The Heavenly Man (27 page)

Only later were we told the men had been waiting for a moonless night to minimize our chances of being spotted by border guards. The noise made by squeaking shoes meant we had to discard our footwear.

The three men used long machetes to cut their way through a part of the jungle where nobody had ever been before. For hour after hour we crept along in the black of night. The whole escape was done in complete darkness. We never saw one person all night.

At one stage we had to scramble up a steep embankment alongside a waterfall. Several times we slid down and had to grab at branches and rocks to steady ourselves. All night I cried inside but didn’t make a noise. I silently shared all my feelings with the Lord. It also happened to be my birthday.

Physically the whole experience was very difficult. As a result of the intense heat and suffocating humidity, sweat poured from our bodies until we were dehydrated and could sweat no more. Yilin cut her feet badly on the rocks, yet I was so proud of her. Not many ten-year-old girls could have endured the physical, emotional and spiritual pressure of our situation. The Lord sustained us.

In the middle of the night the Holy Spirit impressed on me a Scripture that I hadn’t thought about for many years, from Isaiah 30:20–21: “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”

You may remember that twenty years earlier in Henan, after I first believed in the Lord, on a number of occasions I saw a super natural light showing me the correct path to take while I walked home from prayer meetings in the middle of the night. I hadn’t seen the guiding light of the Lord for almost two decades.

Now, in the small hours of the morning in February 2001, soon after the Lord spoke this promise to me from the Book of Isaiah, I saw that same light directing me in the mountains along the Thailand-Myanmar border. The light wasn’t constant, but appeared whenever I couldn’t see which way I was supposed to walk.

Just before sunrise, after more than six hours of walking, we were told we’d arrived inside Thailand and our guides left us to return home.

We were in Thailand! We had few possessions, no shoes, and no documents. Our clothes were cut to pieces and our legs and arms were scratched and covered in dirt and dried blood. Yilin’s feet were deeply cut and bleeding openly. I didn’t know where my husband or son were.

Christian friends in Thailand came to where we were staying and picked us up. Isaac made his way into Thailand at a place much further north than we had entered, and we were reunited in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. Several days after that, the German embassy in Bangkok presented us with travel documents and we boarded a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

Finally, after many trials, we were in the West!

Kind German Christians did everything possible to make us feel welcome. We moved into Yun’s tiny apartment, but it wasn’t the same without him. Our hearts ached to be together as a family.

After serving the Lord all these years I felt he had stripped us right down to nothing, so that he could launch the next phase of our lives.

On the second day after my arrest the beatings ended and I was taken to a cell in a police station next to the airport. Much to their surprise, their investigation found my German passport was genuine, not counterfeit. They also discovered some documents in my possession from the Sinim Fellowship of house church leaders in China, declaring that I was their authorized representative. For the first time, they started to believe I really was a Christian pastor and not a spy!

While the letters from Sinim helped clarify my identity, they also caused the Myanmar authorities to alert the Chinese embassy that they were holding a Christian leader from their country in custody. Many Christians around the world had been alerted to my arrest by this time, and thousands of prayers went forth to the Lord, asking him not to let me fall into the hands of the Chinese government. Many feared that if China realized I had escaped from prison in 1997, I would be returned to China and executed.

A few days later the police station warden told me I had a visitor from the German embassy. The official asked how I was doing and brought me some food and clothes.

The very next day I was informed that representatives
from the Chinese embassy were coming to visit me at ten o’clock the next morning. I started to worry, and cried out to the Lord in prayer, asking for his will to be done.

When some Burmese Christian friends visited me later in the day I told them officials from the Chinese embassy were coming the next morning. Sensing the seriousness of the situation, my friends immediately went to the German embassy and notified them. The Germans knew my background in China and fully realized the danger if China got their hands on me again. The German embassy decided they would make sure they arrived at my cell before the Chinese officials the next morning, and would notify the Chinese that I was a German subject and that they were dealing with my case.

When the warden saw there was a struggle between two embassies over who should have access to me, he called the Chinese and told them it wasn’t a good time for them to visit. They asked to reschedule their appointment.

I met with the warden and made it clear that I didn’t want to see anyone from the Chinese embassy. The warden contacted the embassy and told them, “Yun thanks you for your sincere concern for his welfare, but because he is now a German citizen he prefers to deal with the German embassy.”

The Chinese wouldn’t give up however. They’d been told who I was and insisted on getting involved with my case. They tried to gather evidence against me to convince the Burmese authorities that I should be handed over to them. The Burmese were faced with a tough situation. On one hand they wanted to please the Germans, yet they also felt pressure from their giant northern neighbour.

By the grace of God, however, the Chinese authorities were not permitted to see me and I never received a visit from them.

Normally prisoners only stay in the airport police station cell for a few days at the most, but the authorities were confused about what to do with my case. I stayed there for one month. During this time I was allowed to have my Bible. I used the time to memorize the books of 1 Samuel, Esther, the Gospel of John, and Galatians.

In Myanmar no food is provided to prisoners. We had to buy our own from vendors outside the prison every day. We were allowed to shower for only two minutes, once every four days. This was always a welcome two minutes because of the extreme heat and humidity.

My Burmese friends told me I’d be set free after one month. Their prediction, however, proved to be incorrect. Instead of being released, I was transferred to the largest prison in Myanmar, in the middle of Yangon City. It houses ten thousand men. No words can adequately describe the conditions there. Many of the prisoners suffered from AIDS, and a large number had leprosy. The smell of rotting flesh invaded every corner of the dark, forsaken facility, where precious souls are left to die in silence.

One hundred prisoners were crammed into each cell. It was so tight that no one could sleep on his back. Each man had to sleep head to foot, side by side. We were packed like sardines inside a can. At night, if one prisoner moved too much or coughed uncontrollably, those surrounding him would beat him.

I’ve seen the inside of many prisons in China, but none came close to matching the terrible living conditions in this place. Yangon (formerly called Rangoon) is one of the hottest and most humid cities in the world. Every day the temperature was in the mid-to-high 30s Celsius (90s to low 100s Fahrenheit), with 85–90% humidity. We sweated continually
in the steaming, putrid air. To make things worse, I wasn’t permitted to have my Bible in this prison.

This may sound like a contradiction, but although I’d been arrested because I disobeyed the Lord’s command, I also sensed it was his plan for me to be a witness for Jesus Christ to the desperate criminals there. It was for this reason God sent me into that hopeless place.

Before I left China in 1997 the Lord told me, “I will send you to a new place where you won’t understand a single word of their language.” This was exactly where I was now. My inability to communicate with the other prisoners was my biggest burden while in prison in Myanmar.

There were many hopeless men in my cell. One criminal, a convicted drug smuggler, had been sentenced to 387 years in prison! Others had received sentences of more than 160 years. Myanmar, being a Buddhist nation, believes in reincarnation. These extreme sentences, therefore, were designed not only to punish the criminals for the remainder of their present life, but also for the next several lives after that!

In a corner of our cell was a Buddhist shrine, with an altar and idols on it. The other prisoners heard I was a Christian pastor, and not knowing the difference between idolatry and the Living God, they made me sleep right beneath the shrine, thinking I would know better than most how to carry out religious duties.

Three times every day, between five and six o’clock in the morning, then from noon to 1 p.m., and finally between 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., all prisoners were forced to sit down in a Buddhist posture and pray and meditate in front of the idols in our cell. The government in Myanmar believes that making criminals pray to Buddha is the best way for them to be reformed. If any prisoner fell asleep during these times the guards savagely beat them.

Through another prisoner who could speak a little Chinese, I strongly protested to the guards, “I cannot worship the way you do. I am a Christian pastor. Even if you chain me up and drag me in front of these idols, I will not worship them and will not pray before them!”

One day while the other prisoners prayed and meditated to Buddha, the Holy Spirit gave me a simple tune,

As I sang, the Lord set my heart as free as a bird! Great joy flooded my soul. I could sense God was touching the hearts of the other prisoners. Even though they had no idea what the words of my song meant, a few of the other prisoners joined me. Soon they had broad smiles across their faces. This simple song started to bring happiness and peace to a room full of hardened sinners.

The prison warden came to me and said, “Singing is not permitted in this prison. You must cease at once!”

I answered, “I’m a Christian pastor. Jesus loves to hear people sing about him. Therefore, please understand my situation. Please allow me to practise my religion the way God prescribes.”

By the grace of God my request sounded reasonable to the warden and he allowed me to continue singing.

Over the coming days all the other prisoners joined in singing “Hallelujah”. Their grim faces turned to joy, and their suffering was alleviated for a few hours every day. The atmosphere in the cell dramatically changed. Because the other prisoners saw the presence of Jesus in me, they respected me as a man who knew God.

A small chapel stood in our prison compound. I was
allowed to go there when the other prisoners prayed to Buddha. There I met several Burmese Christians who had been sent to prison for different reasons. I was amazed to find that a number of my cell mates, including a Buddhist monk, started following me to the chapel every day, so they could hear me sing. They knew there was something different in my heart, and they were curious to find out what. When I knelt down to pray to Jesus, these men even knelt down next to me, hoping to receive some blessing from my God! Because of the language barrier I was never able to preach the gospel fluently to those men, but I know the Lord will find a way to satisfy their spiritual hunger.

Every few weeks the foreign prisoners were taken to a police station downtown for questioning. On our way back to the prison we were allowed to stop at a store to buy supplies for the Burmese prisoners. On one occasion I used my own money to buy more than 40 toothbrushes, dozens of bars of soap, and large sacks of food for my cell mates. For some of the prisoners who were nearly starving to death, this was the only food they could get.

Meanwhile, information about my case was very confusing. I hadn’t been charged with any crime. Several times my Burmese friends assured me I would be released soon, but each day came and went without any change. I soon realized the outcome to my situation was in the hands of God alone. I knew I’d be released from prison as soon as my ministry in that place was completed, not a minute sooner and not a minute later.

On 9 April 2001, I was able to write a letter which was carried out to Christian friends around the world. I was aware that thousands of believers were praying for me every day. I wrote,

In the humid, filthy conditions, bacteria and diseases grew and spread quickly. In our cell, one hundred men had to use the same toilet. As a result a horrible plague struck, causing many prisoners to die. Infection entered men’s bodies through their backsides and private parts. For several weeks when the plague was at its worst, several prisoners died each night. The disease felt like fire in the stomach. The afflicted would roll around in dire agony before succumbing.

I was also infected with the terrible disease at this time, and was unable to digest any solid food for a month. Along with the other prisoners, all I could do was lie down and scratch all day. Parasites were rampant in my body. Sometimes I would look down at my stomach and actually see a worm moving under the surface of my skin. Occasionally its tiny tail could be seen sticking out through the pores of my skin.

It was a miserable time, yet I tried to maintain a cheerful spirit in the Lord. More than eighty per cent of the prisoners were afflicted. Finally, I grew so sick that I fell unconscious for five days. When I awoke I was in the prison hospital.

After several months in prison my day of sentencing finally arrived. My Burmese friends were certain I would be let off, possibly with a fine, and deported from the country. I didn’t know what to expect but I placed my life in the hands of God.

I was handcuffed and taken from the hospital to the courthouse. The judge reviewed my case, then, without any emotion, simply stated, “Seven years.”

My Burmese friends and my lawyer were absolutely devastated. They’d never imagined such a sentence. They were speechless and looked at me with tears in their eyes. That day I was full of faith, and knew God Almighty was with me, regardless of the verdict. I bowed down before the judge’s bench and said, through a translator, “I want to thank you, your honour, for granting me a visa to remain in your country for seven years.”

With a wave of his hand I was dismissed and guards took me away, handcuffed, back to the prison hospital. When I told one cell mate the length of my sentence, he rejoiced for me and helped me gain a proper perspective. He was serving a sentence of 150 years.

In my heart I’d hoped God would allow me to go free quickly, as soon as I’d learned the lesson for my disobedience. I never thought I would receive such a long sentence. I complained to the Lord, “Heavenly Father, I have a wife and two children waiting for me. I’m sorry for disobeying you, but now can you please pour out your mercy on me and let me go home?”

When I look back, I clearly see that my time in prison in Myanmar really was a mission trip from the Lord. It was no accident that God had sent me into that dark place. There were so many desperate souls who needed to know Jesus.

I’d heard there were five Chinese men from Singapore in the prison, each having received a sentence of life plus 50 years for drug smuggling. They were all quite young, about thirty years old, yet had already been in the prison a few years. Another Chinese man from Taiwan, in his forties, had received life plus 100 years. Because these men could speak Chinese, I was eager to meet them and share the gospel with them in their hopeless situations.