God's Double Agent (22 page)

Heidi was all for it, even though it meant that she’d travel to Beijing for the wedding, then immediately return home to finish out the school year. We’d be separated while she wrapped up her teaching job, but then we would be reunited in Beijing. Even though it was less than perfect timing, she also had a strong desire to spread the gospel. Plus, I like to think she was
ready to become my wife! There was one problem. Technically, the wedding would be illegal because students weren’t allowed to get married while still in school. We applied for the license anyway, but the school denied my request. It was a real setback, because graduation was drawing near.

“I have an idea,” Heidi wrote me when she heard the bad news. “I have relatives who work in the government here. Come to my hometown and we can apply here. I think we can manage to get permission through a back door.”

It worked, and we excitedly started trying to find a date. We originally hoped to get married on June 6, but it was too close to June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Every year, that anniversary brought new political tension and unrest, which could’ve posed problems for our guests coming from America, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. Consequently, we settled on June 19, just a few days before graduation.

We didn’t have a great deal of extra money set aside for a wedding. Even before we were married, I got several tutoring jobs while in Beijing to send extra cash to Heidi. Because her family was so dependent on her, she was living on less than five yuan per month (a little less than an American dollar). The rest of the salary she made as a full-time teacher she gave to her parents.

After graduation
, I kept telling myself,
I’ll finally be able to make real, substantial money
. At the time, all university students had to work for the government after graduation in some capacity. The Communists believed it was a way for students to give back to the government as well as a way to foster loyalty to the state. But even with that restriction, graduates from my university program had their pick of jobs. Someone who could speak English fluently could easily find a job in a major corporation or a state-owned international export/import company. Since I knew English and was familiar with international trade relations, I could work for a corporation, the government, the Communist Party, or any of several other organizations.
Finally, after so many years of hard work, I’d completed what I’d told my mother I’d do so many years ago. I’d waded past the low-paying teachers’ jobs, was accepted into a prestigious post-graduate program, and could cash in on my success as soon as I graduated.

As I was going through my options with James, an American professor in my Bible study group, one idea kept coming up.

“I want to work in ministry,” I said.

“There’s no such thing as ‘full-time ministry’ in China unless you’re working in the government-sanctioned church,” he replied.

“Well, that might be the case, but I want to find a job that allows me to dedicate the largest portion of my time to ministry and the smallest portion of my time to the Communist Party,” I told him. “In fact, as I was praying about my future the other day, that’s what I promised to God.”

“Then He’ll work it out,” James said, “according to His purpose.”

Since Heidi and I were getting married before I graduated, and consequently before I got a good-paying job, we had to cut corners on the ceremony. Thankfully, one of our fellowship couples represented a big company in Beijing and lived in a big apartment building that had the entire first floor dedicated to the Chinese military. The General’s Widow Building was a hotel reserved for wives of generals who’d passed away during the Chinese Communist Revolution, as a demonstration of the government’s gratitude and provision. The hotel was beautiful, expensive, and luxurious, and our Christian fellowship friends pulled some strings so that our wedding could occur there. In fact, since Heidi was still residing in her hometown, our friends planned our entire wedding. They got all kinds of free trinkets, picked out a charming skirt for Heidi, and created a beautiful floral arrangement for her bouquet. They also arranged for an older Christian lady to play the piano and got some talented
musicians from a music school to accompany her. Because of their resourcefulness, I only spent $120 on the wedding. (I should never have told Heidi how little I spent, because to this day she says I still owe her!)

When the big day came, I watched from an adjacent room as one by one, my classmates filed in and took their places on the neatly arranged chairs.
One, two, three
, I counted. Not only was I about to join my love in matrimony, I was also about to fulfill my promise to God.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . seventeen!
When every one of my classmates was present and accounted for, I was ready to get the ceremony started. Though neither Heidi’s parents nor my dad could attend due to the great distance, we had about thirty or so foreign guests. This brought our audience up to around eighty people, some of whom were unknowingly about to hear about Jesus.

We were married by Yuan Xiangchen (better known as Alan Yuan in the West), who was one of the most famous Christian dissidents in China. I could tell that my guests were excited when Yuan Xiangchen walked in. He had risen to notoriety after being arrested one April night in 1958 for refusing to join the Three Self Patriotic Movement.

Yuan had refused to join for three basic reasons. First, he believed Jesus and not a political group should be the head of the church. Second, his church had always been independent from foreign control. And third, he didn’t like the theological modernism that characterized the leaders of the Three Self Movement. Because of his refusal to join, he was charged with “counterrevolutionary” crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was sent near the Russian border to a labor camp where the temperature routinely dropped to thirty degrees below zero. He was in prison for twenty-one years and eight months, most of which were spent in a freezing cold cell. He encouraged
himself by singing “The Old Rugged Cross” while the other prisoners had their smoking breaks. Miraculously, he survived the ordeal without abandoning God, but he paid a hefty price for his faith and didn’t see his wife and six children for almost twenty-two years.

When he was released from prison, he went right back to having a house church, which he refused to register with the Three Self Patriotic Movement. He and his wife never compromised their faith and never stopped ministering the gospel in their home. He’d gained notoriety in China because he received much media attention from foreign correspondents. Billy Graham had even visited him and his house church.

Heidi and I had met him through an older Christian lady, Ms. Jing Huifu, who knew Pastor Yuan in Beijing. He and his wife invited us to their modest home. Their living room had a photograph of Billy Graham hanging on one wall. As we sat in that little room where so many people had come to know the Lord, they encouraged us.

“If you want to be a faithful minister and follower of Jesus in China,” he said, “you should learn prison theology.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. “In prison,” he explained, “you find out more about God and His faithfulness than anywhere else. Jail is where God prepares His church in China.”

A chill ran over me. We’d talked to many persecuted faithful believers in China, like Pastor Yuan, Watchman Nee, Wang Mingdao, and others. We saw how people who stayed true to the Bible eventually ended up in jail. I looked at Heidi, who smiled weakly at me. I knew without even speaking to her what she was thinking. Our faith was not yet strong enough to endure that “prison theology” test, but I tucked Yuan Xiangchen’s words in my heart.

I admired his hardline stance against the government-sanctioned church, yet we attended a government-sanctioned
church every Sunday. I could tell that it was filled with many Bible-believing Christians and had a pastor who was passionate about the true gospel. In fact, Pastor Yang Yudong even told young people about Jesus, even though the law prohibited the conversion of minors.

Before we left their home, Pastor Yuan and his wife told us to stay true to the gospel, and to preach it in season and out of season. We could see from their tranquil, smiling faces that they were joyful and without bitterness. Their attitudes and perseverance had a deep impact on us, and we were so blessed when he agreed to conduct our wedding ceremony.

I also invited an elder preacher who used to be in our Thursday Bible study to deliver the sermon during the wedding. Since Chinese weddings are long, somber affairs, I decided to pack it full of the gospel. The preacher got up and delivered a simple presentation of the gospel, very solemnly. By the time he sat down, I’d fulfilled my pledge to God. All of my classmates had now heard about Jesus.

After the sermon was delivered, I needed to make my pledge to Heidi. Yuan Xiangchen approached the lectern to conduct the official business of making us man and wife. Sadly, the government had spread rumors about Christianity, saying pastors had forced people into marriage. Because the Scriptures warn against being “unequally yoked,” the Communists said Christianity included the practice of “forced marriage.” In fact, many pastors were imprisoned under this false charge of forcing people into wedlock.

Communism, the government assured its citizens, gave people “freedom of marriage.” Just to make sure everyone realized our wedding was both government-approved and purely volitional, he held up the government-issued wedding certificate and read it aloud.

“According to the People’s Republic of China’s wedding law,” he read, “you are certified as a married couple.”

Afterward, we served refreshments in a beautiful area of the hotel. Normally, this is a time when the guests give gifts and give blessings to the bride and groom. And, make no mistake, people mingled, wished us well, and gave us wonderful presents. But as people ate cake and sipped punch, we also had a powerful time of evangelism.

Many of our friends had never heard the truth about Christianity, and they were processing all they had heard in the wedding ceremony.

“Have you ever heard of this ‘good news’?”

“Do you believe what they said about this Jesus?”

“How could God forgive sins?”

Right there, in a hotel dedicated to a communist military, we talked about Jesus, shared about His transformational power, and told many about how to become His followers.

As we walked out of the hotel, I grabbed Heidi’s hand . . . my wife’s hand.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just gotten into?” I asked, playfully.

“Not really,” she responded.

Thankfully, neither of us did.

15

One morning, I got up, put on my nicest clothing, and breezed down the sidewalk to a job interview. Now that I had a wife and two university degrees, it was time to get a good-paying job. At a young age, I had realized money could help solve many of life’s problems. In fact, I had thought it could even bring about equality and justice. As a Christian, however, I now knew money was not the cure-all solution I’d concocted in my youthful imagination. But I did know it could make life easier. If I had a high-paying job, I could support the ever-growing list of people now dependent on me.

The waiting area was packed with similarly dressed job applicants, so I found a seat and looked at my shoes. When my name was called, I walked into the meeting with as much confidence as I could muster.

“I’m Xiqiu Fu,” I said when I entered the room. “And I’m here to interview for the translator position.” The interviewer was Chinese, smartly dressed, and had penetrating eyes. Even though I was a little nervous, I believed my answers were short, pertinent, and appropriate. If I got the job, I would work as a translator for China’s general company for road and bridge construction, our nation’s largest state-owned company. After about an hour of intense interviewing, he stuck out his hand. “You have the job! And you will receive double salary. One part will be paid in American
currency and the other paid in Chinese currency. Our company has a new job in Kenya, so that might be your first assignment.”