13

“Do you think I’m stupid?” the interrogator said, holding my backpack up in the air. My blood ran cold, because he was holding the illegal literature he’d been looking for all day. “This is not the bag.”

Though I was completely baffled, I put on the most disinterested face I could muster and shrugged.

“We have talked to your roommates, your buddies from church, and even your friends from class,” he said. “And they all told us you carried a yellow backpack.” He dropped my bag on the table, then came and sat back down in the chair across from me. “Does that bag look yellow to you?”

“No, sir.”

“Care to tell me where the yellow bag is?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” By this time, I had to stifle a laugh. I had been in that room for hours—I couldn’t tell how many—without food or water. Though I was scared, I asked God to keep the police from finding the stash in my backpack. Somehow, all of my friends forgot its color, even though they saw it every day. Immediately, my heart was filled with relief over the pamphlets and dread over the fact that other fellowship members might’ve been apprehended too.

“We separated your pals into different groups,” he went on, pacing around the room. “We questioned them intensely and asked them to show us your backpack. So far, no one could find it.”

I guess they didn’t think to look in the police station, I thought.

“But we will,” he said, placing his hands on the table and leaning toward me. “Don’t worry, we won’t stop looking. In the meantime, write down the names of your Christian friends on this piece of paper.” He took paper from the folder, slid it across the table, and dropped a pen on top. “Also, write down where you got this illegal material.”

I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble. The older couple near campus had already suffered enough persecution for their faith. Instead, I sat in silence, hoping the interrogator would give up. Of course, as the hours rolled by, it looked less and less likely. I grew thirstier under that ridiculously bright lightbulb.

“Where did the pamphlets come from?” he demanded. By this time, because of fear and lack of food, I was feeling sick and a bit woozy.

“I don’t want to tell you!”

“You could save yourself some of this agony.”

“Okay,” I said, regretting every syllable that was about to come out of my mouth. “I got them from a tall man in the church! He didn’t give me his name.”

He ran out of the room to tell the officer, and I instantly felt sorry for all of the tall guys at my church. A few minutes later, he came back in and said, “Now, how hard was that? You should’ve told me, so you could’ve left sooner.” He walked up to the table, and I could see a small vein protruding from his temple. “You know what, Xiqiu? I want to arrest you right here on the spot! You show so much disrespect to the rule of law by handing out inflammatory messages.”

“Our pamphlets had no political messages!” I said, but I knew the Communist government believed Chinese Christians were too sympathetic to America. “We were merely sharing the gospel. Look, every word came from the Bible.”

“That doesn’t make it legal.”

“If it were illegal, would I have made it so obvious? I wasn’t passing them out on the street corner, I was passing them out at a church . . . a church sanctioned by the government, no less.”

The scowl on his face grew ever so slightly smaller, and he seemed to be listening to what I was saying.

“At church, you do church things,” I continued. “It’s simple.”

“You were doing illegal religious activities and are in violation of Chinese law,” he said, opening the door for me. “Go. But don’t worry. We’ll be watching you.”

Honestly, I believed him, and I felt like I might need to vomit. I walked out of the police station and looked up at the sky. The sun was just going down, and I realized I’d been in the interrogation room for more than eight hours. But I wasn’t thinking about food or water. Instead, I was eager to find my Christian fellowship friends to see if any others had been apprehended. I went back on campus, got my bicycle, and began riding around the university area in a very circuitous route. I kept looking back over my shoulder, scanning the pathway to see if anyone was following me. After I felt confident no one was following me, I finally went back to others in my group. They were having a Christian fellowship meeting, so I walked into the dorm room and shut the door firmly behind me.

The scene touched my heart. My friends were kneeling on the floor, their hands raised to God petitioning for my safety. When they saw me, they ran to embrace me.

“Are you okay?”

I looked around the room and did a mental checklist. All of my friends were there. I exhaled deeply and collapsed into a chair. It had been a long day. “You won’t believe what happened!” They listened silently, eyes wide with fear, as I detailed every moment from the time the officer blocked my entrance into class. A palpable sense of fear filled the room.

“Did they get to any of you?” I asked. Everyone shook their heads no, silently confirming that the government must not have known our fellowship existed.

Andrew spoke up, breaking the silence. “Hasn’t the Lord prepared us for this moment? We’ve been nurtured by those older Christians, who’ve already experienced so much suffering. They’ve testified that God is faithful even during their persecution.”

“Their testimony had always encouraged us,” a concerned female student said. “But I didn’t want the opportunity to walk through our own trials.”

“Well, this is our moment,” I said. “Apparently, the government doesn’t know our fellowship group exists. We need to keep it that way.”

For the next hour, we discussed how to “go dark” and become an underground group. Of course, I’d been through this at college, so I mapped out some techniques we’d implemented there. We developed code language and made plans to be more discreet.

“Just assume there’s someone always watching you,” I said.

“Even at church?”

“Especially at church.”

“So, when we meet students from different universities,” someone asked, “should we invite them to our group or introduce them to other students from their colleges?”

“Yes, but we need to be cautious,” Andrew explained. “From now on, consider yourselves secret agents.”

On the way home from my fellowship meeting, I looked at everyone I passed on the sidewalk. They all looked suspicious.

Even though I’d been released from interrogation, I knew the police could dramatically affect my life and future. They’d already told me they were following me and expected me to return to check in. They could easily make an example of me. Not only could they put me in jail, they could also kick me out of school. That would mean my utter and complete financial ruin.

When I finally got back to my dorm room and opened the door, I gasped. The bunk beds were turned over, the drawers were out of the chests, and clothes were strewn all over the floor. All of the books were tossed around, lying on their spines, pages folded and torn. Our desk was toppled, and homework papers were everywhere. My roommates were on their hands and knees, trying to put the room back together. When they saw me walk in, they looked up at me in anger and confusion.

“What did you do?” a roommate asked. “And why did they come here looking for illegal religious materials?”

That night as I laid my very tired head down on my pillow, it felt lumpy. Under my pillow was the Bible that my roommate Timothy had given back to me. He apparently no longer wanted to take the risk of possessing it. I opened it up and read the inscription it seemed that I had written so long ago.

“Dear Timothy, I hope this book blesses you,” I read, choking back tears. “It is the Word of the Lord.”