On April 6, Christian human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng thought he could return to a normal life after 13 months of imprisonment.  But his “release” was a farce to please the international media, and on April 20 Gao disappeared again, last seen with four policemen, Compass Direct News (CDN) reported.

Gao, a self-taught lawyer and Communist Party member until 2005 was once viewed by China’s Ministry of Justice as among their top 10 lawyers, according to CDN.

Gao defended some of China’s most vulnerable people, including workers seeking redress, underground Christians and the banned Falungong spiritual movement, according to Telegraph.co.uk.

In a press conference held shortly after his April 6 release, Gao said he wanted to be reunited with his family, who fled to the United States in January 2009 over his daughter’s attempted suicides when she was blocked from entering school.

Meanwhile, Gao hoped to visit his in-laws in Urumqi, according to CDN.  Gao would no longer continue his legal work, he said, and he could not comment on his treatment while in captivity.  Now, no one knows where Gao is.

On Feb. 4 last year Gao was taken from his Shaanxi home and held incommunicado for 13 months.  Chinese authorities filed no formal charges and issued no arrest warrant while he was jailed, Telegraph.co.uk reported.

A demonstration in Hong Kong to demand information about Gao Zhisheng's whereabouts on 4 Feb 2010/Credit: Voice of America

The Telegraph quoted friends and colleagues who said that when he was released on April 6 he was still being tailed by police.  On April 30 Gao visited his father-in-law in the company of four police officers.  He just spent one night there before the police took him out again.

Gao’s brief release from jail is believed to be in response to demands by western governments and international rights groups who repeatedly demanded to know his whereabouts and sought his release.  It is believed the police feared Gao would talk of his treatment while he was incarcerated, according to the Telegraph and CDN.

In 2005 Gao wrote open letters to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao accusing the government of torturing Falungong members.  As a result his law license was revoked and his law firm shut down.

In 2007 Gao was detained, tortured and threatened with death.  His captors also threatened to harm and torture his wife and children if he spoke of his treatment in jail.  Under duress, Gao “confessed” and was under house arrest, the CDN said.

An AFP report said human rights lawyers in China are constantly harassed and threatened.  For example:

• Tang Jitian, 41, lost his livelihood, rarely sees his family, and must constantly change homes because authorities pressure his landlords.  He has defended the Falungong, people who were displaced from their lands, and hepatitis B carriers who are subject to discrimination.
• Authorities once set up video cameras outside Tang’s home in Jilin, filming through the windows.
• Tang and colleague Liu Wei, in her 30s, have had their licenses revoked while defending Falungong.  In April last year they walked out of court due to constant interruption of their defense by the judge.
• A legal research center for human rights was shut down on July 2009, and the Beijing Justice Bureau suspended the licenses of 53 lawyers.
• Authorities set restrictions on lawyers taking up cases related to the 2009 protests in Urumqi.
• New rules will be enforced in June this year stipulating punishments for lawyers and their firms that are so vaguely written that they can be arbitrarily interlpreted in terms of disciplinary measures.

China foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said last week that attorneys are free to work as they please.  “Chinese citizens enjoy their lawful rights and interests, which are also guaranteed by the laws and the Constitution,” Yu said, according to the AFP.

In the past few years, the number of rights lawyers in China has soared — from about 10 in 2007 to around 100 today in Beijing alone.

Human trafficking. Sex slaves. Child slavery.

It’s something Americans associate with a few European or third world countries. But the U.S. State Department’s 2009 “Trafficking in Humans” Report documents problems in 175 nations.

Girls, women, children and even teen boys are being deceived, kidnapped, trapped and shipped everywhere from America to Africa.

And it could be happening at our neighborhood mini-market.

The wholesale trafficking of humans

From California to New England, the problem is spreading within the United States. It’s becoming as uncontrollable as the drug war that has raged for decades, despite the government’s best efforts.

The estimated FBI numbers from sources as varied as ABC Primetime in 2006 to Christianity Today in 2010 show 100,000-300,000 teens and children under the age of 18 have been trafficked within the states per year.

It is harder to obtain statistics for adult victims, because of a finer line between “voluntary” and forced prostitution or sexual slavery.

In April 2010, the U.S. Attorney’s office brought sex trafficking charges against the Gambino family, notoriously reputed to be part of the elusive “mob” in America.

With the arrest of 14 people, the charges include trapping girls to sell for sex at high stakes poker games in the middle of busy Manhattan.

Engaging in human trafficking is a new low even for the mob, U.S. Attorney’s office representatives stated in a press conference covered by MSNBC.

Also in April, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported that human trafficking has become the biggest “invisible” crime in the state. Florida House Bill 633 and Senate Bill 966 are currently being proposed to help law enforcement push back against the sex slavery trade.

How can this happen in America?
The massive amounts of money to be made through human trafficking is a powerful aphrodisiac that has enticed more people, even women, to deal in such crimes. In the Gambino case, one of the people arrested was a woman known to be involved in luring the victims.

The process of obtaining victims for human trafficking:
For most teen girls and women, if they are not outright kidnapped, they’re being enticed by the possibility of modeling or acting jobs. The Hollywood dream of obtaining fame and fortune at a young age through television and movies has become an obsession.

When they get to their destination, they are thrown into vehicles or locked in back bedrooms and sold to countless customers for sex acts, sexual abuse, and to appear in pornographic movies against their will.

They may be starved, drugged, verbally abused to the point of having no self-esteem, and threatened with death if they attempt to escape.

For girls and boys who do run away from home, criminals recognize their vulnerability, hunger and brokenness and are able to entice them into prostitution and porn films with the promise of money. The victim may receive tiny payments to keep them involved.

For children, it often starts with simple nabbing from neighborhoods.

A U.S. Government grant helped reveal the child trafficking problem:
In 2008, an organization called Shared Hope International (SHI) applied for and received a government grant to study the suspected nationwide crisis of child trafficking between states. Their resulting survey revealed that many of the children were often being misidentified as delinquents, and  punished for crimes when they were actually victims.

Since then, the FBI and agencies such as the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children & Families have started training personnel to recognize when a person is a human trafficking victim instead of a runaway or criminal themselves (HHS Fact Sheet here).

See the Underground’s previous report, “Sex + Money,” about the ongoing production of a new movie aimed at exposing the U.S. sex slave industry.

Liat Collins wrote in The Jerusalem Post that no other city in the world inspires its own medically recognized syndrome.  She refers to the Jerusalem syndrome, a psychosis where normally sane tourists begin to hear voices and believe they are people in the Bible.

The JTA mentioned an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer Simpson traveled to Israel, and was diagnosed with the Jerusalem syndrome.  Homer, dehydrated, believed he was chosen to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims together in a new religion called Chrisjumas.

JTA quoted Dr. Gregory Katz, a psychiatrist of Jerusalem’s Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center, who said 30-40 patients a year are treated with the Jerusalem syndrome.

Most of them have had a history of mental illness, but a few experience it for the first time, likely triggered by experiencing biblical Jerusalem for the first time.  For many, it is a way to reconcile their biblical impressions of the city with the modern city that Jerusalem is today.

According to JTA, Christians predominantly tend to get the Jerusalem syndrome, specifically Protestant tourists from the United States and Scandinavia.  However, Jews and Israelis have been treated, too.

Commonly, they identify with a character consistent with their faith.  Jews will identify with King David, Christians with Mary Magdalene or John the Baptist.  Jews fantasize about bringing redemption.  Among Israelis, the Jerusalem syndrome is gradual, most commonly afflicting Jews who want to build the Third Temple, JTA said.

Christian Today Australia said the syndrome is believed to affect 100 people annually.  Quoting Mark Tronson, chairman of Well-Being Australia, it is a type of obsession, similar to “overboard enthusiasm” for a sport or hobby.

Which leads to the question:  Is Jerusalem a city that drives people crazy?  Considering that most of those afflicted with the syndrome have a history of mental illness that is not likely.

As for the minority who get the syndrome for the first time, one must note that unlike other tourist sites, which people are drawn to for shopping, or adventure or a love of history, people come to Jerusalem primarily for religious reasons.

In religion you will find passion.  And too much passion can drive a very small minority overboard.  The Jerusalem syndrome therefore could well be a natural outflow of a small population of tourists who are drawn there because of the religious links to the city and whose passion may have gone berserk.

Political conservative pundit S.E. Cupp’s newest book, “Losing Our Religion:  The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity” has further polarized conservative and liberal media, even as its title and subject matter drew claims of irony.

Cupp’s book polarizes conservatives, liberals, raises claims of irony

Newsweek, which reviewed Cupp’s book, extensively quoted her and indicated page numbers; said it was melodramatic, patronizing to her readers, and inspired fear mongering.

Newsweek also denied that they are a mainstream publication, and said they are not attacking Christians or even religious freedom.

Media Matters for America focused on what Cupp wrote about evolution, and said that she does violence to the science of evolution and to the public’s expectations of science journalists and science teachers.

Cupp’s book has also raised a sense of irony that an atheist should write a book that strongly defends Christianity.  Cupp however says that political conservatives like herself would benefit if Christians worked harder to protect their turf, as mainstream liberal media shoots two birds with one stone when they attack Christianity.

Cupp said Christianity is a target so that mainstream media can also attack conservatism.  “If they can effectively paint Christians as dangerous fanatics, it’s just a skip away from painting conservatives as dangerous fanatics,” she said in an interview with Mediaite.

In that same report she said that her being an atheist gave her the needed objectivity to write the book.  “I would hope it gives a little more credibility to the project than having some fundamentalist Christian write about attacks on Christianity,” she said.

Christian Today noted that other studies have also documented Cupp’s viewpoints, including The Media Elite by Lichter, Rothman and Lichter (1986), and Bias by Bernard Goldberg (2001).

Bill Muehlenberg, who authored the Christian Today review wrote, “Western Christians are sleeping through their own execution.They seem oblivious [that] the surrounding culture has declared war on the Christian faith.”

In her book Cupp wrote, according to Newsweek, that:

1. Secular media has turned religious worship into a “subculture” and reacted to presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s 2007 Christmas commercial by focusing on a “strategically placed” cross in the background.  (She cites The Washington Post and CNN).
2. Major media did not cover Obama’s snub of the National Day of Prayer.
3. Newsweek’s review of the Christian bestseller “Left Behind” said, “Sociologists tell us that the United States is experiencing a religious revival, but if the bestseller lists are any guide, the revival looks more like a collective leaving of the senses.”
4. Reviews of the Christian story “Narnia” were lukewarm despite its being a box office hit.  Reviews for The Golden Compass, which attacks Christianity, were positive although the movie did not do well at the tills.

Cupp also noted that the liberal press downplays Obama’s discomfort with religious America and barely wrote about his covering up of religious imagery in the backdrop when he gave a speech at Georgetown University.

An Associated Press report said recently that Facebook is now being used to help recruit priests in France.

According to the report, this is part of an overall euro 250,000 campaign to encourage more males to become men of the cloth.  The April 20-May 5 campaign also includes 75,000 postcards showing a priest’s vestments with a button reading, “Jesus is my Boss” and the slogan, “Why not?”  It will be distributed throughout France, in restaurants, bars and movie theaters, among other places.

But the use of Facebook indicates the ever enlarging role the social network is playing in today’s world.  On its first week the page got over 1,200 fans.

Roman Catholicism is the main religion in France, comprising 64 percent of the population, or 41.6 million people out of a total 65 million.  However, only some 2 million attend church regularly, the report said.

There has also been a steady decline in the number of priests with only 24,000 today, compared to 42,000 in 1975.  Even the number of those who were ordained in 2009 (89) is a steep fall from a decade before at 116 in 1999.

Although the declining trend of ordainments is common in Europe and the United States, globally ordainments have actually increased, with the largest number of new priests coming from Asia and Africa.

The AP report noted, for example, that it is common for a church service in Italy to be conducted by priests from Brazil, Mozambique, the Philippines and other countries.

For Europeans and the United States, the most difficult obstacle towards becoming a priest is the vow of celibacy.  However, another difficult consideration is that the priesthood is a lifetime career choice whereas many people undergo many career changes in a lifetime.  Also, priests don’t make much money.  In Asia and Africa however joining the priesthood is a valued profession.  It also enables one to get an advanced education and earn a respectable living.

Even the average age of the European priests is indicative of a shortage of young Caucasian men entering the priesthood.  On the average, an Italian priest in 2003 was 60 years old, with one of every eight priests 80 years or over.

The decline is not related to the recent sex abuse scandals, the AP said.  The ad campaign however hopes to interest a younger age group of French men to become part of the Catholic priesthood.

The Telegraph UK for example described a half page ad of a 41-year-old man with the caption, “I am a man among others.  I’ve heard and responded to Christ’s call.  I love life.  I am a priest!”

The use of Facebook is also seen as a way to attract their target market and to reinvent the image of priests into something more young, new and contemporary.  The Telegraph UK report quoted French advertising guru Jacques Seguela who commented on the ad campaign and the sex abuse church scandals by saying, “The Church couldn’t call off the publicity campaign.  In any case, the ad is also a good counterattack in a crisis period.  This is a real grassroots reaction of the Church showing its modernization, in contrast with the image of a Pope mired in his own conservatism.”

Mississippi has become the most recent state to join 13 others in pursuing a “Personhood Amendment.”

A press release by Personhood Mississippi states they already have enough votes to put their measure on the 2011 election ballot as an Amendment to the Mississippi Constitution.

Fetal sonogram

What is a Personhood Amendment?
“Personhood” amendments are pro-life measures being proposed at state-level legislatures.

The goal is to recognize, within the states’ constitutions, that every unborn child has the same inherent rights, dignity and value as every living human from the beginning of their biological development.

Another aspect being pursued in some states is to assure dignity and human rights to every physically or mentally disabled or elderly person; to prevent the notion of involuntary euthanasia.

The “Personhood Movement” is an official nationwide pro-life movement.This  website clarifies that Personhood Amendments can also be called Human Life Amendments.

A list of participating states and where they are at in the process can be seen here at Personhood.Net – a subsidiary of the Georgia Right to Life Committee. Georgia was the first state with such a proposal in 2007. It hasn’t resulted in being placed on a voters’ ballot.

Joining those states that have already constructed or proposed Personhood Amendments between 2007 and April 2010, approximately 26 other state legislatures are taking action to draft similar wording.

Additionally, Personhood.Net carries information regarding ongoing attempts to get enough petition signatures to file a Federal Personhood Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In September 2009, The Underground reported on Florida’s “Personhood Amendment” movement .

Update: The Florida movement continues to press forward. The proposed Personhood Amendment, if enough votes are collected, would be placed on the next Florida election ballot for citizens’ votes.

The recently announced plans by the Vatican to designate a papal envoy to head the Legionaries of Christ renders this powerful, conservative Catholic order directly under Vatican control.

The Vatican made this move after an eight-month inquiry by five Vatican investigators who reported directly back to Pope Benedict XVI about the double life of its late founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Associated Press reported.

The Vatican report said Maciel had been sexually assaulting minor seminarians and fathered at least three children from two different women—a daughter from what was described as a “stable relationship”, and two sons who are now grown, who admitted to being his children with another woman, according to CNN.

However, the Vatican hoped that by appointing a personal delegate to lead the order, they could help them “purify” what good still remains, and at the same time help them to undergo a “profound revision”, the AP said.

Maciel was born in Mexico in March 1920.  In January 1941 he founded the Legion of Christ, a powerful and wealthy order that spans 24 countries including Spain, Rome, Ireland, the United States, and several countries in South America and Central Europe.  Recently it had begun projects in Eastern Europe and the Philippines, according to CNN.

With a membership of over 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians, the Legion also has some 70,000 members in the Regnum Christi movement, which was also founded by Maciel. The Legion runs Catholic news outlets, charities, seminaries for boys, schools, and universities in Italy, Mexico and Spain, among others, The Seattle Times said.

In response to the Vatican announcement the Legionaries issued a statement on its website where they said that they “embrace his provisions with faith and obedience”, the AP said.

Critics and advocates of the victims are dissatisfied with the Vatican’s latest move.  They wanted the order to be dissolved.   Others felt the larger part of the Legion’s leadership should be taken out, noting that Macial could not have lived his double life without the knowledge of some of the order’s top leadership, the Seattle Times said.

The Vatican’s statement said, “Of this side of life, a great part of the Legionaries were in the dark — especially given the system of relationship built by P. Maciel, who very skillfully knew how to create alibis, obtain loyalty, trust and silence from those around him and strengthened his own role as charismatic founder,” the CNN reported.

The Vatican said that Macial “…created around him a defense mechanism that made him unassailable for a long period, making it difficult to know his true life.”

According to the AP, Maciel’s victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against him but were shut down.  The late Pope John Paul II had long championed the Legionaries for their orthodoxy and ability to bring in vocations and money.

In 2006, one year after Benedict became pope, the Vatican ordered Maciel to lead a “reserved life of penance and prayer,” and rendered him a priest in name only. He died in 2008 at age 87, the AP reported.

The Catholic church is also investigating complaints of abuse allegedly committed in Britain, Germany, Ireland and other countries, the CNN reported.

President Barack Obama made a pilgrimage to pray with Billy Graham, the American preacher who harnessed the media and made Christian evangelism a global phenomenon, recently.

Evangelist Billy Graham in 1966. Graham has met with every U.S. president since Harry Truman.

Obama rode in his motorcade to Graham’s mountainside log cabin in Montreat, which is near Asheville, N.C., upon the conclusion of his North Carolina vacation with his wife, Michele, and friends.

It was Obama’s first meeting with the ailing evangelist who has counseled commanders in chief since Dwight Eisenhower.

This makes Obama, 48, the 12th president of the United States to meet with the 91-year-old Graham.

He is also the first head of state to call on the famed evangelist, who is ailing, at the latter’s mountaintop home.

The visit lasted about 30 minutes and included aides and advisers to both men.  Obama had a private prayer and conversation with Billy Graham.

Graham gave Obama two Bibles, one for him and one for the first lady, according to the Associated Press.

The AP report said the older Graham and Obama did most of the talking. They reminisced about their roots in Chicago, where Graham attended college  and began some of his ministry in the region.

Obama moved to Chicago after college and began his political career there.  They also talked about golf.

When the president got ready to leave, the two ended in prayer, according to the AP. The elder Graham prayed for the nation and asked God to give Obama wisdom in his decisions.

The president prayerfully thanked God for Billy Graham’s life, Franklin Graham told the AP.

Obama confided, like other presidents before him, how lonely, demanding and humbling the presidency can be, according to Larry Ross, presidential spokesman.

“That is a discussion that Mr. Graham has had with previous presidents who realize not only the demands but the loneliness of the job. And they’re humbled by that,” Ross said.

“The only way one can do [the job] properly is to draw on spiritual resources,” the AP reported.

The president also spoke to Graham’s son Franklin, also an evangelist.  The Army cancelled an appearance of the younger Graham to pray at the Pentagon for National Prayer Day a few days before.

Billy Graham has met with every president since Harry Truman.  Eisenhower once mused about recruiting Graham as a speechwriter, and the two often read the Bible together.  John F. Kennedy played golf with Graham in Palm Beach.

Graham ministered many times to Lyndon Johnson.  With Nixon, Graham conducted regular worship in the White House.

Gerald Ford played golf with him, Graham visited the Carters in the White House, and with Reagan they had a relationship that spanned 50 years.

George H. Bush vacationed with Graham half a dozen times, and Graham counseled Bill and Hillary in the White House. George W. Bush credits Graham for his spiritual rebirth.

Church leaders complained about Arizona’s newest immigration law recently, which grants greater power to local police to question and arrest suspected illegal immigrants, saying it is ineffective and will promote discrimination.

Because of the passage of Arizona's new "immigration" policy, people who look Hispanic may be subject to racial profiling/Credit: Garrison Photography

Rev. James Flaaten, executive director of Arizona Ecumenical council, issued a statement saying, this law “will demonize anyone who looks suspiciously like an undocumented person, leading to inevitable racial profiling,” according to The Christian Post.

Flaaten added, “Our religious traditions ask us to treat people with dignity and respect, and we look for a more enlightened and hopeful way of working with the undocumented people who live alongside us.”

The law, which was signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents with them at all times, and gives police the power to question someone’s legal residency and arrest anyone who cannot prove that they are legal residents.

The law also cracks down on those who hire illegal residents or knowingly transport them.

Penalties for illegal immigrants under the law include arrest, jail for up to six months and a $2,500 fine. It includes other provisions for lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws.

Religious leaders are urging federal lawmakers to pass comprehensive immigration reform, denouncing the current federal system as broken and the new Arizona law as “mean-spirited.”

“It is not only mean-spirited – it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, president and CEO of Sojourners.

“Enforcement without reform of the system is merely cruel. Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable.”

“This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel,” the progressive evangelical leader contended. “We will not comply.”

Critics say the bill fails to address border security concerns and called the bill divisive as it encourages racial profiling.

They note police officers may more frequently suspect Hispanics to be illegal immigrants.

Some support the bill but worry that it may hurt Arizona’s economy which has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants.  Should they leave the state, they would no longer be spending money there.

Prior to the bill’s passage President Obama, said it was misguided and directed the Justice Department to see if it is legal.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. appealed for Obama’s continued support against the bill and called instead for reform.

Gutierrez has loudly called for comprehensive immigration reform creating citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants now in the United States.

Rev. Al Sharpton in New York said he would organize “freedom walkers” to challenge the Arizona bill.

“We will go to Arizona when this bill goes into effect and walk the streets with people who refuse to give identification and force arrest,” Sharpton said, according to the Associated Press.

“It divides our whole community,” said Mary Hoffmann, 54, a landscape architect in Phoenix. “If people are divided they make decisions on fear and anger,” she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Arizona congressman Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, urged the Obama administration not to cooperate when illegal immigrants are picked up by local police.

Under the new law, Arizona officers who arrest undocumented people will turn them over to federal immigration officers.  Opponents said the federal government can block the law by refusing to accept them.

Brewer, in defense of the law, said she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.  She called on the state’s law enforcement licensing agency to create a training course so that police can enforce the law without discriminating against any race, color or ethnicity.

Brewer also ordered a reallocation of state National Guard and law enforcement resources, and called on the federal government to deploy National Guard troops.

Brewer, who signed the new law, is facing re-election amid growing anger in the state over illegal immigrants.  She blamed federal lawmakers’ inaction and misguided policy for forcing Arizona to pass the new bill.

The bill, sponsored by state Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, passed the House 35-21 and the Senate 17-11.

Arizona’s border with Mexico is the nation’s busiest stretch for illegal border crossings.

Supporters of the bill blame illegal immigrants as partly responsible for the state’s high crime rate.

ChinaAid–  More than 20 years ago, a young woman named Chai Ling mourned the death of political and economic reformer Hu Yaobang, a symbol of freedom and hope for the forward-thinking students of China. Hu’s funeral, held on April 22, 1989 seven days after his death, was attended by 50,000 students.

Chai Ling, former Tiananmen Square student leader, was baptized and gave her testimony on Easter, April 4.

Chai Ling, then a 23-year-old top-ranking national honors student at “Bei Shi Da” Beijing Normal University, became a galvanizing force in the Tiananmen Square Student Movement, rallying thousands of hopeful students, and later becoming the top leader of the protest movement. Following the bloody Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989, Chai Ling skyrocketed to a place on the “21 most-wanted” students list in China for organizing the demonstration. With the help of Chinese Buddhists and Hong-Kong organizations, she escaped from China in 1990, eventually arriving in the United States.

Following her immigration to the U.S., Chai Ling settled in Boston, MA, where she met and married her husband Robert Maginn, Jr. Together, they built the software company Jenzabar, which now employs more than 280 employees. Chai Ling earned her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1998, and has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. She has used her success to give back to the marginalized in China, helping fund orphanages and humanitarian efforts in-country. Last year, she pledged to give millions to fund organizations supporting human rights in China.

“I stumbled on this idea that if only I could become a very successful entrepreneur, like Bill Gates, I could make lots money and set up a giant foundation, then I could once for all overcome and free China,” Chai Ling said. Despite her fruitful actions, she began to lose hope, feeling too weak to accomplish her goal of bringing freedom to China.

In November 2009, Chai Ling attended a hearing in the U.S. Capitol on the effects of China’s One Child Policy. On hearing the personal story of one woman’s brutal forced abortion, Chai Ling was finally convicted that only God could stop such brutality. Through the encouragement and prayers of several mentors and friends, Chai Ling became a Christian on December 4, 2009.

Chai Ling’s goal of freedom and hope for the Chinese people has not changed since her days as a student. But her perspective and focus is fresh and renewed. She now has hope for bringing God’s love and freedom to the people of China, as well as raising awareness of and fighting against the One Child Policy. At her baptism on Easter, April 4, Chai Ling presented her testimony. Her story is a rousing testament to the transformational power of the Gospel, and the hope of Christ in a broken and sinful world.

Read Chai Ling’s testimony