Captive Pastor Freed From Chinese Prison

Of course, in Europe, Russian, Russian, with the greatest Russian population worldwide.

“Many Russian people were on the way to the Black Sea, with the spread of the Black and the Red Sea.”

The Vivae, the Russian D.E.

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and they wanted to eliminate faith, but instead of being eliminated, we grew. That was Grace, Jen Drexel, daughter of formerly imprisoned pastor, Ezra Jen.

“Jen successfully grew a Christian church in China and was persecuted by the government for it,”

spending years barred from leaving the country and months behind bars.

In this episode, Grace and Pastor Ezra Jen joined us to celebrate his release and further explain how this all happened. I'm daily wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Freedom is given to us by God, not government, but it's ability to endure rest with the people.

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That's join edf.com/wire or text wire to 83848. Joining us now is Pastor Ezra Jen and his daughter Grace Jen Drexel, who joined us earlier this year, and we had a delightful conversation and an urgent conversation with her. Grace, thank you for coming back and Pastor Ezra Jen. Thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having us and just really grateful to your show to tell my story. And now we've seen the miracle that my father is released and so really, really grateful for everything that you guys have done as well. It's an amazing story. We've been following, you know, on the edge of our seats and we're so grateful. Let's turn it out.

So, you know, last time we talked Ezra, you were imprisoned in China. We talked to your daughter while you were there and she was very urgently calling for action from the Trump administration. President Trump had taken action already and now we've seen that you're back.

“So, first of all, can you please remind our audience why you were originally captured?”

I was arrested because of my role as a pastor and in October of last year, I was arrested along with 20 plus members of our church. And they arrested me and the charge of a legal use of information networks. But when they sent us to court, they are now charged us with illegal business operations and fraud. This is not just for our churches or this is how the Chinese Communist Party have been persecuting churches more generally using these charges.

How long, so you were there since last year, what were the conditions of your imprisonment? The condition is very bad inside the Dundra Center. In the summer, it's very hot in the winter, it's very cold. It's a very small area where there are packing more than 30 people in the same cell. More than just the food is horrible as well.

But more than the prison condition, what is truly most terrible for me personally was that they did not allow any type of communication from the outside world for me. So, I was not able to receive any letters and also I was only receiving information through my lawyer,

They've harassed four of my lawyers, including the first one, he, a lawyer, John Kai.

He also went through a lot in order to, in order to represent me. He had ultimately lost his law license and his whole law firm was dismantled.

“And your daughter was here fighting for your return very valiantly. I might say, did you suffer any physical ailments while you were there?”

How was your condition? Well, it was a long-term, long-term way to the core of my lawyer. So, many people asked me this question and luckily for me, I was not tortured in any way. I had witnessed them being tortured, but I was not physically tortured. My health condition has been something that I was concerned about because I took to a pretty severe diabetes.

So, it was an area where I am still now trying to, since I've been out for the last month, been trying to recover. Based on how they treated your lawyer, I mean, putting him out of business,

“do they treat people in your situation with your crimes worse than other crimes or is that kind of treatment normal for any kind of criminal?”

Or any kind of person who's imprisoned? So, my thought is that there are two points for this situation. One is that when they are persecuting us, they actually don't have any legal backing, because our religious freedom is even guaranteed in the Chinese constitution, but that is not something that they are actually allowing on the ground. So, for that reason, when lawyers come in and help with these cases, they feel very awkward and do not like that they are highlighting their violation to the situation.

But, secondly, especially when our case became more, there were more attention to it and it became public in, like, the public were aware of the situation. It also gave them a lot of pressure, it gave the government a lot of pressure, so they felt like through attacking the lawyers and making them go away quietly. It might have helped alleviate some of the pressure that they were getting with this case, but that was kind of part of the reasons why we think that it happened in our case, but it is not a normal.

You can see the grim logic there from the authoritarian Chinese government, so you were released in part because of the Trump administration's efforts. What about your fellow pastors, are there other pastors still in prison now? There are certain adult tasks we are incredibly good at putting off, organizing the garage, making a will and yes, getting life insurance. But once you have people depending on you, that last one probably deserves to move up the list.

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I want to first for my situation, thank the media for covering my case and repeatedly talking and making sure that I was not forgotten.

But I also wanted to thank Secretary Rubio as well as the members of Congress and both sides include, especially the 44 Congress people who have written letters to the president to mention my case.

But there are even eight church leaders from my church that are still detained inside China, and our heart really goes out to them.

“And their situation is actually worsened in the recent years, and their court cases were elevated to trial very recently, and they are charging them and pressuring them with heavy sentencing.”

And this is truly a very conflicting signal because on the one hand you are sending the signal of goodwill by releasing me and on the other hand heavily sentencing and persecuting the other eight members. And that makes it very, that's a contradictory behavior. And so we really hope and pray that all those who have continued to pay attention to my case will focus on the situation of the eight as well. Another case that we want to talk about is a dear friend of mine, Pastor Gao Cheng, full from the Light of Zion Church in Xi'an. He also recently had a pre-trial hearing date, and the prosecutors told them that he is looking at 12 to 13 years of imprisonment that was shocking to me when I heard it.

Yesterday also heard that seven other pastors from a church in Wenzhou and China were also taken away. The church Biao Gan is one of the largest and most well known church in prominent church in Wenzhou as well. And seven of its leaders were taken to prison yesterday.

“But it sounds like the Communist Party is very threatened by Christians. What would you say the state of the Christian Church is in China? Is it growing? Is there a reason why they're cracking down so hard?”

And do they also treat other religions as harshly as this?

I want to highlight that the church in China, the Christians in Xi'an, I've always been peaceful, have always been serving the community.

They are the people of peace, they are the children of peace, and they have always had a peaceful development and wanted to help their society. And the most recent 10 years or so we've seen this crackdown on Christianity and other faith. We don't really understand why it's baffling because it's nothing that the Christians have done. It's not because they were a threat to the society in any way. They have always been peaceful and always been helping. It's partly the government or the party's own, the Chinese Communist Party's own fear of their own ideology that they are persecuting the Christians in this way.

It is not good for the Chinese society nor its people, so this is baffling to us as well.

Now when we talked to Grace earlier this year, she said you knew that you were going into danger that there was always the risk of being imprisoned going back to China.

Are you back now for good in the States? I assume you're not going to go back after this sequence of events. My situation, people have told me that I, in some ways, went sent in this way to America. I was a special gift from Chairman C to President Trump and no one has asked me at any point what I wanted to do. I was put inside the airplane and they didn't even tell me where I was going until the airplane took off or where the airplane was going.

Of course, from my heart, I always have a love and a calling for China and I hope that one day I would be able to continue to serve China in some way that is what is in my heart.

“You're finally free, you know, what has it been like adjusting back to life as a free man here in America?”

Yes, of course I am so happy with the freedom that I have right now and I know that it is so special and I'm cherish it very much. In fact, that I am able to freely say whatever I want, I can have a plan and I can go through with the plans like I hope for and especially I want to be so grateful that I have the opportunity to be with my family, especially since I was not able to meet my son and mom, nor the three grandchildren that have been birth since I was travel band inside China.

They're welcoming me and even praying with me, this really truly made me feel like this is why God is blessing this nation.

“Now, Grace, how are you feeling in the midst of all of this? What's this been like for you?”

Well, it feels very unreal to have my father here as we've mentioned, my father was actually travel band and not allowed to be with my family for the last six years or eight years actually. And so part of my many of our family's big events, he was not able to be a part of in person, including my wedding, including the birth of my children, including my brother's graduations and they're growing up in their teenage years as boys needing a father figure to show them how to be a strong and independent men.

But all of this, my father was not allowed, I was not able to be a part of because of the longer persecution before even before the arrest.

But just so grateful and it's just unimaginable to actually see him in person again and have him be released in such a swift and remarkable way and truly knowing that like this was a miracle truly and that it was through the hand of God that this happened.

“So your father said he was not told where he was going, he was put on a plane. Did you, as the family, did you guys have any heads up that this was about to happen?”

So as family, we were always talking to our mom, sorry, me and my husband, my brothers, we are all American citizens. So when this happened, we immediately had very close.

We were telling the American government what was happening and I'll hoping for them to step in and help advocate for my father's case. When negotiations were happening, we weren't really told much, but around two days after, around two days before my father was released, someone in the State Department called me and asked for my credit card information. Because they were buying a plane potentially for my father. So they said, don't be alarmed if you see a big payment coming out of your credit card.

But they didn't say much and they said, it's possible that things will go fall through and such, but and other than that, they weren't able to give me many details other than that. But I said, for our family to go to LAX to pick up my father if things went well. So we were given a very short window into, like, potentially, that's something we're happening, but we weren't given too much for notice. Incredible. I can't imagine that experience and thank God, LAX, you get to see your father finally after eight years. Thank you Grace and as a agenda. Thank you so much, Pastor, for coming on and talking to us.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So opportunity. That was Pastor Ezra Jen and his daughter Grace Jen Drexel and this has been a weekend episode of Morningwire.

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