By Chen Xu
The Evil Cops Used Me to Hunt Brothers and Sisters, and I Dealt With Them With Wisdom
One day in February 1999, the evil cops had me put on prison clothes and handcuffed, and brought me to a yard where two police cars parked. I wondered: What tricks are the evil cops going to play? I immediately called to the Lord in my heart, asking Him to keep me so that I could see through their schemes, stand the testimony and not sell out brothers and sisters, and could glorify the Lord’s name. A while later, they pushed me into the car, and I then realized that they were taking me to hunt brothers and sisters. I was determined in my heart that I would rather die than sell out any brother or sister. I prayed to the Lord silently, “O Lord, the Lord who is in the heavens and on earth and among all things, You are the Almighty who is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. The evil cops wish to use me to arrest brothers and sisters. May You guide me, help me, and bestow upon me wisdom so that I can see through Satan’s scheme and bear testimony for You. Amen!” After the prayer, I felt secure in my heart and wasn’t nervous anymore. Then an evil cop said to me, “You’d better cooperate with us today. If you behave well, you can atone for your crimes and go back home to reunite with your wife and children earlier. As your children are still young and all your family rely on you, you’d better listen to us!” I thought: I’ll never listen to your lies. Afterward, they drove to a city in another province to work with the local police, planning to use me to identify brothers and sisters so that they could arrest them. In the car, the evil cop said to me, “Once you find any of your brothers and sisters, don’t get out before we act. Just tell us where they live. And we’ll take care of the rest. Don’t worry. We promise we’ll keep it secret and never reveal your identity. No one will know it is you.” After hearing their nonsense, I responded to them inwardly, “I won’t fall into your schemes and let your intrigues succeed. I would rather die than render a service to you devils!” Afterward, that evil cop asked me, “Where do you usually go when you work here?” “I become disoriented once I go out, so I don’t know which way to go,” I replied. “So how do you go to the meeting place?” he asked. “They asked me to go to a club and someone would wait for me there,” I responded. “Okay. Let’s go to the club,” he said. When we got to the club, they asked me, “Where should we go next?” I pointed to the left side and said perfunctorily, “This way.” They said, “Okay. Let’s go.” They drove around the city and even drove to a wheat field in the country. Finally, after driving around for a day, they returned without any result.
The Evil Cops Got Exasperated and Treated Me Ruthlessly as Their Schemes Failed
After we returned from outside, the head of the police station brought me to the interrogation room and ordered me to kneel down. He handcuffed me behind my back and tied my hands with ropes. Then he stomped on my calves with his feet and pulled up my arms with force. I ached unbearably from the torture and almost fainted. I cried loudly, “O Lord Jesus, may You receive my soul.” Then, eight big and tall evil cops rushed up to me like ferocious wild beasts, and gave me wild beats and kicks, taking me as their target to practice martial arts. After beating me enough, they took off my clothes and bound me with rope. Shouting a chant, they pulled the rope on both sides, and yelled “Ha!” in unison. Then the finger-thick plastic rope broke with a bang. One evil cop said, “We have plenty of ropes. Take another one!” Then he took out another rope, and tortured me the same way as before. Since they had taken off my cotton jacket, the rope almost cut into my flesh. I felt heart-piercing pain and broke into a cold sweat. In a short while, the sweat wet a large area of the floor. They kept torturing me in this way until eight o’clock in the evening. I was exhausted from the tortures and felt limp all over. An evil cop then asked me, “Now tell me, can you lead us to them? If you can, we’ll go and get them tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll send you back to the cell.” “No way!” I responded firmly. They came to their wits end, and then pushed me into the car and drove me back to the cell late that night. When I arrived at the detention house, all the prisoners had fallen asleep. Being tormented for a whole day without eating or drinking anything, I ached unbearably all over and couldn’t get to sleep. At that time, I thought of the scenes when I read the Bible and praised the Lord with my brothers and sisters, and I felt a warm flow warmed my heart. How I wished I could still be together with them singing hymns to praise the Lord and living in the bosom of the Lord. How wonderful the life of that time was! I called to the Lord Jesus in my heart again and again, and fell asleep unconsciously.
The next day, they brought me to the interrogation room again. As their scheme of arresting brothers and sisters failed, and they gained nothing after dispatching two police cars to another province and paying much price, they even more hated me to the core. To vent their hatred, they treated me with more cruel means. They beat and kicked me, handcuffed me behind my back and stuffed beer bottles there again. They also abused me with many evil and dirty words, and rumored that I was a counterrevolutionary who opposed the CCP. When I could hardly bear the pain from their torments, I shouted loudly, “O Lord, I thank and praise You! I have never opposed the CCP!” My shout was so loud that everyone in the whole detention house could hear it, and it even brought in the leader of the detention. Then the evil cops put me down for a while, saying, “See! The leader shows concern for you and even comes to see you. You’d better speak up, and then you’ll be released.” I felt disgusted at their words, thinking: If it had not been for the Lord’s protection, I would have been tormented to death by you. Afterward, no matter what kind of measures they used, they still failed to get any useful information from my mouth.
My Life in the Labor Camp
It was not until May 28, 1999 that I was relieved from the seven months’ interrogation and cruel tortures. At last, the CCP sentenced me to two years of hard labor on the charge of “disturbing the social order and taking part in a cult,” and then sent me to the labor camp. During the seven months, I suffered countless beatings, my body covered with scars.
In the labor camp, they asked me to do the work of folding paper and recite the prison regulations. If I failed to remember them, I would be beaten with my head against the wall. Although folding paper was not heavy labor, it still made me dead tired. In the beginning, I was required to fold 700 sheets of paper a day, but later it was increased to 900 and then 1,200. I worked overtime until ten or twelve o’clock every night. Since I was slow in doing work, I had to work overtime if I couldn’t finish the task, which made me too sleepy to open my eyes. Afterward, even if I worked all night, I was still unable to finish it and then I would be beaten. Just like that, I worked every day, stayed up all night, and suffered beatings every now and then, which made me dizzy all day long. I felt I was just like a fool. During the imprisonment in the labor camp, my wife came to see me three times with our children. Every time I saw them, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Seeing their desire for reunion in their eyes, I felt extremely sorrowful and indebted to them. I was unable to take care of them when they needed me most, and failed to perform the duty that a husband and a father should perform. But whenever I had such a thought, the Lord would enlighten me to remember the saints of the ages who were martyred for the Lord, which strengthened my faith and led me through the two years of hard labor.
I Was Arrested Again Several Months After Being Released
In August 2000, I was released. After returning home, I came back to the church and continued having meetings and serving the church with my co-workers. I thought that I could finally have meetings and sing hymns to praise God with my brothers and sisters. However, the CCP had never slackened its persecution of us. In order to keep us under their control, they restricted our freedom and did not allow us to believe in God. Under such a circumstance, they arrested us again.
On December 5, 2001, when I was having a meeting with my co-workers in a host family, the CCP evil cops broke in suddenly and blocked the doorway, shouting, “Nobody move!” After that, they searched wildly in the room and took away our Bibles, spiritual books, CDs, and the TV set of the host family, and then took the 16 of us to the police station. The next day, staff of the Political Protection Section came and took me and another co-worker to the detention house. Other brothers and sisters were released after being fined 2,000 yuan each. We two were shut in the prison and were interrogated four times respectively. During this time, I recalled my experience of being arrested last time, and then realized: However cruel they are, they can’t put me to death without God’s permission; with the Lord as my rear guard, I shall fear nothing. In the end, regardless of how they threatened and tempted me, the Lord kept me through it, and their schemes of using me to arrest brothers and sisters still did not succeed. Thank the Lord for His protection! They didn’t torture me this time.
A week later, the CCP again sentenced me to a year of hard labor on the charge of “disturbing the social order and taking part in a cult.” In the labor camp, I worked in the paper mill tearing paper, and I was required to tear several hundred kilos of books every day. If I couldn’t tear them down or meet their demands, I would be beaten. I also had to recite the prison regulations, and would suffer beating if I failed to remember them. What’s more, if I did anything unsatisfactory to them, I would also suffer beatings. Once, I refused to give the head of the cell my money. He flew into a rage and called several prisoners, and then they dragged me to the corner, hitting and kicking me fiercely. I was beaten black and blue, and was unable to get out of bed or have a meal for several days. However, the prison guard just paid no heed as if he didn’t see this. I prayed to the Lord Jesus every day in the prison, asking Him to give me faith to stand the testimony. A year later, I was released. When I returned home, the miserable condition of my family was so terrible. On rainy days, the roof would leak and there were few patches of dry ground left in the room, and the road in front of our gate was washed out long ago. Many times of the CCP’s “visiting” made my family, which was not rich originally, even more poverty-stricken, leaving my wife and children leading a hard life. My home was no longer like a home now, and the pain in my heart was beyond description. Under the persecution and attack of the CCP, I could do nothing but bury all my indignation in my heart and weep out my grief to the Lord.
Conclusion
From the several times of being arrested and tortured by the CCP, I personally experienced the atrocity of the CCP. I have seen clearly that the CCP is an evil party, the executioner, the devil who extremely hates the truth and opposes God, and even more the “beast” prophesied in Revelation. The CCP beautifies itself and builds up its name by deceiving the public, but it hates the truth in essence. In China, there is no freedom of religious belief at all. The CCP is heinous for cruelly suppressing the Christians, and its crimes are innumerable and maddening. Although I suffered a lot in the flesh, I thank the Lord for allowing me to have the most precious experience in my life and see through the reactionary substance of the CCP, which strengthened my will of rebelling against it and following the Lord to resolutely walk the way of the cross.
The End.
Part Two: Taking Up the Cross and Pledging My Life to Follow the Lord (II)
