September 16, 2007
All Saints parishioner, Dr. Yang Jianli, who was imprisoned in
China for over five years, gives thanks to God after his release.
*Dr. Yang was involved in the protest at Tiananmen Square and
founded the Foundation for Democracy in China in the Twenty-first Century.
My dear brothers and sisters,
Being once again at my spiritual home, my whole being is filled with thanksgiving.
My thanks and praise be to God, our heavenly father. He and I trudged through these difficult years together with me on his back every moment. I thank him for my devoted family who have been standing behind me firmly for so long a time. I thank Him for my dear brothers and sisters. Reverend David Killian, Reverend Leslie Sterling, and Susan Cleaver, you kept the congregation informed of my situation; your faith in keeping me in the prayers was incredible.
My deep and heartfelt thanks to the entire congregation of All Saints Parish for your tremendous support for my family and for saying a prayer for me every week during the five years I was in prison. All the prayers are answered.
I also want to thank all the parishioners and their families and friends for getting in touch with their Representatives and Senators, advocating for my release, little by little. That turned out to be very helpful and effective in lobbying the Congress to work on my behalf. The efforts of Congressman Barney Frank combined with that of many other congressional leaders and governmental officials greatly contributed to my release and homecoming.
I also want to thank everyone who came to the candle-light vigils each year to mark the anniversary of my detention.
My very special thanks go to all of you, especially the children, who wrote me postcards. Many of those were made by your mighty little hands. The prison authorities had kept them for awhile before they gave me everything in a package when they transferred me from one detention center to another. I still remember vividly how I felt upon seeing these cards. I was thrilled like a little kid receiving much-desired gifts from Santa Clause for Christmas. The heart-made and hand-made cards helped me build my faith, sustain my strength and courage to endure the difficult prison time. Thank you all.
Let me make a very brief report on my spiritual life during my confinement. In the first 14 months of my imprisonment, I was totally cut off from any meaningful human contact and subject to both physical and psychological torture. This left me with a constant and unprecedented deep connection with God. I prayed and prayed to our Lord to sustain the movement of my living Christian spirit, for faith, for strength, for courage and for peace. I was once beaten up for defying a guard's order to stop praying. At times I became very weak and at one point almost collapsed, but the Lord's strength was made perfect in my weakness. I never stopped praying and never, for a single moment, doubted that my dear brothers and sisters were not praying for me unceasingly. With the support of the Spirit and the prayers, I survived, endured, even overcame all the afflictions the authorities had inflicted on me. When later the situation was improved that I could have meaningful interactions with my inmates and my guards, I organized a bible study group. More than 20 prisoners came, at different times, to join the study, and three of them were baptized and became born-again Christians. Praise to the Lord! The tribulation I have gone through has been an experience of my mingling with God, and I have emerged a stronger person and, more important, a better Christian. Standing here after what I have been through, I am totally reassured that the Lord's grace is sufficient.
To end my report, I would like to share with you Romans 8:35, 38 and 39.
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 38. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers 39.Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Thank you. God bless you all.