By Mi Xue, China

One day in March 2013, a couple of sisters and I returned home after a gathering, and as we walked in the house, we saw it was a total disaster. We figured the police had probably searched the place, so we moved immediately. Right after moving, some people from that community came storming in with the police. The police corralled us into the living room and then went to ransack the place. When none of them were looking I managed to break a SIM card I had in my pocket. One of the police noticed and forced my hand open, and seeing the broken card, yelled angrily, “She may look young, but she knows a thing or two. Take her back for questioning.” He also had one of the female officers search me, and then they put us into a police car. I was feeling pretty scared, so I prayed to God, “God, I don’t know where they’re taking me or how they’ll torture me. Please guide me and give me faith. No matter how much I suffer, I won’t be a Judas. I won’t betray You.” I gradually calmed down after praying.

The police took me into an interrogation room at the station and ordered me to lift my arms and stand in a squatting position. After a few minutes my arms were giving out, my legs were shaking and my chest felt tight and I collapsed to the ground. Then the police put me on a tiger chair and strapped my feet really tightly to the chair legs. A bit later a chubby criminal policewoman brought some documents into the room and said to me, “We’re carrying out a major nationwide arrest operation, doing a sweep of you Almighty God believers. We have all of your leaders and we’ve dismantled your church. What use is it to hold out on us? Just talk and then you can go.” Hearing this, I figured it was one of Satan’s tricks, and she was just trying to get me to be a Judas. I couldn’t fall for it. Even if lots of brothers and sisters had been arrested, the work of God can’t be dismantled by them so handily. I retorted, “Almighty God says: ‘We trust that no country or power can stand in the way of what God wishes to achieve. Those who obstruct God’s work, resist the word of God and disturb and impair the plan of God shall ultimately be punished by God’” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Appendix 2: God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind). At this, she just harrumphed, shook her head and then walked out. Then another officer started questioning me, “When did you become religious? How long have you been in this area? Who have you been in contact with? Where have you been staying?” When I didn’t say a word, he threatened me, “If you don’t talk, we’ll just beat you to death and bury your corpse up in the mountains.” It occurred to me that those people slaughter people as if they were chickens, that they don’t care at all about human life. I wondered if they really would beat me to death. Feeling really afraid, I said a silent prayer to God and then thought of these words from Him: “Do not fear, the Almighty God of hosts will surely be with you; He stands behind you and He is your shield” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 26). I knew it was true that God is my shield and He rules over all. My body and soul were in His hands, so it wasn’t up to the police whether I would be beaten to death. This thought gave me faith and strength. Afterward, the police kept interrogating me nonstop, but I didn’t tell them anything.

Early morning on the third day, one of them said, “Ready to talk yet?” I didn’t say a word. Furious, he grabbed me by the collar and smacked me in the face, leaving my ears ringing and my face burning. Then when I wasn’t paying attention, he rolled up some papers into a tube and hit me in the eyes, which was so painful that it felt like they were about to fall off. I closed my eyes instinctively. An officer said in anger, “Open your eyes!” I slowly opened up my eyes but couldn’t see anything. I could start seeing some things only after 10 minutes. My eyes hurt a lot and I just wanted to close them, so thinking I was sleepy, the police hit my head with a water bottle and then sometimes kicked my head and my arms with their feet. And to keep me awake, they secured my hair and hands with Velcro to the back of the tiger chair. I had to keep holding my head up. Trying to relieve my pain, I just struggled to lean back against the tiger chair. I was dizzy, my body ached, and I had palpitations and felt miserable. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold on, so I kept crying out to God, “God, please give me the resolve to suffer, please give me faith. I’ll never bow to Satan!” In my pain, I thought of some of God’s words: “The great red dragon persecutes God and is the enemy of God, and so, in this land, people are subjected to humiliation and oppression because of their belief in God, and these words are fulfilled in you, this group of people, as a result. Because it is embarked upon in a land that opposes God, all of God’s work faces tremendous obstacles, and accomplishing many of His words takes time; thus, people are refined as a result of God’s words, which is also part of suffering” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Is the Work of God As Simple As Man Imagines?). Through God’s words, I saw that the Communist Party is God’s enemy, that they hate God and the truth. They want to do everything to keep us from believing in God, using various cruel torture methods to get us to betray Him. I was born in the great red dragon’s country, so this is something I have to suffer. But through the Communist Party’s oppression, I saw how evil it is, how it’s essentially opposed to God. I wanted even more to reject Satan and turn to God, to stand firm in my witness by faith, to shame Satan and see it defeated. Having that chance to stand witness for God was His blessing, and was a special favor. Understanding this gave me faith and it didn’t feel so hard for me.

They started questioning me again after that, and when I stayed quiet, they threatened me, “The sooner you talk, the easier it’ll be. We’ll give you five minutes.” Then they put a timer in front of me, and as I saw the time go by, each minute, each second, I prayed to God nonstop, “God, I don’t know what these demons are going to do to me. Please protect me. I won’t sell out my brothers and sisters no matter what.” Five minutes passed and seeing I wouldn’t talk, one of them handcuffed my hands behind my back, grabbed me by the collar and got really close to my face, then asked me viciously who the church leader was and who I’d been in contact with. I still stayed silent, so he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in my face over and over again. The smoke made me want to vomit, and tears were rolling down my face. Then he smacked me in the face really hard and hit my right ear, deafening me. Seeing I still wouldn’t talk, his eyes went wide with rage and he squeezed my neck with both hands, saying, “You gonna talk or what? If you don’t, I’ll strangle you. You’re never gonna forget me, you’ll have nightmares about me hitting you every night.” He choked me to the point that I couldn’t get a good breath, and I felt like I was about to take my last. I told him that I knew nothing even if he strangled me. Then a tall officer came in and gestured to the one choking me that there were security cameras so he should take me into the corner to beat me. I finally managed to get a breath. He dragged me out of the tiger chair, and hauled on my handcuffs, pushing me into a corner, then slammed my head into the wall. He kept doing that so many times, I lost count, and the last time he slammed it right into a plaque hanging on the wall. It felt like my head had been left with a dent from the beating, and I just fell to the floor with a thud. The world felt like it was spinning, like my head was about to explode, and my heart was torn to shreds. I couldn’t open my eyes and felt like I was suffocating. It was incredibly painful. I prayed to God, “God, please take my breath from me so that I don’t have to suffer this torment any longer.” After some time passed I was barely able to open my eyes, and I wondered, “Why aren’t I dead?” Then I realized that I shouldn’t have been asking God to take my breath away, that it was an unreasonable request. He wanted me to continue living, to stand firm in my witness and shame Satan. But I was hoping to die to escape that suffering. That wasn’t bearing witness. I felt kind of guilty when that occurred to me. Just then I heard a cop yelling, “Get up! Get up!” He kicked me when I didn’t respond and said, “You playing dead?” I said a silent prayer, “God, these demons are torturing me so that I’ll betray You. Please give me faith. I’ll stand firm in my witness even if it costs me my life.” One of them grabbed my clothing at the shoulders and hauled me partway up, then let me fall heavily back onto the floor. My hands and my back were really hurting from being handcuffed all that time, so I curled up in a ball on the floor to try to alleviate the pain a bit. An officer pulled me up and set me up against the wall, making me stand up straight, and kicked me in the left thigh before I had a chance to react. I doubled over with the pain and he barked at me, “Stand up!” But everything was hurting so much that there was no way I could stand. Then he kicked me in the waist, knocking the breath out of me for a moment. It felt like I was being stabbed. Another one dragged me back into the corner and smacked me across the face, leaving the corners of my mouth bleeding. Then he lit a cigarette and said, “If you keep quiet I’ll burn your face with this cigarette, you’ll be disfigured.” Then he put it really close to my face. Feeling the heat from the cigarette, I got really scared and thought, “If he does burn me, it’ll leave terrible scars and I’ll be talked about and mocked everywhere I go.” The thought of people pointing at me and talking about me was awful. Then I remembered these words from God: “The good soldiers of the kingdom are not trained to be a group of people who can only talk about reality or boast; rather, they are trained to live out God’s words at all times, to remain unyielding no matter what setbacks they face, and to live constantly in accordance with God’s words and not to return to the world. This is the reality of which God speaks; this is God’s requirement of man” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Putting the Truth Into Practice Is Possessing Reality). From God’s words, I understood that for a true believer, no matter what happens, they’re able to stay strong in their faith in God without ever yielding to forces of darkness, without betraying God. The police wanted to threaten me with disfigurement so I’d betray God, and I couldn’t fall for it. On top of that, even if I was disfigured, if I wasn’t a Judas but stood firm in my witness, I could gain God’s approval and be at peace within my heart. If I betrayed God to protect myself, I’d be dragging out an ignoble existence and my conscience would never be at peace. That would be unbearable. I thought of a part of a church hymn: “With God’s exhortations in my heart, I will never bend the knee to Satan. Though our heads may roll and our blood may spill, the backbones of God’s people cannot be bent. I will bear resounding testimony for God, and humiliate devils and Satan” (Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs, I Wish to See the Day of God’s Glory). I felt a surge of faith and the courage to face the officers’ torture. I closed my eyes and silently prayed, “God! No matter how they torture me, even if they do burn my face, I’ll stand firm in my witness. Please give me faith and the resolve to suffer.” Then I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands. Taking this for fear, the police started laughing maniacally. I opened my eyes and glared at him, and he said with a cold smile, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to burn your tongue, and burn it so you can’t even talk.” While saying this he tried to pry my mouth open, but he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried. Furious, he grabbed my shoulders and stomped on my feet, then jumped up and brought his feet down and grinded them back and forth on my feet. Then he grabbed the handcuffs and yanked them back and forth, leaving me on my tiptoes. My wrists were in agony and my arms felt like they were going to snap off. He said mockingly, “Isn’t your god almighty? Have him come save you!” I prayed to God, calling out to Him nonstop, and was filled with hatred for those demons.

Once he’d worn himself out, he leaned against the table smoking. I wondered what other methods of torture they were going to use on me and if I’d end up dead. If so, I hoped it would be quick, because that living hell they were putting me in then was unbearable. I didn’t know when it would all end. The more I thought about it, the more afraid I felt, and I thought, “I can never sell out the church leaders or brothers and sisters, so maybe I can just tell them about how I became a believer and get this over with, so they may stop beating me.” Then I thought, “My parents are believers. If I do tell them, they’ll be implicated and some brothers and sisters will be, too. That would make me a Judas and God would punish me.” Then I remembered this hymn of God’s words: “Faith is like a single log bridge: Those who cling abjectly to life will have difficulty in crossing it, but those who are ready to sacrifice themselves can pass over, sure of foot and worry-free. If man harbors timid and fearful thoughts, it is because Satan has fooled them, afraid that we will cross the bridge of faith to enter into God. Satan is trying in every way possible to send us its thoughts. We should at every moment pray for God to illuminate and enlighten us, at every moment rely on God to purge Satan’s poison from within us, practice within our spirit at every moment how to come close to God, and let God have dominion over our whole being” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 6). Through God’s words, I realized that thinking about telling them how I came to believe in God out of cowardice was giving in to Satan’s tricks. I saw that my faith in God really was lacking, that I lacked the resolve to endure suffering. I’d made it up to that point, not because of my stature, but because God’s words had been guiding me step by step. At that point I really needed to lean on God and have faith, and no matter how they tortured me, I could never betray God. I said a prayer in my heart, “Oh God, I’m willing to put my life in Your hands and I’ll accept Your arrangements. I won’t be a Judas even if they torture me to death.” Then to my surprise, the cops’ boss called them away. I silently gave thanks to God.

A little while later an officer came to the doorway and took my photo, and said, “I’m going to put your photo online and make you a ‘celebrity,’ so all your friends, relatives, and everyone will see what you look like now, and see that you believers are lunatics.” I wasn’t scared at all by that, and responded, “Aren’t you the ones who made me look like this? Putting that photo online will only let everyone see the truth about how you persecute Christians.” A female officer said, “Well, I’m convinced. I really don’t know what that god of yours is like or where all your strength comes from. After all this you still insist on keeping your belief. I never imagined someone so young could be so tough.” I gave thanks to God within my heart when I heard her say this. Then I thought of these words of God: “God’s life force can prevail over any power; moreover, it exceeds any power. His life is eternal, His power extraordinary, and His life force cannot be overwhelmed by any created being or enemy force” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life). All those days they’d been ravaging me, torturing me, I had felt cowardice and weakness, and even wanted to escape it with death, but God was with me, protecting me, and it was God’s words giving me faith and strength, leading me to overcome all of that brutal torture. I gave heartfelt thanks to God.

When an officer took me to the bathroom a little later, she said to me, “They’re going to question you again soon, and you should just talk. Otherwise you’ll be put in prison for years, and you’ll come out a cripple after a stint in there. Do you know the way prisoners are treated? The women beat up other women, and they’ll cudgel you between the legs with wooden rods. If they get their hands on you, your life will be ruined.” Hearing her say this filled me with both hatred and fright, and at the prospect of becoming disabled in my 20s, I really didn’t know how I could get by after that. As an only child, my parents would have no one to count on if I were disabled. Then I remembered these words from God: “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). Abraham could offer up his only son, and when Job was tested, losing everything he had and with boils all over his body, his friends laughed at him and his wife mocked him, but he never complained about God. He stood firm in his witness. Job and Abraham had true belief in God and they gave resounding testimony through trials. I needed to follow their example and stand witness and humiliate Satan no matter how much I suffered. I said this silent prayer to God, “God, I believe that absolutely all things are under Your sovereignty, so whether I become disabled is in Your hands. No matter what happens to me or how much I suffer, I’m willing to stand firm in my witness and satisfy You.” So I said to the officer, “That would be unconscionable. My conscience would never find peace if I sold out my brothers and sisters. Even if I am sentenced, I will never do something against my conscience.” Hearing this, she took me back to the interrogation room without a word.

Early morning on April 1, the police came to question me again, but I still wouldn’t say anything. Around 2 p.m. that afternoon, they put me in a paddy wagon to take me to a brainwashing base. I sang this hymn of God’s words “One Should Hold Fast to Their Sincerity for God” secretly in my heart the whole way there: “If people do not have any confidence, it is not easy for them to continue down this path. Everyone can now see that God’s work does not conform in the slightest with people’s notions and imaginings. God has done so much work and spoken so many words, and though people may acknowledge that they are the truth, notions about God are still liable to arise in them. If people wish to understand the truth and gain it, they must have the confidence and willpower to be able to stand by what they have already seen and what they have gained from their experiences. No matter what God does in people, they must uphold what they themselves possess, be sincere in front of God, and remain devoted to Him to the very end. This is mankind’s duty. People must uphold that which they should do” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Should Maintain Your Devotion to God). I already knew that having belief would mean being oppressed and having to suffer, and I’d resolved to stand firm in my witness and satisfy God no matter what kind of oppression or suffering I faced, but when I really faced it I realized that standing firm in my witness wasn’t as simple as I’d thought. It wasn’t just being enthusiastic, but it required having faith and the resolve to suffer. God was putting me through this brutal environment as a trial to perfect my faith, to cleanse and save me. I believed that God would guide me no matter what happened. As I sang the hymn my faith grew, and I knew no matter how they tortured me, I had to lean on God to go through it and follow Him until the very end.

When we got to the brainwashing base, the police assigned two officers to keep watch over me 24 hours a day, to ask me questions about the church and brainwash me, and to get me to write something reneging my faith. The third morning they said they were going to show me a video they’d filmed in my hometown. At this my heart leaped into my throat and I wondered if they’d searched my home, if my parents were in trouble. I was worried that some brothers and sisters from the church there had been affected. I got more and more afraid. I couldn’t stop fidgeting in my chair and felt like my limbs went numb. I prayed to God in my heart. In the video, my dad looked kind of yellow and swollen and he said a few things to me, subtly encouraging me to lean on God and stand firm in my witness. Hearing this, the tears just poured down my face and I felt awful. I also realized that the police were trying to play on my emotional attachment to get me to betray God and I despised the Communist Party with everything I had. I thought of something God said: “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 Communist Party gives lip service to religious freedom, but in reality, it madly arrests and persecutes Christians, and brutally tortures them, sentencing them on groundless charges. Countless Christians are forced to stay on the run, unable to see their parents or raise their children. All of that is perpetrated by the Communist Party. The Party is the chief culprit in ripping apart Christian homes. The officers stood off to the side and smiled sinisterly when they saw me crying, and thought I was sure to talk after that. But when I still kept my mouth shut, they hit the table and cursed me out, then turned around and left angrily.

A couple of officers came back to interrogate me again a month later and showed me photos, telling me to identify brothers and sisters. One said to me, “If you don’t admit to anything, you’ll be punished for other people’s crimes, and I’ll see how much we can get you. You’ll end up with 8 or 10 years, then we’ll see how tough you are!” Another one said, trying to tempt me, “Just go along with us and write the statement that you’ve given up your religion and we’ll do whatever you want.” I didn’t budge, so he tried to lure me again, “I know your parents don’t have any other kids, and they worked so hard to raise you. You may not think anything of getting a long sentence now, but you’re going to be miserable when that day actually comes and it’ll be too late for regrets. You have two choices: 1. Give up your religion and deny Almighty God and we’ll take you straight back home. 2. Insist on keeping your faith and go to prison. It’s all up to you to choose. You’d better give it some careful thought.” I was feeling kind of conflicted. If I wrote that statement of reneging my faith, that would be a betrayal of God, but if I chose my faith, I’d go to prison. Would I ever see my parents again? If I went to prison, people would definitely judge my parents, and their nonbelieving relatives and friends would attack them. It would be really hard on them. In the video my dad’s face looked yellow and swollen. Was he having health problems? This thought made me more and more miserable and I was really struggling, so I prayed, “God, I can’t betray You but I can’t let go of my parents. God, what should I do?” These words from God occurred to me just then: “No matter who runs away, you cannot. Other people do not believe, but you must. Other people abandon God, but you must uphold God and bear witness to Him. Others slander God, but you cannot. … You should repay His love, and you must have a conscience, because God is innocent” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Significance of Saving the Descendants of Moab). “You must have a conscience,” these words kept ringing in my ears. Over my years of faith, I’d enjoyed so much of God’s grace. I’d also learned some truths, and knew what kind of person I should be. I’d gained so much from God. Betraying Him would be an unconscionable thing to do. But having to choose between God on one side and my parents on the other was agonizing. It was a particularly fierce battle within my heart. I silently said a prayer, asking God to guide me and give me faith. These words of God came to mind after my prayer: “Are there not many among you who have seesawed between right and wrong? In contests between positive and negative, black and white, you are surely aware of the choices that you have made between family and God, children and God, peace and disruption, riches and poverty, status and ordinariness, being supported and being cast aside, and so on. Between a peaceful family and a broken one, you chose the former, and you did so without any hesitation; between riches and duty, you again chose the former, even lacking the will to return to shore; between luxury and poverty, you chose the former; when choosing between your sons, daughters, wives and husbands, and Me, you chose the former; and between notion and truth, you once again chose the former. Faced with all manner of your evil deeds, I have simply lost faith in you. It simply astounds Me that your hearts are so resistant to being softened. … If you were asked to choose again, what then would be your position? Would it still be the former? Would you still bring Me disappointment and wretched sorrow? Would your hearts still possess the sole modicum of warmth? Would you still be unaware of what to do to comfort My heart? At this moment, what do you choose?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. To Whom Are You Loyal?). I felt like God was right by my side, waiting for my answer. I knew I could not betray God just to satisfy my human affections and maintain family harmony. God is almighty, and my parents’ health and their lives were in God’s hands. Constantly worrying about them just showed that I was lacking faith in God. We may not be able to see each other, but I knew that as long as we leaned on God, He would guide us. This thought restored my faith and I felt ready to rebel against my flesh to satisfy God. I said a prayer, “Oh God, I’m willing to put my parents in Your hands and submit to Your orchestrations and arrangements.” So then I clenched my fists, stood up, and said, “I’ve made my decision, and I’m going with Almighty God. He is the one true God who created the heavens, the earth, and everything, and He is the Lord Jesus returned. I will never deny God.” I felt entirely at peace once I’d said this. If it hadn’t been for the guidance of God’s words, I really would have struggled to triumph over Satan’s temptation. The officer showed his ferociousness as soon as he saw how resolute I was. He slammed a thick stack of papers onto the table and smacked me hard in the face, then screamed at me, “You’re a lost cause! You think we won’t know anything just because you don’t talk? Let me make it clear for you—we’d already been following you guys for three months, so you think we don’t know all about you? We just want to see if you’re going to have a good attitude, so you think about it.” I said, “I won’t deny God, I won’t betray Him even if it means prison time.” They took me to a municipal detention house after that.

In there, I often got high fevers and my feet and hands swelled up, and they made me sit cross-legged for two hours every day. I’d been kicked in the waist during interrogation, doing damage to my kidney, so my waist hurt so much I couldn’t sit up straight. It was really hard to make it till I could go to sleep every day, and yet I was often woken up to take on a night shift. After a couple of weeks, I started having difficulties urinating, my stomach was bloated and painful, and my waist hurt, too. And then every day around 6 or 7 p.m. my fever would spike and my face would flush. I was examined by a doctor, who said I had a cyst in my left kidney that was nearly an inch wide, and it was inflamed. When it really hurt, I would pray to God and draw near to Him, and sing hymns in praise of Him, and then I would unknowingly forget about the pain. Once I’d been in the detention house for 27 days, they released me on bail pending trial, and I naively thought I could really go home. But to my surprise, my hometown police and local government officials took me straight to another brainwashing base for 48 days of conversion and brainwashing, and then they took me to the local police station to register. The police chief called me into his office and said, “You’re on bail pending trial now, so your case is pending. For one year, you are not allowed to leave the city limits, and even if you have errands to run in a nearby area, you still have to come here first to report to us and request permission, and you need to be ready to report to us at a moment’s notice.” Even though I was back home, I still didn’t have any freedom, and someone was following me every time I went into the city. After a few months of this, I had no choice but to leave my home to do my duty. The police sent the party secretory of our village to look for me at home and inquire about my religious status, and told my family that if I kept practicing my faith they’d arrest me again, and that I had to report to the police station. I was furious when I heard about this. And I thought, “I will believe in God no matter what, and not only that, but I’m going to forsake everything to preach the gospel and bear witness to God! I’ll definitely continue forward by relying on God.” Thanks be to God!