Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: May 18, 2018
Bitter Winter received information that government officials in Luohe city, Henan Province, forced believers in Three-Self churches to sign the statement of guarantee and renounce their belief, threatening them to revoke their subsistence allowance and disqualify their children from joining the army and attending college.
On April 20, 2018, a village official from Dengxiang town, Shaoling district in Luohe city and the director of the local Committee of the Women’s Federation visited Yang Hua (pseudonym). They threatened that her children would not be able to join the army or the Party or go to college if she continued to believe in Jesus. They presented Yang with a statement of guarantee renouncing belief in God, which she had no choice but to sign. “I know that believing in the Lord is the right path of life, but they threatened me with policies. If I hadn’t signed, the prospects of my children would have been affected,” Yang admitted with a sense of helplessness.
On the same day, a village official also came to a seventy-year-old believer in the same village and intimidated her, “If you continue to believe in Jesus, your allowance for the poor rural household will be stopped.” The son of this elder believer died last year, and her daughter-in-law abandoned the family, leaving two young kids at home. As a poor household, she and her husband are too old to work and can only sustain the family relying on their subsistence allowance. Having no choice, she also signed the statement.
Other three believers went through the same experience that day, but they refused to sign the statement or give up their faith.
