A Heart for Freedom (38 page)

Bob tried to be supportive, but as an American who had lived his entire life in freedom and opportunity, he could never understand the pain and agony my family and I had been through. I looked at my beautiful children, busy laughing and giggling in one of their little games. Would I lose them, too?

As summer faded into early autumn, I was in a bad mental state, reliving a lot of fear, agony, anger, and frustration from the past. Several times I tried to complete the manuscript for this book, which I had started twenty years earlier but couldn’t finish. But every time I tried to pick up where I’d left off, the pain associated with reliving the events shut me down. I felt an evil, hostile energy swirling around me. After two decades of fighting and not winning, and now facing the risk of having all my loved ones taken away again, I lost the joy of life. Even though I continued with all my activities, I couldn’t focus on my children, my husband, and the beautiful life we’d built together. I went to work, but I couldn’t find anything to enjoy or anticipate.

The following Sunday, I made a conscious decision to be with my children, even though my heart felt numb. Our youngest was crying and didn’t want to go to church, but I went with her, along with her sisters and my loving husband.

The pastor’s sermon was just the medicine I needed. He probed the purpose of our lives and the spiritual legacy we want to leave. Without a clear sense of God’s purpose for our lives, he said, we were just chasing money and success, which would never fill the black hole in our hearts. That hole could only be filled by the Spirit of God’s love in our hearts. Then he asked, “How do we share God’s blessings with others?”

Sitting in the church auditorium, I thought about all the people who had died in Beijing—on the streets, at the Square. By giving their lives to end the violence and repression in China, they were all heroes like Jesus Christ. The tanks had crushed their bodies, and the guns had taken their lives, but the army could not destroy their spirit.
How come they are not remembered and celebrated like Jesus is?

* * *

In October 2009, my downward spiral culminated in the panic attack I had aboard the flight from Boston to Washington, DC, for Fang Zheng’s standing-up celebration. Feng picked me up at the airport, and by then I was mostly stabilized, though I still felt weak and nauseated. In the car on our way to the event, Feng’s nose began to bleed—further evidence of how emotional a day this was for us. Though in our minds we maintained our composure, deep down we both knew something was wrong with us.

Fang Zheng’s event went well. There I saw Bob Fu again. When the music went up and Fang started to dance with his wife, tears came to my eyes. I pictured a day when all the survivors of Tiananmen could stand up like Fang Zheng with their loved ones to celebrate life, love, and triumph over adversity.

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Finding Freedom

That night after Fang Zheng’s event, at a dinner hosted by ChinaAid, I met Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a brave woman fighting to end forced abortions in China. As we talked, Reggie told me how a sudden illness had almost taken her life several years before. One day she was a healthy, high-powered attorney; the next day, she was fighting for her life in a hospital bed, having contracted an aggressive staph infection. For the next three years, she was in and out of the hospital between five surgeries, during which time she became a devoted Christian and committed her life to do the Lord’s work.

During her illness and recovery, instead of feeling sorry for herself, she prayed for people less fortunate. Along the way, she became passionate about ending China’s forced abortions under the one-child policy. She prayed day and night for Chinese women and their unborn babies. She also wrote an award-winning screenplay, which she was trying to raise money to produce.

Reggie attributed her miraculous recovery and all her success to Jesus Christ. She was confident the movie project was God’s plan for her and that he would open doors for her whenever necessary.

During my ten months in hiding, I met many brave and selfless Buddhists, but I had never met someone like Reggie, who spoke with such humility and confident assurance at the same time. It made me curious about her God—was he for real?

A few days later, when I read a copy of her screenplay, I was deeply moved by the story of women who had to run and hide to avoid a forced abortion, and I could not dismiss the power of Jesus from my mind. I became fired up to help Reggie raise the money to produce the movie. I introduced her to Cindi Leive, editor in chief at
Glamour
magazine, whose Women of the Year awards are an annual event. I knew Cindi had a lot more influence and connections than I did.

In the meantime, I forwarded Jing Zhang’s report on China’s forced abortion practice to Reggie, and Reggie arranged for Jing to testify before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress about China’s one-child policy. She invited me to come as well. As I pondered whether I should return to Washington, my heart broke for all the Chinese women suffering under the one-child policy. Like the decision that led me to Tiananmen Square, I felt compelled to help and support—this time, just as an interpreter. But when I boarded the plane for DC, I had little idea of the transformation awaiting me.

* * *

The hearing, chaired by Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, a devoted Christian and longtime opponent of China’s forced abortion policies and human rights violations, included testimony from Reggie Littlejohn, as well as witnesses such as Harry Wu, who is well known for his fight against
laogai
—the forced-labor system in China; a human rights lawyer from Shandong Province, who testified about ongoing abuse; a leader of the Uighurs, an oppressed minority in China; and Wujian, a victim of forced abortion. I was not prepared for her testimony.

When Wujian became pregnant before she had received a birth permit to have a child, she tried to hide her pregnancy in hopes of avoiding a forced abortion. But the family planning officials in her county beat and tortured her father, forcing her to choose one life over another—her father’s or her baby’s. When they discovered her hiding place, she was dragged into a hospital for an abortion. After one shot, the baby stopped moving, but somehow remained inside her, raising Wujian’s hopes that her baby might survive the toxic shots and live. But on the third day, before Wujian realized what was happening, she was taken to an operating room and scissors were inserted into her body, cutting her baby to pieces. Above her helpless cries, all she could hear was the sound of the scissors. At last, the doctor pulled out a small baby foot, with five fully formed toes the size of corn kernels. That picture was forever seared into Wujian’s mind. At the moment of her baby’s death, part of Wujian’s life was gone forever.

When she reached this point in her testimony, my heart was broken with pain and sadness, for Wujian and her helpless child and for every mother and unborn baby in China. Her shocking report of cruelty brought back memories of the helplessness and pain I had felt during the June 4 massacre. That night was so brutal, yet we had no strength to stop it, and the rest of the world could not stop it either.

After her forced abortion, Wujian struggled on the edge of life and death. She blamed herself for not protecting her child. She was saved only by finding faith in Jesus Christ. Others were less fortunate. Each day in China, five hundred women commit suicide. Very few news outlets report these untimely deaths.

Though no one could forget the Tiananmen movement, even more than twenty years later, few people seem to realize that three little words—
one-child policy
—have resulted in what amounts to an hourly Tiananmen massacre, for the past thirty years, in broad daylight, right under the world’s nose.

Wujian’s testimony touched me so deeply that all I could do was cry with her. I had not cried like that since I learned of my mother’s death. I wasn’t sure what hit me; all I knew was that it touched the deepest part of my heart, the part soaked in pain and sorrow that I had learned to bury under layers of protection. That afternoon, it all broke open. I felt the helplessness of Tiananmen when the tanks moved in on us. I felt the pain and helplessness of that horrible afternoon on the operating table when they’d performed the abortion on me without anesthesia. I felt a deep-rooted sadness for the baby conceived with Feng when we first came to freedom, the pregnancy I had ended to avoid an ongoing relationship with a husband who had turned abusive. And I remembered the moments when I finally became a mother, how difficult and tiring each pregnancy was with nausea, stress, and sleeplessness, but how, in the end, it was all replaced with the overwhelming joy of holding those wonderful little babies in my arms. As I thought of all the babies who would never feel the embrace of their mothers’ arms and all the bereft mothers left with nothing but shame, guilt, terror, self-blame, and despair, the tears poured from my eyes. An overwhelming feeling of helplessness came over me, mixed with rage, and swirled in my heart like hot lava looking for an outlet. Then Congressman Smith’s steady voice brought hope into the darkness.

“Words really are inadequate to express my . . . sympathy for what you have lost, but . . . by testifying you not only inform, you inspire us to accelerate and do more for those women who are being persecuted and hurt and you motivate us to unceasingly work and pray for you and for others who have been so horribly victimized.”
11

I soon learned that Congressman Smith has waged a battle against China’s forced abortion practices ever since they began in the early 1980s—a battle every bit as heroic as William Wilberforce’s opposition to slavery in England two hundred years ago. As lonely as the battle has been at times, his strong faith has sustained him and inspired him to never give up.

As I left the congressional hearing room, two questions burned in my mind: How
can this inhumane crime be stopped?
When
will this inhumane crime be stopped?

* * *

Before I met Reggie, I’d heard bits and pieces about Jesus. I knew he was full of compassion, that when he was slapped on one cheek, he would offer the other. But like many people, my understanding of Jesus was colored with many false pictures as well. And besides, what did Jesus have to do with freedom and democracy in China?

Reggie sent me a book,
The Heavenly Man
, which is the true story of how a young Chinese peasant boy was enlightened by Jesus and became a leader in the house church movement. Because of his faith, Brother Yun was sent to jail and tortured beyond human measure, yet he remained faithful to God. One time prison officials broke his legs to prevent him from trying to escape. But God completely healed him, and he walked out of the prison right in front of the guards. Eventually Yun was able to escape from China and went to Germany. At the end of his book, Brother Yun asked, “Are you ready to walk with Jesus?”

I was deeply touched by the book, but my soul was again thrown into turmoil. To walk with Jesus means to put your love for him before everything—husband, children, family, country—and to potentially suffer more persecutions and torment. I had once been willing to lose everything for the sake of China. Could I ever be ready to lose everything for Jesus?

I called Reggie and said, “If you think anyone who reads this book will become a Christian, you’re crazy.” Still, I could not get Brother Yun out of my mind.

* * *

Around Thanksgiving, I went to Park Street Church in Boston, where I met with a group of missionaries to China and Southeast Asia. They told me about a plan to send Chinese missionaries to evangelize the unreached countries between China and Jerusalem. I was concerned about what this meant. If I gave my life to Jesus, would I be asked to drop everything to become a missionary? What did I know about the Middle East?

On December 4, 2009, when I talked to Reggie about all these questions, it was as if the voice of Jesus was speaking through her.

“If I commit myself to Jesus, would I have to join the Back to Jerusalem movement?” I asked.

“No, God has unique plans for each of us,” she said. “He has prepared us all our lives to do the work that only we can do.”

“Then what is God’s purpose for me?” This was the question that had nagged at me for the past twenty years, even before I thought about the existence of God.
Why am I here? What is my purpose? Why was I allowed to survive Tiananmen when so many others died?

“God definitely has a special job for you, Chai Ling, because you grew up in China, had an excellent education, ended up in Tiananmen, came here, married an American husband, and started your business—very few people have achieved the level of experience and understanding that you have in so many unique areas.”