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One of our most recent cases made my iPhone famous.

The case centered around Chen Guangcheng, a blind man from Linyi County, Shandong Province, which also happens to be Heidi’s hometown. He lost his sight as a young child, and was illiterate until he was in his twenties. After teaching himself to read braille, he taught himself the law, and began successfully advocating for the rights of the disabled. But when he started interviewing people in Linyi County about their experience with forced abortions, local officials grew incensed.

Chinese political structure—from the national level all the way down to the village level—has family planning commissions with almost unlimited power. If a woman manages to hide her illegal pregnancy and has an “extra child,” the commission can make her pay fines worth three to five times the family’s income, confiscate property, or throw her in prison. (China collects more than ten billion US dollars in “family planning” fines every year.) But if the woman is unable to hide her illegal pregnancy, officials will inject her with a poison regardless of how far along she is. Every day, thirty thousand women are forced to have abortions, no doubt contributing to Chinese women’s astronomical suicide rates. China boasts that it has successfully prevented four hundred million children from being born, more than the entire population of the United States.

This commitment to the eradication of so many children requires the complicity of the whole community. In Chen’s area, a newly married couple’s neighborhood, both sets of grandparents, and the couple’s parents all must sign a joint family planning covenant that makes them liable for the couple’s fertility. If the couple violates the “family planning” policies, these friends and family members are held responsible. This means that a woman must hide her pregnancy from everyone or she’ll be reported. She must also submit to embarrassing monthly exams to make sure she’s not pregnant.

When Chen began interviewing his neighbors, it caused a huge stir. No one dared question this sacred core of Communist Party doctrine, which is actually written in the constitution and is called “State Basic Policy.” No court in China is even allowed to take cases related to the issue. But when this blind man began walking around and simply asking women about their experiences, he heard chilling stories.

One woman told him she was forced to have an abortion in her seventh month of pregnancy, then was forced to be sterilized. He learned of an elderly villager who was kidnapped, starved, and beaten when his daughter failed to show up for a tubal ligation sterilization check. He learned of officials breaking brooms over elderly people’s heads. One woman who became illegally pregnant told him that twenty-two of her relatives were seized, including three children, one pregnant woman, and an elderly grandma. He learned of elderly siblings—a brother and a sister—who were forced to beat each other after the woman’s daughter-in-law got pregnant. He learned of a farmer who committed suicide when his family and neighbors were tortured because his son had an “extra child.”

Chen documented that, in 2005, there were 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in his area alone.

His research, of course, put him on a collision course with the Communist Party. In 2007, he was arrested for “blocking traffic” and spent four years and three months in jail. Chen was associated with the human rights attorneys with whom ChinaAid worked closely, so we immediately advocated for his release. Certainly prison was worse for Chen, who couldn’t even see his torturers. After his release, we’d hoped conditions would improve for Chen. Instead they actually got worse. He was immediately put under house arrest with his wife, young daughter, and mother who was close to eighty years old. The government hired over sixty officers who took turns surrounding his home every hour of every day. They also jammed his cell phone signal, built walls around his house, and beat any visitors. When Guo, for example, insisted on seeing him, the guards overturned his car.

In fact, for five months, no one really knew what had happened to Chen. Then, in November of 2011, Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, managed to secretly record a video showing the condition of their house arrest. They showed their dilapidated farmhouse, their dwindling supply of food and firewood, and a man peering over a wall into their living area.

ChinaAid smuggled out the video, which immediately went viral. A website asked people to send in photos of themselves wearing sunglasses like Chen’s, as a sign of solidarity with Chen’s family. People sent thousands of photos from all over the world—from Provo to Paducah, from China to Uganda, from New Zealand to New York. “Free Chen” bumper stickers began showing up on the cars of people concerned about human rights.

“Chen Guangcheng is a hero to many people around the world, a peaceful advocate for human rights and a defender of society’s most vulnerable, its women and children,” I told the press. “The world community should act to secure his unconditional release.”

Chen’s guards were perplexed—how did this blind man make a video that drew attention to his plight when he had no internet, no cell service, and no ability to even leave the house? To dissuade this kind of behavior, they mercilessly beat him and his wife. Additionally, the guards put hundreds of glass bottles around Chen’s bed. If the blind man tried to get out of bed, he’d certainly push over the bottles and alert the police.

But even as they clamped down on him in the house, awareness of his saga still grew throughout America and the world. Actor Christian Bale, star of the recent Batman film trilogy, called Chen his personal hero. In fact, when the actor was in China for the debut of the biggest-budget Chinese movie ever made, he and a CNN film crew drove eight hours to Chen’s hometown. As soon as they got close to his house, however, thugs stopped them. The men were in plain clothes, showed no identification, and wouldn’t let them pass. When the actor and the film crew tried to force themselves through, a scuffle ensued. They drove away, but the Communists chased them in a van for half an hour.

“This doesn’t come naturally to me; this is not what I actually enjoy. It isn’t about me,” Bale said as the Communists chased his vehicle. “But this was just a situation that said I can’t look the other way. The local people who are standing up to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten for it, I want to support what they’re doing.”[1]

It’s not often that Batman gets punched by a Communist thug. So when it happened, it made headlines all over the world. The CNN video of the scuffle of Christian Bale and the thugs who guarded Chen’s house went viral. It was a public relations nightmare for China; they needed to promote the movie, which featured a celebrity now inextricably linked to the blind dissident.

Meanwhile, Chen hatched a plan of escape. For two months, he pretended to be sick and stayed in bed every day. When he was sure the guards no longer saw him as a mobility threat, he made his move. Somehow, he managed to navigate through the glass bottles, escape the house, jump eight tall walls, and walk through the fields and small roads for nineteen hours. The blind man evaded over a hundred guards—those who were stationed near his bedroom, along the major roads, and even in the village. During his late-night journey, he fell many times and even broke several bones in his foot. Yet he kept going.

When the Communists discovered he’d escaped, they were furious and embarrassed. Even after spending 20 million yuan, or $3.5 million, they were foiled by a man who couldn’t even see his captors.

Chen walked until he reached a friend, who harbored him. For days, he moved amongst several homes within the underground network of safe houses to avoid detection. Eventually, he suspected police were on his trail, so he decided to go to the safest place imaginable: the United States Embassy.

That’s when I got a call.

“Go to Washington, DC,” my friend in Beijing told me, before saying other sentences that included the code word “blind.”

I knew from her language that something big was going on, and it related to Chen. As I decided whether to travel to DC on such meager information, Chen and his friends made their way to the embassy, pursued by unmarked Beijing police cars. After a brief car chase, Chen walked into the United States Embassy.

It was an escape worthy of a Christian Bale movie.

Chen sought refuge, not political asylum. That meant he was only protected while inside the embassy. The moment he stepped outside of the building, he’d be arrested.

I was still in Midland when news of Chen’s escape broke, causing worldwide speculation about his whereabouts. Because I was his only spokesperson in the West, ChinaAid phones rang constantly. Every employee dropped what they were doing, fielded calls, and scheduled my interviews on three calendars—one for radio interviews, another for TV interviews, and the last for newspaper interviews. Though we didn’t have a nice studio or fancy equipment, we hung a red blanket which had “ChinaAid” printed in white letters on the wall.

I stepped back to look at it, and asked, “What do you think about my backdrop?”

My staffers weren’t so sure, so I paraphrased a psalm. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, and some in high-tech, soundproof television studios.” I smiled. “But we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

I spoke to reporters from all over the globe—Chile, Mexico, the Philippines, Taiwan, Israel, Europe, and the United States. The more publicity Chen received, the better. I knew he still wasn’t safe. During my hundreds of interviews, I was repeatedly asked the same question: Where is Chen?

“Chen is in the most secure location,” I said, with purposeful ambiguity. I couldn’t reveal that he was at the United States Embassy just yet. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton happened to be heading to the embassy on other business, and Chen released a video appeal to Premier Wen Jiabao in which he asked for an admission that he and his family were wrongfully persecuted for the last seven years, a guarantee of his family’s safety, and prosecution of those who had abused him.

When the media finally discovered he was at the US Embassy, their attention became an absolute frenzy. How had a blind man orchestrated such a political nightmare for China? How would America handle this sort of situation?

We’d soon find out. On the day Hillary Clinton arrived, US Embassy officials told Chen that his family could be in grave danger. Reluctantly, Chen walked out of the embassy. That day, I got a phone call from the Assistant Secretary of State.

“We had a good negotiation with the Chinese officials. China agreed to let Chen attend a university and even pay his tuition. They even agreed to investigate Chen’s abusers at the local level.”

“Where is he now?”

“He walked out.”

Since I hadn’t heard from Chen, I gave the United States government the benefit of the doubt. Soon, however, I got two messages from friends who’d talked to Chen and told me a very different story. After he walked out of the embassy, his wife told him thugs had bound her to a chair, beaten her, threatened to kill her, and said they wanted to use her as a hostage to get Chen out of the embassy. That night, Chen was crying. He knew China would never keep their end of the bargain.

I flew to Washington, DC, to testify in an emergency session of Congress to get to the bottom of Chen’s situation. Congressman Chris Smith was waiting for a call from Chen, which was supposed to have been arranged by the State Department. Sadly, the call never came. We didn’t know what had happened to Chen—but it couldn’t have been good.

“Maybe you can meet me at the hearing a few minutes early and we can try to talk to Chen,” Congressman Smith said.

I dialed the number, but we weren’t able to get through.

Many people testified about their interpretation of the events in China, but no one could definitively speak to Chen’s state of mind. As the last speaker was testifying, Congressman Smith texted me. “Want to try again?”

I went back out into the hall and realized that the phone number I’d dialed previously was incorrect. Somehow we had transposed two numbers. When I hurriedly dialed the right number, Chen answered! I motioned to Congressman Smith, who immediately adjourned the hearing. He and Congressman Frank Wolf came out to a side room to have a talk with Chen.

“Ask him if he’d like to testify,” Congressman Smith said.

“I’m not sure if that’s the best idea,” I said. This incident already had international implications. First, it overshadowed the China-US Economic and Strategic Dialogue for which Hillary Clinton had visited China. Second, China had publicly lambasted the United States’ dealing with the matter.

“Why don’t we ask Chen?” asked Rep. Wolf. “Let him decide.”

Chen had been in prison for over four years and locked in his house for three. Suddenly throwing him into the spotlight of a congressional hearing sounded risky, but it only made sense. If China was trying to silence him, America should let the man speak.

I translated the question for Chen: “Would you like to testify during this hearing before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China?”

“Sure,” Chen responded. “No problem.”

When Congressman Smith dramatically returned to his dais, leaned into the microphone, and announced, “Bob Fu has made contact with Chen Guangcheng—in his hospital room,” the room got quiet.

In order for the phone to be better positioned to the microphones, I sat beside the congressman and held up my phone. All of the major media networks were taking photographs of the closest thing to Chen in that room—my iPhone. I didn’t want to speak too much or too little, but it seemed God had prepared the moment to address the confusion surrounding whether Chen had left the embassy voluntarily, whether he wanted to stay in China as a reformer, or whether he’d rather seek asylum in America.

“I want to go to the United States,” he said, which I translated into the microphone. “I want to make the request to have my freedom of travel guaranteed.”

Then, I elaborated on Chen’s message. “He said he wants to come to the United States for some time of rest. He has not had any rest in the past ten years.”

After the hearing, a huge crowd of reporters followed me and I was very intimidated. Over the next few days, I was on John King’s program, PBS NewsHour, and many other shows.

Thirteen days later, Chen was called to testify once again before Congress from his hospital bed. Before the hearing, I was briefed by the US chief negotiator, who was a State Department legal counselor, and the Assistant Secretary of State.

“I’d just like to remind you that today there’s not only a hearing but high-level negotiations going on between China and the United States.” He paused, before adding the obvious. “Be very careful.” However, this time I didn’t feel nervous. Again, it was only right for Chen to speak for himself.

Through my translation, he told about how the local authorities in his hometown were exacting revenge on members of his family. Officials broke into one relative’s house in the middle of the night and began beating everyone. When Chen’s nephew grabbed a kitchen knife to defend himself, they accused him of murder. Even though he was simply trying to defend himself—and no one had actually been killed—Chen was worried his nephew could be tortured and faced a severe sentence. Also, several other relatives had been arrested.

After these two hearings, Hillary Clinton told China’s national leader that Chen had testified in Congress and made his wish clear. He now lives in New York with his wife, though his nephew is still in prison.

Recently, Chen was named GQ’s “Rebel of the Year.” The accompanying article featured Chen wearing a long red scarf, standing on a pier. Suddenly, this blind Chinese man who couldn’t speak a word of English had made it fashionable to fight against China’s forced abortion policies. That couldn’t have been what the Chinese government had anticipated when they decided to surround his small house with hundreds of Communist thugs.

Chen did, incidentally, end up meeting Christian Bale. In 2012, the actor gave the dissident the Human Rights Award at the annual gala of Human Rights First, during which he called Chen a “giant among men.” A tear rolled down from beneath Chen’s now-famous sunglasses as the movie star embraced him.

Once Chen was safely in New York, Heidi was the only Chinese guest allowed to meet with Chen and his family in their New York University apartment. I was in Asia engaging in another major rescue mission, but did get to meet up with them a few days later. As I listened to the story of his miraculous escape, Chen said, “God must’ve helped me escape.”

Stories like Chen’s make me so thankful I started ChinaAid in my hot Philadelphia attic. I’ve always felt the organization was a natural progression of the work of my mentor Dr. Jonathan Chao, who encouraged me to be a “missionary scholar” while we were in China. I listened so intently to his plans for the church in China that I was able to write pages and pages about it for my prison interrogators so many years ago. Even though they weren’t impressed by the “three huas,” Jonathan’s vision has impacted my ministry ever since and I think he would’ve been proud to see Chen’s saga unfold on primetime television.

Sadly, Jonathan died of lymphoma in 2004 after a lifetime of Bible smuggling and other covert “religious infiltration.” This year, as I was writing this book, I too went to the doctor and received some bad news.

“We found a tumor,” the doctor told me, and Heidi squeezed my hand.

Yet God is good.

Sometimes, people ask me how I’ve lived without being immobilized by fear, especially considering some of my more harrowing experiences. The question, however, is easily answered by a story I heard from a friend in the Chinese countryside—the Anhui Province—back when I was a “double agent,” teaching future Communist leaders during the day and training pastors of illegal countryside churches during the nights and weekends.

This man was sent to a labor camp for running a house church. On the first day of his imprisonment, the guards lined up all the new prisoners to shave their heads. His young daughter was watching him through the iron gate, crying.

“Oh, Daddy, you didn’t commit a crime!” she protested. “Even if you’re released, people will see your shaved head and think you’re a criminal.”

“Remember what the Bible says?” he said in the gentlest voice possible. “Every piece of hair is counted. Without His permission, not a single piece can fall to the ground.”

When he got back into line, resigned to his fate, his daughter pressed her face against the cold bars. But when it was the man’s turn to get his head shaved, the clippers malfunctioned. The guard angrily examined the device, found it to be functioning, and tried again.

“There’s a problem,” he told the other guard, because—once again—when he placed the clippers on his head, they didn’t work. The second guard angrily walked over to my friend, placed his clippers on his head, and flipped the switch. Nothing.

The guards scrambled, now that both sets of clippers didn’t appear to be working with a long line of prisoners yet to shave. Finally, they sent him away, grumbling about how there must be something wrong with the man’s hair. As he walked away, the clippers began working again. The father caught his daughter’s eye and smiled. Not a single piece of his hair had fallen to the ground.

As a forty-four-year-old man, I still feel very much like the prisoner’s daughter must’ve felt on that day: delighted and thankful our lives are totally in God’s hands. Without His permission no one can reduce one second of our life, nor can we add a single hour to our lives by worrying.

It frees us to work tirelessly and courageously for the cause of Christ, without fearing what will become of us. In fact, Chen’s saga could easily be the climax of my story, the capstone of a career of fighting for justice. And, indeed, if God had prepared me from childhood to advocate for this one man, it would’ve been enough.

However, I know one day soon my phone will ring again. On the other end will be a person needing help, a child of the Lord being mistreated by the powerful and the corrupt.

After Chen’s high-profile victory, it’s tempting to slow down, to spend more time with my family and on myself.

But I’m still here, I’m still fighting, and—by the grace of God—I’m still going to answer the call.

__________________

[1]“Batman Star Christian Bale Attacked Stopped in China from meeting a Blind Activist Lawyer,” YouTube video, 2:46, posted by TibetArchive on Dec. 15, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-NGweWIQqc.