The 64 members of the Shenzen Holy Reformed Church arrived in the United States on April 7 to escape persecution from China, making the journey with international help.
“From 2018-19, the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping had increased the prosecution against the house churches, the non-registered independent churches in China, especially targeting those churches in the urban setting,” ChinaAid founder Bob Fu told Federal Newswire.
Also known as the Mayflower Church, the congregation had been monitored but essentially left alone before 2018 when Hong Kong students started protesting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposing the Hong Kong National Security Law and eliminating freedoms, he said.
Pastor Pan Yongguang was one of the first to call for peaceful civil disobedience against the government for its violation of religious freedom and conscience, Fu said. The government ordered it to shut down the church and its school.
The congregation of 28 adults and 32 children, led by Pastor Pan Yongguang, fled China in November 2019 after facing threats and interrogations from police in China. The congregation went to South Korea, but fear of the CCP led to denials of their applications for political asylum, he said.
They sought refugee status in Thailand in September 2022, he said, with help from ChinaAid.
“But even in Thailand, as soon as they entered, Chinese agents were following them, harassing them constantly,” Fu said.
On March 30, Thailand immigration and police detained them and almost handed them over to the Chinese government until the U.S. intervened, he said.
Rep. Chris Smith, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, Sen. Ted Cruz and others helped keep them safe until the U.S. negotiated a deal for their expulsion to the United States and acceptance under humanitarian parole status, Fu said.
“The immediate action taken by U.S. officials signals that as a nation, we are still committed to standing for the persecuted, and as a Member of Congress, I am committed to fighting on behalf of religious freedom for all,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, who represents Tyler, Texas, where the congregation is being resettled, said, ChinaAid reported.
Freedom Seekers International is supporting the congregation with the community’s help, he said. A group of churches pledged to support them with housing and daily living expenses for a year.
Persecution in the United States can’t be ruled out, Fu said. He was exiled from his Midland, Texas home for more than three months in 2020 when a group of Chinese Communists protested outside his home daily.
The CCP was emboldened by many compromised politicians, including in the Oval Office, corporate American business leaders, academics, civil servants and even the NBA, he said.
“They choose to be silent because they can't afford offending their money, their Lord, the Chinese Communist Party,” Fu said.
Fu is a China native who was a student leader in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, according to ChinaAid’s website. He taught English to CCP officials and was a house church leader until he and his wife’s arrest in 1996. They fled to the U.S. as religious refugees the following year.
