While believers met to pray very early in the morning of July 13, officers of the Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSB) raided a house church in Xiao Shan City in Zhejiang Province, assaulting the Christians and arresting at least three leaders. One of those arrested was Shao Cheng Shen, who helped found the church twenty-five years earlier. Shen is now eighty years old. Also arrested were Wei Min Xu and Chong Dao Gao. Another Christian, Huiliang Wong, is wanted by the PSB but managed to escape through a church window and now remains in hiding. According to a report received by The Voice of the Martyrs, the police produced no arrest warrants of any other documentation. The three men are being held in an undisclosed location and no one has been allowed to see them.
In the past twenty-five years, the church building has been destroyed three times and each time they rebuilt without government approval. During the recent SARS scare, the government ordered them to stop meeting, claiming it was to stop the spread of the disease. Repeatedly the Religious Affairs Bureau has called on the church to register and join the official church, but they have refused, since it would put them under government control in areas such as doctrine and polity.
We would encourage you to register a polite protest with the Chinese embassy in your country. We also encourage you to contact your own government officials, urging them to express their disapproval with this action. For contact information for Canada, the United States, and the UN, go to our website at https://www.vomcanada.com/links.htm. If you speak Mandarin, you may also contact the PSB office in Xiao Shan City at 011-86-571-82622514. We encourage you to read our guidelines on contacting government officials at https://www.vomcanada.com/writegovernment.htm.
Please pray for these leaders and others who are forced to serve the Lord in hiding, aware of the constant danger that they face. Pray that they might have a spirit of confidence in the grace and strength of Christ.
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