’?” Then two inmates pinned me down on a bed, pinched my nose shut and forced the detergent water down my throat. What they meant by “setting off firecrackers” is to force a person to drink the detergent water and then beat them to get them to throw it back up. I struggled furiously and yelled, “Are you trying to kill me? Does the law not apply here?” One of the police standing guard heard me yelling and barked back: “What are you yelling about? They’re just giving you a little shower—it won’t kill you! Yell again and you’ll get the electric baton tomorrow!” His words filled me with rage. My whole body was shivering due to the ice-cold water and my skin was coming out with tiny swellings from the cold. Just as I was extending a shaking hand to pick up my clothes and put them on, an inmate kicked me to the ground. With my back arched in pain, I tried to clamber to my feet, but was immediately pinned to the wall by two other inmates, after which point thirteen inmates rushed to me and started beating me like a punching bag. One inmate who had been sentenced to death called out, “Alright, every one of you punch him ten times.” He then stood to the side and counted as every inmate got their punches in. I was in such agony that my back arched, my chest and stomach were in unbearable pain and I could barely breathe. After that, another inmate came over and hit me hard on the back of my head two times with his handcuffs. I became dizzy and nauseous, the room started spinning, my ears began to ring and then I was left throwing up for a good long while. Eventually, I was just vomiting yellowish water. I held my hands over my chest and didn’t dare take any deep breaths, as even breathing had become painful. Ultimately, I began coughing up blood and it felt like my body was coming apart at the seams. I thought to myself: “These inmates are going to beat me to death and neither my family knows that I’ve been arrested nor do my brothers and sisters know where I’ve been taken. If they really do kill me and the police just ditch my body in the middle of nowhere, no one will ever know what happened.” Realizing this, I felt very scared and weak, so I prayed to God: “Oh God! I can’t take this much longer. If this keeps up, they’ll torture me to death. I ask for Your protection, so that I may endure this pain and torment.” Just then, I thought of God’s words which say: “Abraham offered up Isaac—what have you offered up? Job offered up everything—what have you offered up? So many people have given their lives, laid down their heads, shed their blood in order to seek the true way. Have you paid that price?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Significance of Saving the Descendants of Moab). Faced with these questions, I was filled with shame. I thought of the saints throughout the ages. Because they spread the gospel and testified to God, some of them were stoned to death, some cut up into pieces, and some even dragged to death by horses. They offered up their precious lives to stand firm in their testimony to God. But after being arrested, beaten, tortured, and having my life threatened, I became weak, negative and cravenly clung to life out of the fear of death. How cowardly I was! I thought of how unconscionable it was of me to fail to stand firm in my testimony to God in this crucial moment, despite enjoying so much of the watering and sustenance of God’s words. I felt deeply accused and vowed to never give in to Satan, no matter what torment lay ahead of me. Only after seeing that I was lying motionless on the ground, did the inmates finally stop beating me.

After about a week or so, Officer Liu came to interrogate me again. Adopting a tone of fake sincerity, he said to me: “Old friend, we’ve looked through your records and you don’t have any history of unlawful behavior. Your parents aren’t getting any younger and your child is crying out for you. They’re all hoping you’ll be home for New Year’s celebrations. Think it over some more. If you tell us what we want to know about the church, we’ll let you go right away.” When I didn’t respond, he shifted tack and said, “You know, even if you don’t say a word to us, we can still sentence you to 3–5 years. You’ve got to realize that this is just how things are—don’t be so stubborn.” When I continued to ignore him, he sent me back to the cell to think over his offer. Back in the cell, I thought about how old my mom was and how she wasn’t in great health. If I really were sentenced to 3–5 years and even died inside prison, who would look after my mom? The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Eventually, I began to think that maybe I could divulge something inconsequential that could keep me from being sent to prison. Just then, I thought of God’s words which say: “Toward those who showed Me not the slightest loyalty during times of tribulation, I shall be merciful no more, for My mercy only extends so far. I have no liking, furthermore, for anyone who has once betrayed Me, much less do I like to associate with those who sell out the interests of their friends. This is My disposition, regardless of who the person may be” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Prepare Sufficient Good Deeds for Your Destination). From God’s words, I saw that God’s righteous disposition brooks no offense. God absolutely abhors those that become Judases, sell out the church and betray God, and He will never forgive such people. I clearly understood that Officer Liu was a sly and cunning man, and that if I divulged even a little information, he would find a way to force me to divulge even more. Yet, I actually believed his devilish words. What a fool I was! Due to worrying about my family, I had considered betraying God. I saw that my faith in God was truly weak. Our fates are all in God’s hands. God would have the last word on whether I was tortured to death and on what would happen to my family. I should entrust everything into God’s hands and rely on Him to get through this ordeal. When I became willing to submit, the inmates in cell 8 stopped beating me. Seeing that the inmates had changed their attitude toward me, the officers transferred me to cell 10.

The inmates in cell 10 beat me just like those in cell 8 had. Before I had a chance to react, they put a blanket over me and began kicking and punching me. They called this “making dumplings.” Whenever the inmates were in a bad mood, they would take it out on me. I suffered greatly and felt deeply repressed in that environment. It was a struggle just to get through each day, so I prayed to God, asking Him to guide me and give me faith. A week later, an inmate who had been sentenced to death said to me: “Tell me about your belief in the Lord and sing your hymns for me. If you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll beat you over the head with these handcuffs. Don’t you dare stop, your job is just to speak and sing now.” So I sang whatever came into mind, and without even thinking, I began to sing a hymn of God’s words “Have You Ascertained God’s Hopes for You?”: “Who among you is Job? Who is Peter? Why have I repeatedly mentioned Job? Why have I referred to Peter so many times? Have you ever ascertained what My hopes for you are? You should spend more time pondering such things” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 8). As I sang, I started to become emotional. I thought of how Job continued to praise the name of God even after losing all his property and breaking out in sores all over his body. I thought of Peter, who spent his whole life pursuing loving God and underwent innumerable refinements and hardships, ultimately being crucified upside down on the cross. He loved God to the utmost and submitted to Him unto death. They both bore beautiful testimony to God and received His commendation. God says: “Who among you is Job? Who is Peter?” From God’s words, I gained a sense of His expectations. I thought: “I must be like Job and Peter and bear witness to God.” Singing that hymn gave me a fresh dose of motivation. It felt like God was at my side and I felt a renewed determination to endure all suffering and stand firm in my testimony. After that, I told the inmate about how God rules sovereign over all, how He punishes those who do evil and rewards those that do good, testifying God’s righteous disposition. I also told him the story of Lazarus and the rich man. I informed him that those that do evil will suffer retribution and be cast down into hell to receive punishment after death. God has already come to express the truth and do the work of salvation of humankind, and people must accept the truth to free themselves of sin in order to be purified and enter the kingdom of heaven. After hearing all that, the inmate sighed and said, “It’s too late now! If I had met someone like you earlier on, I never would have gotten to this point.” Another cellmate who was a retired teacher also approvingly said: “I’ve met believers like you before. I’ve never heard of them doing anything illegal.” He then angrily remarked, “In China, there is no such thing as justice or rule of law.” After that, the inmates in that cell stopped beating me. I knew this was a sign of God’s mercy and that He was taking pity on me in my weakness. Seeing God’s almightiness and sovereignty in action, my faith was redoubled.

In December of 2004, the CCP convicted me of “illegal proselytizing causing disturbance to social order” and sentenced me to three years of reeducation through labor. I was furious when I heard my sentence being read—as a believer, I was walking the right path and had never done anything illegal, yet the CCP had forced a three-year sentence onto me. They are truly evil! Later on, a passage of God’s words came to mind: “In a dark society such as this, where the demons are merciless and inhumane, how could the king of devils, who kills people without batting an eye, tolerate the existence of a God who is lovely, kind, and also holy? How could it applaud and cheer the arrival of God? These lackeys! They repay kindness with hate, they began treating God as an enemy long ago, they abuse God, they are savage in the extreme, they have not the slightest regard for God, they plunder and pillage, they have lost all conscience, they go against all conscience, and they tempt the innocent into senselessness. Forefathers of the ancient? Beloved leaders? They all oppose God! Their meddling has left all beneath heaven in a state of darkness and chaos! Religious freedom? The legitimate rights and interests of citizens? They are all tricks for covering up sin!” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Work and Entry (8)). The CCP claims to promote freedom of religion while surreptitiously suppressing and persecuting Christians, beating, torturing, and imprisoning believers in God. They seek renown through deception and are evil through and through! By personally experiencing arrest and persecution by the CCP, I was able to recognize their demonic, God-resisting essence. This further strengthened my resolve to follow God until the very end.

In January of 2005, I was transported to a labor camp and assigned to the printing workshop. We had to work about 15 hours per day and often only had about 3–4 hours of rest per day. Every month we had to put in overtime 10–15 days and sometimes even had to work through the night. As time went on, our printing quota increased from 3,000 to over 15,000 sheets. Because of this, I had to carry printing plates back and forth all day and would often cover anywhere from 10 kilometers to dozens of kilometers a day. I would hold the paints in my left hand while continually brushing with my right hand. The smell of the paints made me dizzy, my eyes stung, my vision blurred, and my breathing became labored. All throughout my day, I dealt with constant and unbearable pain in my arms, legs, and shoulders, and I was so tired that I could have gone to sleep standing up. I remember one time, when I had a cold and was running a fever, I became so dizzy that I almost fell over. When the managing supervisor saw this, he said I was just trying to slack off and said: “You’ll pick up the pace if I give you a zap with my stun baton.” I thought of a seventeen-year-old boy that was shocked for being unable to do hard labor. He sustained several burns on his ears and several patches of skin had blackened from other burns. Eventually, it was more than he could take and he tried to kill himself by ingesting nails, but he didn’t die and was sentenced to an extra month of labor. I knew these people were demons that would kill us without batting an eye and that they would never let us rest, so I just had to grit my teeth and keep going. Due to my excessive workload, my fingers became deformed and I developed cysts in my elbows that swelled to the size of egg yolks. I also developed severe rhinitis and often felt dizzy and short of breath. The combination of overwork and lack of sleep left me so dizzy that I would waver shakily when I walked and felt like I might fall at any moment. Apart from our work, we were also forced to take part in CCP-sponsored brainwashing sessions twice a month. I found the CCP’s fallacies and heretical ideas repulsive and had no desire to listen. I suffered greatly in that labor camp and missed the days of gathering and reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters. I wanted to get out of that hellish, inhumane situation as soon as possible. I prayed to God and asked Him to give me strength and help me overcome that environment. Later on, a hymn of God’s words titled “How to Be Perfected” came to mind: “When you face suffering, you must be able to lay aside concern for the flesh and to not make complaints against God. When God hides Himself from you, you must be able to have the faith to follow Him, to maintain your previous love without allowing it to falter or dissipate. No matter what God does, you must submit to His design and be prepared to curse your own flesh rather than make complaints against Him. When you are faced with trials, you must satisfy God, though you may weep bitterly or feel reluctant to part with some beloved object. Only this is true love and faith” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement). As I sang that hymn, I came to understand God’s intention and I felt deeply encouraged and willing to submit to this difficult situation and rely on God and my faith to get through. In my over two years at the labor camp, I developed rhinitis, bronchitis, rheumatoid arthritis, a hernia, and stomach issues. Once, when my hernia began acting up and a labor camp officer took me to the medical clinic, I saw the attending doctor break off a needle in a prisoner’s behind and then use blood-stanching forceps to dig it out. I was terrified when I saw that and didn’t dare go back to that clinic. During that time, I couldn’t go more than a few steps without pain shooting through my lower abdomen. When I tried to push through and do some work, I felt like I was going to suffocate. The prison officers were worried they’d be held responsible if I died, so they took me to the hospital in the city labor camp for a more thorough medical examination. After completing my medical exam, the doctor said with a note of surprise: “What kind of labor have you been doing? How could you wait until now to seek medical attention! Your hernia will require surgery. Also, both your liver and gallbladder are slightly enlarged, so you’re no longer suitable for manual labor. If you continue to work, you will die.” However, the officers just took some medicine for me and transported me back to the labor camp. I was very worried at the time because I knew I still had a year left in my sentence and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it. After that, I thought: “In two years of imprisonment, I’ve been tormented by the police and nearly beaten to death by inmates, but despite all that I’ve suffered, I’ve never once betrayed God. So, how have I developed such a serious illness? Could it really be my fate to die in this labor camp?” In the midst of my suffering, I prayed to God: “Oh God! What shall I do now? Please guide me.” A while later, a passage of God’s words came to mind: “You should know whether there is true faith and true loyalty within you, whether you have a record of suffering for God, and whether you have wholly submitted to God. If you lack these, then there remains within you rebelliousness, deceitfulness, greed, and complaint. As your heart is far from honest, you have never received positive recognition from God and never lived in the light” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Three Admonitions). As I pondered God’s words, I reflected on myself. When faced with sickness and pain, I became negative and weak and even tried to argue with God. I had abandoned my oath and was complaining and rebelling. Where was my submission? Where was my testimony? I remembered that when I was being persecuted and tortured by the CCP and was in pain and weak, it was God’s words that guided me and gave me faith and strength. God had also worked through people, situations, and things to open up a path for me. He was always at my side, looking after me and protecting me. His love for me was so great and I knew I had to stop misunderstanding Him and complaining. No matter what torture or suffering lay ahead, no matter whether I lived or died, I had to rely on God to keep pushing forward! A month later, the police assigned me to a different job where I didn’t have to walk as much and my health improved considerably. I thanked God for His love from the bottom of my heart.

While in the labor camp, I would often silently sing hymns to myself. The one that had a particularly deep impact on me was titled “What Have You Dedicated to God?” It says: “Abraham offered up Isaac—what have you offered up? Job offered up everything—what have you offered up? So many people have given their lives, laid down their heads, shed their blood in order to seek the true way. Have you paid that price? By comparison, you are not at all qualified to enjoy such great grace. Do not regard yourselves too highly. You have nothing to brag about. Such great salvation, such great grace is given to you freely. You have sacrificed nothing, yet you enjoy grace freely. Do you not feel ashamed?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Significance of Saving the Descendants of Moab). Each time I finished singing this hymn, I’d feel full of gratitude. My plight was nothing compared to that of the saints throughout the ages. In experiencing God’s work, they all bore beautiful testimony to God and gained His approval. God was now giving me a similar opportunity to testify—this was His love for me! It was God’s words that continually encouraged me and guided me through that long and difficult imprisonment in the labor camp. I couldn’t have done without the guidance of God’s words in such awful circumstances.

In September of 2007, I completed my sentence and was released from the labor camp. On my way out, they instructed me to report to my local police station after returning home, otherwise my residential registration would be voided. They also threatened me, saying if I were arrested again, I would get a much heavier sentence. After being released, I moved away from home, so that I could continue believing in God and doing my duty. Through being arrested and persecuted by the CCP, I clearly recognized their demonic God-resisting essence. The more they persecuted me, the more I became resolved to follow God, to fulfill my responsibility as a created being, and to do my duty well to repay God’s love. Thanks be to God!