Chinese Christian woman recalls the day she found out that the leaders of her church were being arrested and her friends began to disappear.
QUICK FACTS:
- A Christian woman who escaped China described to The Christian Post what the persecution of Christians in China is like.
- Just before Christmas of 2018, Ren Ruiting found out that the Chinese Police were going from house to house and arresting members of her church, beginning with her pastor and his wife.
- Since she had attended the church’s seminary, she knew the police had her name, so she gathered some supplies and fled to a friend’s house, where she discovered that she could no longer text her family and friends, and the police were calling her.
- After several days of hiding out, she went to the police and agreed to stop attending her church, Early Rain worship services (which were already disbanded), and stop engaging in a cult, but she did not agree to participate in the government’s re-education or correction work.
- She was eventually permitted to leave if she allowed the government to monitor her through her WeChat account. She was also frequently followed by police, though she had to return to the station for questioning regularly and was continually digitally monitored.
- Ren told police she was visiting her hometown, but instead visited the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu to attempt to get a visa, but was denied. However, in Mat of 2019, she flew to Thailand where she contacted Bob Fu of the Texas-based watchdog organization ChinaAid.
- They were advised to travel to Taiwan, something Ren hadn’t considered, due to her Chinese upbringing, where they don’t teach much about the island nation, however, the young woman said that they helped her family immensely, eventually assisting them in a trip that put them in the United States in June of 2021 via political asylum.
- The Chinese refugee warned the United States against any fraternization with China in the strongest terms, citing their human rights abuses, calling them the “evil” Communist administration.
IN REN’S OWN WORDS:
- “It was quite normal for us to face this kind of persecution,” Ren said. “People would go with the police officer for a couple of hours and then come back, so I wasn’t too nervous at that time.”
- “I was talking to my friend, and suddenly she went silent. It was a horrible thing. One second someone would be talking to you, and then they would disappear. You don’t know where they went, because they are taken away by the policeman. And that made me feel a little afraid … I didn’t know what happened to my friends, and they didn’t know what happened to me. We all felt independent and isolated. We were not a big group, we were taken away one person at a time. At that time, I felt really afraid.”
- While she now lives in Florida, and her life is immensely better, she said that all the danger isn’t gone: “I know some spies are in America from China that threaten to prosecute Chinese refugees.”
- “American people are so good and kind, and they trust instantly,” she said. “But the CCP does not deserve your trust. You need to treat them as liars; you cannot trust anything they say. Maybe they help your economy or give you code for Google or Apple, but life is not just about money. It’s about human rights. If you receive money from China, that means you’ll be influenced by them. And it’s not a good thing.”
BACKGROUND:
- You can read more about Ren’s story at The Christian Post where they reported that Ren’s pastor is still in prison.
- If you’d like to read more about the plight of Christians in China, you can read the other 6 parts of the Christian Post’s series on China’s human rights abuses: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.
