Christian Pastor Held in Chinese Prison

Chinese Christians, Xin Xuemei and her husband Huang Qiurui are no strangers to persecution. They have suffered oppression and beatings in prison that resulted in broken ribs. Despite it all they have continued to share the Gospel, distribute the Bible and continue to follow Christ. Huang Qiurui has spent the last seven months in prison for his faith and his wife has shared his story and current condition in a letter:

“On the evening of June 23, 2014, DSPS agents from Guangxi crossed  … into Guangzhou to arrest Christians. They framed my husband, charging him with the ambiguous crime of ‘illegal business operations.’ This is the second time … that he has been imprisoned. The reason my husband was framed is because he helped another church member by shipping some character-development teaching materials compiled by the church to her at a kindergarten in Liuzhou.”

The kindergarten was founded by a Church in Guangzhou, where Huang Quirui is an elder. He has been accused of being in charge of shipping the textbooks, this being a supposed “illegal business operation.”

Xin Xuemei continues in her letter, “It has already been more than seven months since my husband was taken into custody … Now, he isn’t allowed to exchange letters with others. All the letters and the Bible sent to him by his relatives and church members were confiscated … Every day, he is forced to work 11 hours of hard labour … They decided to convict my husband and keep him from regaining his freedom so that he can never lead a church again. For this, I feel extremely pained at heart! I can only pray every day, in tears, and implore the Lord to be merciful and show His grace!”

• Pray for Huang Quirui and others like him who are imprisoned for their faith in China. Pray they will stand firm in their faith and be a witness to those who imprison them.
• Pray for their families, often struggling with loss of income. Pray they too will stand firm in their faith and encourage each other in their struggles.
• Pray for Christians in China. While in some areas persecution is lessening, in others it is on the increase and there are still many incidences of wrongful arrest and torture for believers.
• Pray for China, for the spread of the Gospel and a freedom for people to worship.

Isaiah 61 vs 1: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;

Source: International Christian Concern – wwwpersecution.org