The Heavenly Man (14 page)

I started to pray loudly and fervently. I shouted, “In the name of Jesus I fight against you, Satan. I stand against all your lies. You have deceived me into thinking I can pray in my sleep. I bind you in Jesus’ name!”

I felt a demonic presence brush past me as I prayed these words. A tiny bell was attached to the end of my leather belt, which was hanging on the end of the bed. The bell started ringing by itself. I understood immediately that the devil wanted to distract me by this ringing, so I ignored it and continued praying. Soon the demonic presence left and a deep peace came upon us.

Many of our neighbours were also sleeping outside their homes, so many people heard me shouting and wondered what was happening to me.

Yun’s mother was walking home at that same time. When she was still about one mile from our village she heard what she thought was dozens of Christians praying loudly, so she ran home to join the prayer meeting. When she arrived she was amazed to find it was only me who had been praying!

This was a turning point and my spiritual life improved from that day on.

God helped us greatly while my husband was in prison. There are two special miracles that I’d like to share with you from this time.

With only Yun’s mother and me left to run the farm, things were desperate! We had no clue what we were doing. We decided to plant sweet potatoes, but didn’t know how to do it. I found out later that we should have planted the roots about two feet apart. I had planted them just a few inches apart!

All summer long our neighbours who heard about my foolishness mocked us and made fun of us! The news spread rapidly and I was the butt of many jokes.

Then in autumn, all our neighbours started cursing because they had very poor yields from their harvest. Their sweet potatoes were only the size of tennis balls.

When we pulled up our sweet potatoes, we found they were almost the size of basketballs! It was a great miracle and everyone knew God had taken care of us.

Our neighbours respected us more from that moment on and they didn’t view my husband as a cursed criminal any more, but as a man who’d been unjustly incarcerated. Our neighbours saw “the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” Malachi 3:18.

The second miracle took place when Isaac was three. We had to exchange a portion of whatever crops we produced because we owned no animals or fertiliser. Therefore it was imperative we had a good harvest, or we would not be able to buy food to eat or the other items we needed to survive.

This time I didn’t know how to plant wheat seeds. I placed them so close together that they carpeted the soil!

Just a week before the wheat harvest, a severe hailstorm struck. Ice the size of tennis balls fell from the sky. I rushed outside when the hail started and could already see that some of our neighbours’ wheat fields had been completely flattened by the storm. Yun’s mother and I fell to our knees and cried out, “God, have mercy on us!”

A great miracle happened. Our field was the only one protected by the Lord. All our wheat was standing upright, untouched by the hail. Everyone else’s fields in the whole area had been obliterated.

People came out of their homes after the storm subsided and saw how the Lord Jesus Christ had protected us. It was another powerful testimony to them.

While we enjoyed thick, healthy wheat that year, our neighbours had no harvest and were forced to use what was left of their crops as food for their animals.

Looking back, despite the hard times, the Lord was faithful to us!

I was sent to the Xinyang Prison Labour Camp. Xinyang is in the southern part of Henan Province, near the border with Hubei. The area is home to numerous tea plantations. The weather there is bleak, with little sunshine throughout the year. Many days are marked with heavy fog and drizzle. The depressingly damp conditions are a haven for swarms of mosquitoes and numerous poisonous snakes.

There were more than 5,000 criminals in our prison camp, separated into four different work units. I was assigned to work in the irrigated rice fields and fish farms. In my work unit alone there were more than 1,000 prisoners.

Every morning we had to endure political brainwashing and military-type physical training. Our days lasted from sunrise to after sunset – 14 hours of work, seven days per week.

We dug fishponds by hand, and laboured continually in the irrigated rice fields alongside snakes and leeches. On only my second day we were forced to carry heavy basket loads of dirt and rocks on our backs. All day we had to climb with our loads up a ladder and throw the dirt on a nearby slope. I felt so weak. The small portions of food we were provided with were not enough to sustain us. Many times I fainted and fell off the ladder, back down into the pit.

All the time we were watched and harassed by armed guards. If we slackened off, they would beat us with their rifle butts. It was a miserable existence.

When we returned to our rooms every evening, many of us had badly swollen legs and shoulders from the hard labour. On many occasions I didn’t even have the strength to climb up to my bunk, so I just slept on the floor at the foot of the bed.

My strength had evaporated and I could bear it no longer. I didn’t know how I would survive another day.

To make matters worse, Xinyang is almost 300 kilometres from my home, so it was very difficult for my family to visit. During the first few months I not only felt physically weak but also I’d become spiritually weak.

I felt discouraged because I couldn’t see my family. I wondered what my young boy looked like. Even though I’d been tortured mercilessly in the Nanyang prison, at least I knew my family and loved ones were not far away. Now I was tested in a different kind of way – a backbreaking form of slow torture. Not long after I arrived I penned a poem to describe this place,

At the end of 1984, before the Lunar New Year celebration, we were all ordered to write an annual report and outline our plans for the coming year.

I didn’t know what to write. As I thought about it, a verse came to my mind,
“Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” Revelation 2:5.

I penned a poem, admitting that my own devotional life with the Lord had been weak during the second half of the year. Because I was so exhausted I’d started to live only for food and sleep.

For my plans for the coming year I wrote that I had repented and the Lord had forgiven me. I vowed that each day, at 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., I would pray and meditate on the Word of God.

From that day on, I had a daily devotional time with my Lord. He exchanged my weakness for his strength and I was able to bear the workload much better.

One day the prison warden came to me and said, “I’ve read your court papers. You were labelled a counter-revolutionary and an enemy of the state, but I know you’re really just a Christian pastor who wants people to believe in Jesus. I don’t know why our government sends people like you to our prison camp.”

I couldn’t help but cry. Deep down I felt indignation for all the injustices I’d suffered. Suddenly the Lord told me, “Don’t feel sorry for yourself. This is my will for you. You should walk in it.”

Thank God he knew my weakness and limitations. The warden had watched me closely for a long time, looking to see if I would try to escape. When he saw I wouldn’t, he reassigned me from the fishpond to work in the fields. I had to
carry buckets of human excrement to the vegetable garden for fertilisation. This job was easier than carrying the dirt and rocks.

I was also assigned to wash clothes and help some of the illiterate inmates write letters to their families. The Lord’s favour rested on me. Many of the prisoners knew I was a sincere Christian and they started to respect me.

A guard came one day and told me, “In the vegetable garden work unit there is a 70-year-old Catholic priest. Have you met him? He is a good Christian.”

This man had also been labelled a counter-revolutionary. He’d received a ten-year sentence because he refused to submit to the government-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association. He was already serving the final year of his sentence.

When I first met Father Yu, he already knew I was a Christian. Because I wasn’t a Catholic he was very cool towards me and would not even greet me. I prayed for him and looked for ways to serve him. At lunchtime I put milk powder into his cup and gave him some of my food.

Later he realized that even though I wasn’t a Catholic, I was a true believer in Jesus. He had heard about my suffering and how I’d fasted for 74 days.

Little by little he changed his attitude toward me. Father Yu showed me his notebook containing his personal spiritual devotions. He didn’t want to get into any trouble by sharing his faith with the other prisoners, so he was very cautious. To avoid trouble he didn’t want his fellow Catholics to bring him a Bible, so for all those years he had survived without the Word of God.

My family was able to visit me a few times. They smuggled parts of the Bible in with their food and gifts. On one occasion my wife brought me a specially baked loaf of bread.
This truly was a precious gift – she had hidden parts of the Bible inside the bread! On another occasion she concealed some pages inside a packet of instant noodles.

I shared my Bible with the priest and our friendship bloomed. He was well educated and could read and speak Latin, Hebrew, English and ancient Chinese.

After Yu left the prison camp he visited my home. Our co-workers lovingly gave many Bibles to the Catholic believers, and later they enjoyed good fellowship. After his release, Father Yu was promoted and became a bishop of the underground Catholic Church. He really loves the Lord.

The Lord was opening many doors for the witness of the gospel. In the camp there was one prisoner named Shi Zhou Ba. When he was a little eight-year-old boy he was sent to a large Buddhist monastery. After training he became a monk.

Shi was an expert calligrapher and also a kung fu master. One day as he walked through the market a pickpocket stole his money. He turned around and, using his kung fu skills, struck the thief. The thief fell down dead.

Aware of Shi’s fighting abilities, several armed PSB officers came and surrounded him, beating him mercilessly. Shi fought back and injured some of the officers. The police finally subdued him by breaking his arm with a gun barrel. They beat him so severely that he was barely alive. Ultimately he ended up at the Xinyang Prison Labour Camp.

In the prison there were many men who asked Shi to teach Buddhist doctrine. Some young men even tried to worship him and asked him to teach them kung fu.

I had a deep burden to share the gospel with him. One evening we met together. I shared with him and that night Shi Zhou Ba accepted Jesus and was born again, repenting of his sins. He took his Buddhist books, amulets and charms and asked me to destroy them.

Many prisoners came from broken families. I shared the gospel with them and some dedicated their lives to follow Jesus. We baptized these new converts in the fishpond. Two of the new believers, Brother Xi and Brother Sun, became strong Christians. After he was released from prison Brother Xi pastored a church.

On Christmas Day, 1985, Brother Shen and Brother An came to visit me on behalf of the house churches. Christmas was especially difficult for believers in prison. We were forced to do hard labour and longed to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus with our brothers and sisters.

When the two brothers arrived at the prison I was working in the field, carrying excrement. The authorities told them to go away, but they had come a long distance to see me so they waited outside the gate.

When I heard about my visitors I rushed to the prison office. Normally prisoners were not allowed to meet visitors outside the reception room, but because I had a good reputation I visited the chief warden and told him, “Two relatives from my home town have come to visit me! They’re being made to wait outside, but they need to use the toilet facilities. Will you please allow them to come inside the prison yard and use the toilet? If you let me walk with them, we could have a short visit.”

Incredibly, the chief warden gave his permission!

As we walked we chatted freely and they reported to me everything that was happening. 1985 had been a powerful year for the house churches all over China. Great revival had spread the gospel far and wide and thousands of souls were being added to the church every day. To this day, the Chinese Christians look back on 1985 as a key year of breakthrough. I was so encouraged by what I heard that I started to cry tears of joy.

The three of us entered the toilet block and we worshipped together to celebrate Christmas. I knelt down on the dirty floor and prayed, “Lord, we only have this dirty toilet to worship you in. But you understand because you left the glory of heaven and were born in a dirty manger. You were willing to walk the path of obedience and suffering. We worship you today!”

My two visitors also knelt down next to me, and hand-in-hand we prayed to the Lord and encouraged each other.

At that moment one of the prisoners, a man named Yong, came in and saw us. He was a bad man with a violent temper. Because he continually reported on the other prisoners he’d been promoted to the position of group leader. Yong shouted, “Yun, how dare you bring outsiders into the camp to conduct superstitious activities! I’m going to report you right now to the wardens!”

The Holy Spirit filled me and I commanded him, “In the name of Jesus, how dare you speak against the Living God? Now, I command you to kneel down and repent of your sins. Receive the Lord and perhaps he will forgive you!”

Immediately, as if he had been struck by lightning, Yong knelt down and the three of us laid hands on his head and prayed for him. I learned that if we obey God miracles will happen, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.

After Yong received the Lord he became a good friend of mine. His heart longed for the Word of the Lord. Because he had been such a troublemaker he had many enemies among the other prisoners. To get back at him, many prisoners made false accusations against him after he became a Christian.

One day during our lunch break Yong lay down on his bed and secretly read my Bible, which I had carefully hidden in our cell. Yong was discovered. The guards took my Bible
away. Yong lost his temper and started to fight them. He almost bit off the finger of one of the guards. They finally overpowered him and took him away.

Two brothers rushed to me and told me what had happened. I said, “Let’s pray and ask God to help Yong.” I visited the guards to try to help the situation, but they were so angry they wouldn’t listen to me.

At that moment I saw one of the prison wardens. I ran to the gate and spoke with him, “Captain Wong, it was my Bible that Yong was reading. I know this is a serious matter, but can you please help me get my Bible back?” Wong was one of the wardens who had treated me kindly. He suffered from a terrible throat infection that made him cough day and night.

Captain Wong went into the office and shouted at Yong, “Who do you think you are to fight us? I will deal with you severely! But first, hand Yun’s Bible to me.”

A few days later, when the situation had calmed down, Captain Wong asked me to come to his office. He leaned forward and told me, “Yun, I’ve been reading your Bible but I don’t understand it.”

I knew this was a God-given opportunity. I told him, “If you want to understand the Bible it’s very simple. First you need to accept Jesus into your heart. Trust him and he will help you understand every teaching in this book. Captain Wong, this Bible will not only tell you how you can receive salvation, but Jesus will also heal you of your throat infection.”

I saw the Holy Spirit was touching him. I closed his office door and said, “Captain Wong, please kneel down. Jesus is coming to bless you.”

He knelt down and prayed, “Jesus, I believe you are God. Please heal me.”

I laid my hands on him and he repented and received the Lord. God set him free from his affliction and he was gradually restored to full health. From that moment Brother Wong became a disciple of Jesus. God promoted him and gave him a position with more authority, but he always remembered me. He transferred me from carrying excrement to working in the blacksmith’s shop. I was also made a water-carrier for the guards.

My new assignment meant I had more time to read the Bible and pray. When my family visited me, we were allowed to meet together in the blacksmith’s shop.

I was also assigned to shepherd a flock of sheep in the field, and to feed the fish in the ponds. I learned some lessons from this. I learned we should never beat the sheep, but must feed them if we want them to follow. While feeding the fish I took the opportunity to share the gospel with the prisoners who worked near the pond. Some of them believed in Jesus.