The wife of a Chinese pastor whose husband was imprisoned amid the Chinese government’s crackdown on house churches revealed that the trial has brought about tremendous spiritual fruit even through their suffering.
Pastor Gao Yingjia, a leader of Zion Church in Beijing, was one of many leaders with the congregation arrested during the wave of persecution that started in October.
The Christian Post reported that church members’ homes were being surrounded as communist authorities conducted their harshest crackdown on house churches in years.
Geng Pengpeng, the pastor’s wife who also goes by the English name Cherie, told The Christian Post that they stayed with friends as they awaited news of other Zion Church members being arrested.
Cherie suspected that authorities were tracking their cell phones.
“We were staying in a big house, and we were on the second floor. When we heard the noise, we put on our clothes and came downstairs,” she recalled.
“They were talking to our friends, and they looked at my husband. They said, ‘This is the guy we’re looking for.’”
Cherie suddenly “felt this peace from the Lord and felt like God is working through all this.”
“By the time they took away my husband, I was pretty peaceful. I think the last thing I said to my husband was, ‘If God allows this to happen, it must be a blessing.’ But it was a pity we didn’t have time to hug each other and to talk.”
Cherie and her 6-year-old son — who are currently residing in Thailand — have only been able to communicate with Pastor Gao through attorneys and about 12 handwritten letters.
She said that her husband is striving to serve God during his imprisonment.
“In China, it’s impossible to do prison ministry. So I think at the moment they are really doing prison ministry now,” Cherie told The Christian Post, referring to the eight believers still detained.
“The people inside, they were hopeless, so desperate, but they saw my husband and the other people, how they look so peaceful. So people were really curious and asked, ‘Why don’t you look like you’re in a prison?’ So they’ve been doing really good testimony.”
Cherie has heard encouraging accounts of her husband’s spiritual life flourishing even behind bars and amid great uncertainty.
“So I heard my husband is really doing well. Through his letters and the letters through the lawyers, he wrote lots of sermons and poems in prison. So each time when I read them, I had tears, and also I got encouraged. I know God is really working through the trial. He’s turning the cursing into a blessing.”
The U.S. State Department has previously condemned the crackdown against Zion Church, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the effort “further demonstrates how the CCP exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches.”
“We call on the CCP to immediately release the detained church leaders and to allow all people of faith, including members of house churches, to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution,” he said.
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