1959 - Wen Muling

1959

Kashgar, Xinjiang

Wen Muling & Simon Zhao.

In the annals of church leaders in China who have endured much for the sake of the gospel, the name Simon Zhao must rank near the top for decades of confinement, beatings, and pain. After enduring 31 years in prison in the remote northwest desert regions of Xinjiang, Zhao was released and enjoyed a number of years ministering among the house churches in eastern and central China before he died in December 2001.

Although Simon Zhao somehow managed to survive the decades of torture and heartache, his beloved wife Wen Muling died in prison and thus joined the list of China’s martyrs. The two of them had united in marriage with a specific God-given vision in their hearts—Back to Jerusalem—to take the gospel on foot from China to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel and establishing churches along the way. The neediest unreached nations in the world today lie between China and Jerusalem, the Muslim nations of the Middle East and Central Asia. In recent years house church leaders in China have expanded the original vision to now include Buddhist countries, and also the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent.[1]

Wen Muling first met Simon Zhao at a prayer meeting in Nanjing, attended by Christians who had received the same call from God to take the gospel to Xinjiang and the regions beyond. Wen was a fourth generation descendent of a Qing dynasty imperial officer. A missionary team led by Zhao and Wen left Nanjing in 1949 and travelled to Xinjiang via Shaanxi Province. For much of the way they went on foot, but there were some areas such as desert where it was impossible to walk, so they crossed those parts on horseback, camelback, and occasionally by vehicle. On the way they won many soldiers to faith in Christ, for it was a troubled time in China’s history with civil war and widespread internal chaos. Eventually

“…they reached Hami on the eastern edge of Xinjiang and joined members of the North West [Spiritual Movement] who had arrived there a year or two previously. Eager to plant the gospel on virgin soil, Zhao [and Wen] headed south with five fellow workers to Hetian, a remote oasis town in the far south of Xinjiang, in the winter of 1950. But two weeks after they arrived, the Public Security Bureau ordered them to leave. So they were forced to move even further west to Kashgar, where in September 1949 the Band had set up a preaching station at Shule.... They arrived in January 1950 to a chaotic situation. The gospel compound had been taken over by armed soldiers who claimed there had been a ‘counter-revolutionary incident.’ Uncle Simon did not know what to make of it. But within a few days he was arrested and placed in prison.”[2]

Every member of the Northwest Spiritual Movement was sentenced to prison for various lengths of time. The five leaders were given extremely harsh sentences—Simon Zhao was the only one to see out his sentence alive. Wen Muling was pregnant at the time of their arrest, but soon after she suffered a miscarriage. In 1959 she died in the women’s prison, but cruelly, Simon wasn’t told about it until 1973. Even after so many years,

“Uncle Simon lets his tears flow when recalling the news. Before his departure for Xinjiang, he and his wife had determined to dedicate their lives to the Lord’s service. He had asked for the bitter cup and, as things turned out, they received what they had prayed for. He had no complaint. But who could have imagined the reality of that ‘bitter cup?’”[3]

The Back to Jerusalem vision truly went underground. The seed had died.

Simon later recalled how, during those harsh years in prison, he would look up at the stars and remember the vision God had given him and his coworkers to take the gospel all the way back to Jerusalem on foot. In the early years of his imprisonment, when the guards and his fellow prisoners weren’t watching, Simon often prayed, “Lord, I will never be able to go back to Jerusalem, but I pray you will raise up a new generation of Chinese believers who will complete the vision.”

Simon Zhao was beaten for most of the 31 years he spent in prison, before he was finally released in 1981. During those long years behind bars he wrote this poem:

I want to experience the same pain and suffering

Of Jesus on the cross

The spear in his side, the pain in his heart

I’d rather feel the pain of shackles on my feet

Than ride through Egypt in Pharaoh’s chariot.

Wen Muling had been forgotten long ago by most people. Her body was flung into a ditch in a far-flung corner of China, without her husband and after having suffered a miscarriage all alone. But she went into the arms of One who never forgets, and who never fails to reward those who faithfully serve Him.

1. To learn more of the Back to Jerusalem vision, see Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem.
2. Tony Lambert, “Back to Jerusalem: Uncle Simon,” China Insight (May-June 2003).
3. “Uncle Simon,” Bridge (October-November 1988), 13.