The Heavenly Man (29 page)

One morning I received a call, telling me that Yun was to be released on the 18th of September! There had been so many false alarms and disappointments during this imprisonment that I didn’t want to believe it until I knew he was safe, despite the dream I’d received.

Then, on the 18th, I received a call from my husband. He was standing in Bangkok airport, getting ready to board a flight to Germany. God is good!

At six o’clock on the morning of 19 September 2001, my aircraft touched down on the tarmac at Frankfurt. It was almost exactly four years since I had first arrived in Germany in 1997.

When I first left China I thought my family would soon follow me, but the Lord had other ideas. There was much more he wanted to teach us and lead us through before bringing us together as a family in the same place.

After going through customs I walked out and found not only my family waiting for me, but more than a dozen German believers! We hugged and laughed. Even the German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke – whom God has used to lead millions of souls in Africa and other parts of the world to Jesus – came to the airport to welcome me! I was greatly honoured.

My wife Deling was glowing with happiness and my children bubbled with excitement. It was a wonderful reunion from the Lord.

We went home to the town where I’d been given a small apartment to live in by a Christian mission. I didn’t have much furniture or even a bed, but Deling and the children had lovingly stayed in that apartment, not wanting to find a
new place to live until we were all together again. As soon as we entered our home we shut the door and knelt down and worshipped together, tearfully thanking the Lord for his goodness and faithfulness. I raised my arms to the Lord and sang,

In the weeks after my release from prison in Myanmar it became apparent that my health had suffered. My system was infected with parasites and worms as a result of the plague and the dirty food and water we’d been forced to eat and drink. Worms started exiting my body through my skin, and I itched all over. The first thing my wife did was take my clothes and boil them, to kill the parasites trapped in my clothing. The Lord helped me to recover my health slowly. This was a good time for me to slow down and have quality time with my wife and children. Finally, Deling’s request for a more settled family life started to come to pass.

Deling and I have now been married for twenty years. Our marriage is far from perfect, but I can honestly say it is growing richer every year. Deling is the best friend I have in the whole world. Twenty years ago she was just a young lady when I said to her, “God has chosen me to be his witness and to follow him through great hardships and the way of the cross. I don’t have any money and am always being pursued by the authorities. Do you really want to marry me?”

She answered, “I will never let you down. I will join with you and together we’ll serve the Lord.”

Deling’s promise has been tested many times, yet she has been completely faithful to the Lord and to me. I have spent about seven of our twenty years of marriage in prison, and have been on the run for many additional years.

Deling is a wonderful wife and mother. She’s much smarter than me, and always reminds me of my weakness when she sees me getting too busy or putting too much confidence in my own abilities. She has a quiet spirit, and can never be found gossiping or making trouble in the church. She also has a great gift for worshipping the Lord in song. At one meeting in China I was eager to preach but the people told me, “We’ve heard plenty of your preaching already. We would rather hear Deling sing!”

Now that my family is together outside China, it doesn’t mean we’ll stay away from our homeland forever. We didn’t flee the country by our own efforts in a bid to live an easier life. We left China because God clearly told us to. He then confirmed it by opening a door for us to leave.

Now that we are out, we’re still as busy as ever preaching the gospel and facilitating the Back to Jerusalem movement. Yet we know that being led by the Holy Spirit brings many unexpected turns. Jesus told Nicodemus,
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8.

If we truly claim to follow Jesus then we must do so without imposing any conditions or self-made plans. If God tells us to go back to China one day, we will. It’s as simple as that. Some people may say, “Well that’s stupid! Don’t you know you’re a wanted criminal and you’ll be arrested as soon as you arrive?”

We’re not called to live by human reason. All that matters is obedience to God’s Word and his leading in our lives. If
God says go, we’ll go. If he says stay, we’ll stay. When we are in his will, we are in the safest place in the world.

* * *

DELING
: After twenty years of marriage, I know my husband’s heart. His heart and his faith are solid. He’s very open and forward. He has no fear of man. Everything he has in his heart he just speaks out. So in that way I never have to second-guess him. What you see with him is exactly what you get, no more, no less.

I respect him for his love and commitment to God. I know him very well in this way, but yes, there are other ways I don’t know him so well because circumstances have meant we’ve been apart for most of our married life. The worst thing is that he has seldom been around so I’ve basically raised the children by myself.

It hasn’t been all bad news however! Our lives have been filled with hardship, great suffering, and long periods away from each other, but also with great victories and experience of God’s deep love and grace for us.

I haven’t been very lonely because of the children. They’ve been with me and have been a great comfort to me. The biggest cross and most pain I’ve had to endure is not from poverty or persecution from unbelievers, or from loneliness. The hardest thing has been when the church started to spread false rumours about my husband. To this day I don’t understand why some brothers could be so devious in spreading lies about a brother who so honestly tries to serve the Lord and love people.

Yun often tells me, “We are absolutely nothing. We have nothing to be proud about. We have no abilities and nothing to offer God. The fact that he chooses to use us is only due to his grace. It has nothing to do with us. If God should choose to raise up others for his purpose and never use us again we would have nothing to complain about.”

When I was younger I saw God as a mighty healer who did something for me, but after all these years of valleys and painful trials Jesus has become an ever-present friend who is with me all the time. He has gone from being an historical God to being a living God to me today. I’ve fallen short many times during these trials and testings, but he has always been faithful. Whenever I’ve asked him to help me he always has.

Jesus is everything and we are nothing.

* * *

YUN
: When I think of what the Lord has for me in the future, I’m excited! These are great times to be alive for Jesus! The Holy Spirit is moving mightily throughout the earth and it’s a great privilege for us to be involved with reaping the harvest in these last days.

I believe the main focus of my ministry will continue to be the Back to Jerusalem movement. What started as a small trickle of missionaries leaving China has now become a steady flow, and soon I believe a mighty torrent of workers will leave China’s borders with the gospel.

I continue to have the opportunity to speak in many churches and meetings around the world. My message to the Western church is to get back to basics in order to hear again the voice of Jesus speaking to you.

Then I want to challenge not only the Western church, but believers all around the world, to join hands with us in partnership to train and equip workers for this mighty harvest; to establish God’s kingdom not only throughout China but also all the way back to Jerusalem.

A new church era has begun.

I believe the West’s role is to be partners with us so that together we can get the job done.

We’re not looking for handouts, but partnership.

I don’t know exactly what the future holds, but I do know who holds my future! Since the Lord saved me as a teenager it has been an exciting ride! I’ve never known what was waiting around the next corner.

One day I may be killed for the sake of the gospel in a Muslim or Buddhist nation. If you hear this news, please don’t grieve for me, but grieve for the millions of precious souls who are enslaved by Satan without any gospel witness. Death is not the end for a servant of God, but just the start of indescribable everlasting life in the presence of Jesus.

If you hear I have been called home to heaven, please go on in my place with the gospel, preaching and discipling the people groups of the world until Jesus comes again.

My Lord Jesus is the most wonderful friend you can ever have. He has been so loving, patient and kind to me over so many years and through so many valleys.

Many people have said to me, “Yun, you must really love Jesus.” You need to realize that any love I have in my heart for Jesus is only because of his love for me.
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.

Jesus is truly worth knowing. He is worthy to receive our whole lives. If you do give him your life, you’ll surely never regret it.

Will you follow him?

Brother Yun in China

My dear family, outside our house in Nanyang in 1993. I am holding Isaac, alongside my mother, little Yilin and Deling.

Two great gospel warriors in China: Xu Yongze, my dear brother and co-worker for more than twenty years, and his sister Deborah, on the Great Wall of China.

Zhengzhou Maximum Security Prison in Henan. This is the prison the Lord miraculously enabled me to escape from in 1997. In the background you can see two tall buildings with iron grills over the windows. The building on the right, second floor from the top, is where my cell was. During my escape, the Christian brothers ran to these windows and watched me walk across the courtyard and out of the front prison gate, the one with flags on it. A yellow taxi van picked me up and drove me to safety.