During the last days,
God has once again become flesh in the East—in China.
In 1991,
Almighty God, Christ of the last days, formally took up His ministry.
Since then, Almighty God has expressed millions of words
and carried out the work of judgment beginning from the house of God.
God's sheep hear His voice.
The people of various sects and denominations
who loved the truth and yearned for God's appearance,
have recognized that Almighty God's words are the truth,
and that this is the voice of God.
They believed that Almighty God was the return of the Lord Jesus,
and one by one they came before Almighty God.
The appearance and work of Almighty God sparked panic in the CCP.
The CCP issued numerous secret documents
and mobilized the armed police and the army
to maniacally oppress and eradicate the Church.
The whole of mainland China rained blood,
dark clouds descended,
and there was universal outrage and indignation.
Today, the Christians of all the house churches,
particularly those of The Church of Almighty God,
are experiencing even more brutal and bloody persecution by the CCP government.
These Christians' bloodshed and loss of life
are like a song of victory over the forces of Satan,
and tell the grisly tale of Chinese Christians' persecution.
One day in March, 1998, deep in the night,
the moon shone dimly and the night wind blew fiercely.
A dog's barking shattered the mountain village's peace.
Suddenly, more than 10 dark figures climbed over a wall into a farmer's home.
After prying open the door,
they overturned furniture and searched every corner, just like burglars.
What were they looking for?
The next day
when Yang Jing'en and his wife Li Xinyi,
Christians from The Church of Almighty God,
returned from her mother's house,
they saw their home had been ransacked, that it was a mess.
They were baffled.
They learned from one of their cousins
that the plainclothes police had broken into their home,
coming to secretly arrest them.
This made the couple extremely angry.
They only believed in God and spread the gospel of the kingdom
and had not done anything illegal.
Why would the CCP government want to arrest them?
To avoid this, they left home that same night.
Yang Jing'en is from Qingzhou City in Shandong Province.
He came to believe in the Lord Jesus in 1996.
In February 1998,
he and his wife Li Xinyi investigated and realized
that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus returned.
They accepted Almighty God's work of the last days
and enthusiastically shared and bore witness to the gospel of the kingdom.
As the gospel spread
many true believers in the area accepted Almighty God.
This drew the attention of police.
Before long, the police listed them as wanted people.
His wife advised him to leave the area to avoid the danger,
but he couldn't bear to leave.
His daughter was just 4 months old,
and his wife was very weak after giving birth.
They needed his care.
But to avoid the CCP's arrest and persecution,
he had no choice but to leave his family and his home.
After he left, Li Xinyi hid at her parents' home.
But the police were still looking for them everywhere.
She had to go into hiding.
She lived every single day in fear.
Seeing her soundly sleeping child made Li Xinyi's heart ache.
So that her daughter wouldn't suffer alongside her,
she entrusted her to her parents, and then left home.
She continued preaching the gospel while on the run.
From then on, husband and wife had to be far apart.
They embarked on the long road of exile.
April 1998, Zouping County, Binzhou City, Shandong Province.
That evening, Yang Jing'en and others fled to a village in the twilight,
but they never imagined they would quickly be reported by CCP informants.
After such a close call,
Yang Jing'en realized that in atheist, communist China,
following Christ is a rocky road.
But he resolved that since he had decided
to believe in the true God and take the right path,
it was his duty to keep on.
From 1999 to 2002
Yang Jing'en fled to Tianjin, then Hebei, then Henan,
facing the danger of being arrested at any moment.
But he continued to uphold the responsibilities of a Christian.
He never stopped spreading the gospel of the kingdom,
and as this good news spread,
the CCP's arrests and persecution of The Church of Almighty God ramped up.
In July, 2002, Yang Jing'en went to the Tacheng prefecture in Xinjiang
to spread the gospel of the kingdom.
A report from a wicked person
led to the arrest of 20 other Christians that he had preached to.
When the police came, luckily he wasn't there.
He dodged that bullet.
However, he became a most wanted person for the Xinjiang police.
In 2003, the CCP once again carried out
a nationwide crackdown oppressing The Church of Almighty God.
They bribed idle people, drifters, and ruffians from all over the place
to act as their spies to surveil and follow those who believe in Almighty God.
The entire country was on edge, people were jittery.
The CCP dispatched a special working group
from Beijing to Xinjiang for supervision
to manage the secret operation to arrest Christians.
In Korla alone they arrested over 200 from The Church of Almighty God
and confiscated a large number of the church's funds.
All of Xinjiang descended into panic.
Yang Jing'en went all over Xinjiang
continuing to preach the gospel under the intense pressure of persecution.
But in every new place, before long, he discovered he was being monitored.
He couldn't even remember how many "tails" he had shaken that year
or how many times he had moved.
He only remembered
frequently hearing news of his brothers' and sisters' arrests, sentences, and torture.
He was constantly on edge and felt like he could barely breathe.
It was one piece of bad news after another.
Yang Jing'en was bitter and distressed.
So many Christians in Xinjiang had been arrested,
and half of those who went there from other provinces had been taken.
They were tortured and mistreated.
For some, no one knew if they were alive or dead, there was no news.
Since circumstances were becoming more dire,
Yang Jing'en and his co-workers were forced to leave Xinjiang.
Yang Jing'en fled from one place to another
but the CCP's persecution was everywhere.
Although the road ahead was full of hardship and danger,
that did not stop him from following God.
While on the run, every time he saw a cute child in someone's home,
it was very stirring for Yang Jing'en, who thought of his own daughter.
When he left home his daughter was still a swaddled baby.
He knew she had to be so much bigger now,
just as lively and adorable as this girl …
He missed his family but could not return home.
He heard his family was closely monitored by the village cadres and the police,
and even his relatives from the Three-Self Church had been bought out by the CCP police.
They were looking everywhere for information on him.
All these years without seeing his family,
he often suffered, and felt helpless and tormented.
In Spring of 2007,
Yang Jing'en went to Guilin in Guangxi Province to preach the gospel.
Many local true believers accepted Almighty God's work of the last days,
which stirred up the animosity of local pastors and elders.
One day when Yang Jing'en was spreading the gospel
he was threatened and beaten by a pastor and an elder.
They even called the police on him.
He had to leave that same night.
From 2007 to 2011,
the CCP ramped up the nationwide arrests of Christians from The Church of Almighty God.
Huge numbers were arrested. The situation was grave.
The CCP also carried out blanket searches under the guise of a census
with a focus on people from outside the region.
Any Christians with house churches or dissidents that were found
were arrested and persecuted.
In such a hostile environment,
Yang Jing'en and his wife both returned to their hometown in Shandong.
After more than 10 years,
the family of three could finally be together again.
Yang Jing'en couldn't wait to see his daughter.
He kept imagining what it would be like to see her.
How tall would she be? Would she recognize him?
He was both excited and nervous.
Hearing the word "uncle," he felt a wave of sadness.
It was like a sword to the heart.
Because of the CCP's oppression,
he had been on the run for over 10 years
and couldn't take care of his daughter,
so she had never felt a father's love.
And now facing her, he felt so guilty, so remorseful.
Watching his sleeping daughter,
Yang Jing'en quietly basked in the happiness and warmth of family,
but he knew it was temporary
because they could be arrested at any time.
In 2012, the preaching of Almighty God's gospel of the kingdom reached a peak in China,
causing panic in the CCP.
To wipe out The Church of Almighty God,
they held many emergency meetings and issued confidential documents
to mobilize armed police and the military to crack down on the Church.
They also carried out mass arrest operations on Christians across the country.
The Shandong police used measures like video surveillance,
phone tapping, and following people.
They learned the whereabouts of some church leaders and co-workers,
then arrested them.
The afternoon of September 4, 2012, after days of being followed by the CCP,
Yang Jing'en was unlawfully arrested while in a gathering.
After being on the run for 14 years, he could not escape the CCP's claws.
He was taken to a secret interrogation location the next day.
The CCP arranged for 12 officers to take shifts to watch him day and night,
plus 5 officers just to interrogate him.
They repeatedly demanded to know who the church leaders were
and where the church funds were
but he wouldn't answer,
so they punched and kicked him,
and tortured him in all sorts of ways.
They didn't let him sleep for 7 days and nights.
They wouldn't let him close his eyes.
When the police saw he was in a daze,
they used both threats and inducements to have him sell out the church,
and even wanted him to go back to church as an undercover CCP agent.
Otherwise, they'd torture him so badly he'd wish he were dead.
They also threatened that if he did not cooperate,
they would say he had sold out when arresting Christians,
and let him take the blame.
Hearing the police say such evil things,
he felt that those in the CCP had no humanity,
that they were true demons!
When the police saw that neither enticements nor threats were working,
they became enraged and tortured him in all sorts of ways.
After his family and church's brothers and sisters heard of his arrest,
they were distressed and tried to pull all the strings they could to save him.
By then, he had been tortured for 11 days.
His whole body was in unbearable pain
and his head felt like it would split open.
He was about to have a mental breakdown— he was at his last gasp.
But in his heart, he kept praying to God and relying on Him.
He never revealed anything to the police.
Just as Yang Jing'en was facing more and more brutality,
his family spent money to find a connection to a high-level central government official.
This was the only way he escaped this nightmare.
He was sentenced to 1.5 years of reeducation through labor while on probation.
Because of the CCP's close surveillance,
Yang Jing'en couldn't lead a normal life or practice his faith and fulfill his duty.
In November 2012,
he escaped to an old brother's house
in a remote mountainous area in Shandong to hide.
Just 3 days later,
the village secretary came by to ask if he believed in Almighty God.
Yang Jing'en was forced to flee.
He then went to Gaomi, Laiyang, Zaozhuang,
and other places in Shandong to spread the gospel,
but he didn't dare stay anywhere long.
The CCP would go into people's homes under any pretense and search believers,
and incite people who were ignorant of the truth to make reports.
Sometimes he had to move several times in a month,
and when it was bad, he'd have to move several times in a day.
On May 28, 2014,
the CCP concocted the Shandong McDonald's murder case,
framing The Church of Almighty God
and quickly rolled out a plan to deal with the Church.
They even said:
"Troops won't be withdrawn until the ban is done."
The CCP also provided incentives of 10 million Yuan for reports
and arrests on Christians within the Church
and issued secret documents to re-arrest
and sentence Christians who had been arrested before.
They were wantonly, openly oppressive,
forcing at least half a million Christians from across China with the Church to flee,
most of whom were from Shandong Province.
Yang Jing'en fled Shandong to Henan.
After more than a decade of dangerous and difficult escapes,
Yang Jing'en was mentally and physically exhausted, in pain and depressed.
Just like many other Christians of The Church of Almighty God,
just because of his faith, because he performed his duty,
he was oppressed by the CCP and suffered all kinds of humiliation and torture.
The CCP's persecution of The Church of Almighty God became worse and worse,
the entire nation's force was poured into its oppression and arrests.
The situation was growing more severe.
Countless Christians had been arrested.
Yang Jing'en personally experienced that for a Christian with The Church of Almighty God,
China was like a huge prison. There was nowhere to run.
All he could do was look everywhere for someone to help him
get a passport to escape from China.
In March of 2016, Yang Jing'en secretly returned to his hometown,
planning to see his parents one last time before going abroad.
His parents were excited but concerned by his sudden appearance.
Over these years,
the police had frequently gone to their home to intimidate them,
to ask about his whereabouts.
They were constantly in fear,
afraid that their son would be taken by the police again.
Seeing his aging parents, Yang Jing'en felt very guilty.
They were in their 80s
and he couldn't do his filial duty over the years he was gone.
And now that he was going abroad,
this goodbye could be forever …
Looking at a photo reminded him of his short time with his family.
Because of the CCP's oppression,
he only spent one and a half years with his wife over the last 18 years.
He hadn't raised his daughter or fulfilled the duties of a husband or father.
Now he couldn't get in touch with his daughter and his wife was on the run.
He wasn't able to see them before going abroad.
Yang Jing'en was incredibly sad at this moment.
He realized, since believing in God and being forced to flee,
he had crossed nearly half the country
but even in such a large country, there was no room for Christians.
The CCP forced him into vagrancy, and homelessness.
He was utterly devastated.
He deeply felt that over the years,
if it hadn't been for the guidance of Almighty God's words,
he couldn't possibly have been so resolute in his faith.
Without praying to and relying on God,
he couldn't have walked this long road of exile.
Daylight was breaking,
and the golden sun was coming over the horizon, slowly rising.
On April 10, 2016,
Yang Jing'en resolutely, definitively left his familiar homeland
and embarked on a new journey. …