Double Quarantine
When I originally began this series (late April, 2020) we had been on “lockdown” along with the rest of Peru for a month and a half. However, I had also been personally locked out of my adopted homeland (“quarantined” from China) for two years at the time: I have been banned by the Communist authorities from re-entering China until at least 2023.
You might object to my use of the term “quarantine” above, but I insist that it feels very much the same. It’s that familiar frustration deep down inside, that knot in your gut, when you think of something you’d like to do, or somewhere you’d like to go, or someone you’d like to see, but know that you cannot, no matter how great is your desire. I’ve been living with that longing, that gnawing desire, every day since I was forced out of China, having lived there since the age of 19.
What follows are the details of my arrest, which took place on April 30, 2018. I’ve told most of these stories orally, but this is the first time I’ve attempted to put it all down in writing. So, here we go…
How I Got Arrested
IT ALL STARTED just before 7pm. I was in my bedroom at our home in China, organizing (and concealing) some important documents, when I heard the knocking on our front door. We weren’t expecting visitors, and I somehow had a feeling that whoever was there was looking for me. I thought about hiding under my bed, as we had tentatively planned for me to do if we knew for sure the police were coming, but by the time I got to my bedroom door to see who it might be, my kids were already hollering that “the police were at the door”.
Uh oh.
Not knowing what was up, I decided to go ahead and answer. Half a dozen or so (unmasked) faces stared at me from the hallway outside our 14th floor apartment. They asked me if a certain van that was parked in an alley a few hundred meters west of our complex was mine?
It was, I nodded.
“You need to come with us,” they said matter-of-factly, “because someone has broken into it.”
The parking lot below our apartment building. Our entrance was the one on the right next to the white SUV.
“Well, that’s no good”, thought I, as I grabbed my keys and iPhone and slipped on my tennis shoes. What choice did I have but to go with them and see what had happened?
As we went down the elevator and walked through the hillside complex towards the back gate, they were clumsily trying to explain to me what had happened. Some “cameras” had seen someone messing with the lock and windows? I began to have some doubts, because this suddenly didn’t sound quite as bad as an actual “break in”.
When we reached the car, they asked me to open it up and look around to see if anything was broken or missing. As I did so, the feeling that I had stumbled into a sticky situation quickly grew. The lock seemed ok. The inside looked normal. Nothing missing, that I could tell. No windows broken. About that time, a senior officer (wearing plain clothes) said from somewhere behind me, “Open up the trunk!”
My thoughts raced: “Oh, no. This is not good at all.”
A typical night out distributing literature in the Muslim neighborhoods of rural northwest China.
I had just spent 6 out of the previous 8 nights taking a team of evangelists out to the highways and byways of our region, distributing thousands of scripture booklets and tracts in unreached towns and villages. And there were still two decent sized bags full of biblical material sitting back there, waiting to be gifted to scripture-starved people during the upcoming week.
So I immediately began to interject, happily countering with:
“No, no need. Everything looks fine! All’s well.”
“Open the back”, insisted the aged police official sternly.
“Really, there’s no need”, I insisted.
But it was no use. They were all standing back there now, just waiting for me to pop it open. That was the moment when I knew that it had all been a set-up. The whole point of their trap (and lies) had been to catch me “red-handed” with illegal Christian literature in my proven possession.
I dutifully obliged, and opened the trunk. One small suitcase had a combination lock on it (and I didn’t know the code). The other duffel bag did not, and it only took them a few seconds to stick their hands in and see that it was full of tracts and Bible portions.
“That’s just what we were looking for!”, said the older officer to everyone who was there, obviously satisfied with his work.
The Moment Everything Changed
It was then that I knew that life would not be the same again for a long time, maybe ever. When you are a missionary in China, and you get caught in this sort of situation, rarely do you get to keep your visa and continue residing in the country as before.
But instead of worrying about the future, it was time to buckle up and focus on the task at hand. They might have “captured” me, but with God’s help, they would not discover much else about our ministry. I had explained this to my teams dozens, if not hundreds, of times:
“If you get caught by the police, take the fall, bear the brunt of the blame yourself, so that your teammates can stay safe and continue sharing the Gospel!”
I had often talked the talk. Now it was time to walk the walk.
“You’re gonna have to come to the station”, he continued. “Where is your passport?”
My passport was at home in my room. They decided to send a couple of officers back to the apartment to retrieve it, while the rest of us tried to figure out how we were going to get to the big police headquarters downtown. This led to a somewhat amusing exchange.
“Should I drive”, I asked them, “since it’s a rental, and I’m the only authorized driver?”
One of the officers seemed to think that made sense, but he was quickly rebuffed.
“No, no. We’ll drive. Give us the keys! Get in the van.”
“Okie dokie.” I stammered under my breath. “Whatever you say.”
As I reached for my keys, it dawned on me that my other car keys were right there on the same chain. The police seemed to have no idea that I even had another car, even though it was stationed directly in front of our apartment building, and I wanted to keep it that way. (It was also FULL of more literature!)
I’m not a magician, or the son of a magician, but I conjured up some sleight of hand to smoothly separate the rental van key from the keychain, and hand it to them. I then silently slid my other keys down into my right pocket, where they would remain for the rest of my time in custody, only to be disturbed once (of which I share more in Part III).
So two or three officers chauffeured me, thus far uncuffed and unhindered, in the back seat of my own rented minivan. One officer was in the bucket seat in front of me on the right side. I asked him for permission to call my wife. After he first said no, I explained that I needed to give her a heads up that the other officers were coming for my passport. He kindly obliged.
The phone call with my wife was brief, and spoken in hurried Spanish. Some Chinese police speak English, so I didn’t want to take any chances. I don’t remember my exact words, but it went something like this:
“Amor, the police found the stuff in the back of the van and they are taking me to the station. Some of them are headed to the house now to get my passport. Quickly get it from the shelf in our room and have it near the door so that they aren’t tempted to come in and snoop around. Also, hide the suitcase of tracts in our room under the bed! I don’t know what’s gonna happen for sure, but it’s not good. Pray for me and take care til you hear from me. Te amo!”
After thanking the officer, I then discreetly texted my team of evangelists, who were staying at a hotel nearby. I wrote something like this:
“Police trouble! Stay out of sight. Hide the stuff. Send someone to meet Joe at the airport.”
One of the team members responded quickly: “Ok, praying!”. As I shifted in the backseat while we worked our way through traffic towards downtown, something caught my attention. I noticed a white card in the little cubby next to me. Pulling it out, I quickly realized it was the business card for the team’s hotel!
“Oh no. Definitely don’t want this to be seen by the police.” I muttered to myself.
Arriving at the station a few minutes later, the first thing I did was slyly slide the card beneath the waistband on my shorts, just in case they would search the van and/or my pockets (they never did either). To my horror, as I paced about waiting for more police to gather, the card slid right through my shorts, down my leg, and onto the ground next to me. Thankfully it was evening, and getting darker by the minute, so I pretended like nothing had happened while clumsily scooting the card (with my shoe) into a metal drain just a few feet away.
“Whew. That was close.” I shuddered. So much for my sly maneuvers.
This is a satellite photo of the police complex where I was held and interrogated.
Counting the Contraband
By this time, a large number of police had gathered. The first thing they did was ask me to turn over my phone, drivers license and registration (my other car keys still remained safely in my pocket). In hindsight, I realize I should’ve made an effort to delete the contents of my phone on the way to the station. Instead, I had to make do with the little iPhone 4 merely being “locked” with a 4 digit passcode.
The next item of attention (for the police) was getting the bags open and all of the illegal contraband counted. This might sound funny, but it is something they always do. After counting each piece of literature, they send it off to the relevant “Communist Bureau” to officially declare them all “illegal”.
But this step in the process turned out to be rather amusing:
“Hey, we need you to unlock this suitcase here!”
“It’s not mine”, I said. “I don’t know the code.”.
“Come on, don’t play games with us! Open up the bag. You are already in trouble.”
“But it’s really not mine”, I insisted. “I have no idea what the code is!”
“Just open it up! You’re wasting everyone’s time.”
On and on we went, back and forth like this, for a few more rounds.
“We’re going to have to force it open”, they finally threatened.
“Yes, please just break it open. That’s what I’ve been telling you. It’s the only way. I don’t know the code!”
“But we aren’t allowed to break it open. The law says you have to do it!”
“Bring me a tool of some sort! I’ll rip it open.”
“But why go to so much trouble? Just open the lock!”
“For the last time, I don’t know the password for the lock!”
They finally brought me some pliers, and I tore into the zipper and lock mechanism with gusto, ripping it open. I smiled and handed it back to them.
“Oh, he really must not have known the code”, someone said.
“No, no he didn’t”, I thought to myself, doing a mental facepalm.
With that wacky exchange out of the way, and all of the literature now spread out on the ground behind the van, it was time for a picture!
They had me pose next to all of my “contraband”, with the license plate of the van also clearly visible. I decided to smile, and stuck out my arms to the right, framing the back of the van and the literature splayed out on the ground, as if to say, “Yep, this is all mine, and I’m not ashamed.” (I felt a bit like one of the ladies on “The Price is Right”, as the prizes are being revealed to the contestants.)
With the photo op out of the way, it was time to head inside the building.
“Come this way”, I was told. “We’re gonna have to ask you some questions.”
As I was being led into a single story building at the back of the parking lot, surrounded by much taller blocks of buildings all around, I felt my first twinge of real fear. Standing around in a parking lot is one thing, but being locked in an interrogation room, or potentially in a prison cell, is quite another.
For an instant, my heart sank and I thought to myself, “Oh, please don’t put me behind bars!”
Continued in Part II: The Interrogation
(Credit ©David Foldvari for the final image.)
