A pastor recently released after seven years in prison is stranded in China without legal documents to access basic services.
Reverend John Sun Qiang Cao Cao has returned to his home in Changsha in southern Hunan province, but he does not have a Chinese identity card, the Associated Press (AP) reported. report Saturday.
🙌 Pastor John Cao – 3 Weeks Free Three weeks ago, on Sunday, March 3rd, Pastor John Cao returned to his home in Hunan Province…
Contributor china aid upon Sunday, March 24, 2024
Regarding the situation, Mr. Cao told the media: “I am liberated. I am a free citizen. Why do so many restrictions have to be imposed on me?”
Many years ago, Mr. Cao went to the United States to study, married an American woman, and the couple had a child. However, he felt it was his life’s duty to return to China and tell his people about God. It is important to note that the country’s communist authorities only allow state-run churches.
Before his arrest, Cao was helping Chinese missionaries enter Myanmar, where the civil war has affected many people. He was on his way back home in 2017 when authorities detained him and later sentenced him to prison.
According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom Website“On March 22, 2018, Mr. Cao was sentenced to seven years in prison for “organizing illegal border crossings.”
He is currently working to find answers to current problems. Cao told The Associated Press that police officers who visited his mother’s home in 2006 seized her mother’s registry, known as a “hukou.”
The book had Cao Cao’s name on it, the Associated Press article continued.
All children born in China are registered in the household register. Hukou is an identification system in which social benefits are allocated geographically. In later years, hukou will be needed to apply for a national ID card. This ID card is used for everything from obtaining a phone number to public health insurance.
Cao said police said they would help the mother update the doorway. It was only later that she learned that they had removed his name when renewing her registration.
Although the pastor was not a U.S. citizen, he was a permanent resident of the United States. However, Chinese authorities do not recognize this as a form of identification.
His Chinese passport expired while he was sitting in a prison cell, and he was unable to renew the document.
While trying to find answers, Cao said he would like to join his family in America one day, but it seems difficult to achieve that.
Despite further challenges, Cao Cao Said His testimony, shared on the ChinaAid Freedom for All website, said:
I have been away from you for seven years, but those seven years have been full of joy, filled with God’s grace, and God’s special presence with me every day. Indeed, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Because we know that the Lord Jesus is with us, and our brothers and sisters are also with us.
…
I know that my brothers and sisters are praying for me and that the Holy Spirit will give me strength. Everyone has been praying for me for seven years. This is the driving force that allows me to joyfully walk through the valley of death.
In April 2021, Breitbart News reported that Christianity is allowed in China, but only through the “Chinese Catholic Church, run by the Communist Party, and the Patriotic Three-Self, a ‘Protestant’ alternative group also run by the Communist Party.” It pointed out that it is only permitted under the “Church”.
However, many local Christians choose to attend “house churches,” where services that are considered illegal are held in private residences.
“The Beijing government officially estimates that there are about 40 million Christians living in China. However, if you count Christians in “house churches,” the number is closer to 100 million, and Communist Party members The independent body believes that this number is higher than the total number of people in the country,” the report said.
