The Watchman

They Took Fingerprints, Blood, and Voices. Six Believers Have Not Come Home.

They came on a Saturday.

On July 11, police in Yueyang, a city on the Yangtze in China's Hunan Province, raided multiple unregistered house churches. Believers were taken in for questioning. Most were released within a day or two.

Six were not.

ChinaAid, the Texas-based watchdog founded by former house church pastor Bob Fu, has published their names: Pastor Huang Shi Tou. Elder Yang Jianjun. Preacher Hu Hongtao. Pastor Luo Kaimin. Sister Yang Chun. And a man identified, for his family's protection, only as Brother Fu.

Two pastors, an elder, a preacher, and two church members. As of ChinaAid's July 17 report, they had not come home.

What happened to the believers who were released is its own story, and it may matter more than the arrests.

His Church Received 293 Dollars. The Court in Dak Lak Gave Him Seven and a Half Years.

The state counted the money to the last dong. It came to about 293 dollars, and it bought a pastor seven and a half years.

Two of the Three Came Home. It Took Thirteen Days for Anyone to Find Out.

Two of the three church leaders taken from Heiban were released on July 28 and August 1. The news took thirteen days to leave the Nuba Mountains, and it reached us after we published.

He Said Mass That Morning Standing In for Someone Else. He Was Found on Church Road.

Father Samuel Oyetoro filled in for a colleague on leave, said Mass, and was found on Church Road with machete wounds. Four days later gunmen took three people from a Sunday Mass in another state.

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