Editor's note: "The rebar penetrated deeply into the right side of my skull, and others were too frightened to pull my head off the steel rod for me. Finally, a young man working with me said, ‘Anyway, we should make every possible effort.’ Holding my head with both hands, he forced my head out, with feet on the root of the rebar. Suddenly, a column of blood rushed out of my head for more than 1 meter."
This is not a thrilling scene from a modern action movie, let alone a daydream, but the real experience of a male Christian surnamed Gong who told the following story in the first person.
Born in Jiayu County, Xianning, Hubei, I was selected as a key training target for a young cadre, having worked as a secretary of the village Party branch for 19 years. In 2004, one of my two children was studying in college and the other in high school, and I couldn’t make ends meet. So I quit my job as a cadre, taking a group of retirees to Ezhou in Hubei to invest in the cultivation of black fungus.
One evening, when I returned to the rental place after finishing my work in another place, I accidentally tripped on the exposed steel bar, landing on another exposed steel bar facing upward which dug into my right skull. A workman pulled my head out and sent me to the hospital. After the rescue, I was in a coma until the next morning. I became a crippled person with the left side of my body paralyzed and unconscious.
I spent almost all of my time on rehabilitation therapy which was a very long process. At the beginning of 2007, I was admitted to the hospital again, incontinent on the bed, for more than a month.
Though thinking of suicide, I insisted on treatment, bearing the burden of family and the responsibilities of being a son and a father. As my younger brother died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 23, I couldn't bear my parents suffering from the loss of a child again.
As I became a cripple, those who complimented me because I was a cadre in the past disappeared, and my relatives and friends didn’t come to see me in the hospital.
When I was disappointed in my family and friendship, a group of believers walked into my ward, preaching the gospel to me with encouragement and prayers for two consecutive days. I did not accept it, but they did not give up. When they came again on the third day, several old party members approached them. They said, "You can't persuade him to believe in the Lord. Although he resigned as secretary, we will ask him to be the village director again in next year's general election.” Leaving them speechless, a female believer said, "You don’t know how much he meant to you until now. When he was seriously ill, have you visited him and comforted him? We just share the gospel with him, letting him choose to believe it or not."
The next day just happened to be Sunday, and I involuntarily went into the church which was full of mutual care and selfless love. In the past, as a Party member and cadre, I did not believe that a dead person in a foreign country would bring me life, persecuting the church members. But after this tribulation, the love of Christians touched me, opening my heart. A voice seemly told me that everything I was after in the world would become nothing one day and that I should stop pursuing them. At that moment, I surrendered to God to accept Jesus as my savior. My body recovered very well, and I was in a brighter mood. I was determined to dedicate my life to serving the Lord.
- Translated by Abigail Wu
