Rev. Dr. Timothy Conkling contributed to this report.
After years of persecution, 59 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church, popularly known as the Chinese “Mayflower Church,” landed safely in Dallas, Texas at 8 p.m. on April 7th Good Friday.
One Mayflower family is still in Thailand awaiting the birth of their third child in late April. They are planning on joining the remaining 15 Mayflower Church families in May.
After fleeing first as a group to Jeju Island in South Korea in 2019 to escape persecution in China, and then later to Thailand in August-September 2022 to apply for refugee protection and resettlement under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Mayflower Church has finally sailed to freedom in their new home in Tyler, Texas.
Mayflower Church members arrived at Dallas airport this weekend. (Photos courtesy: Freedom Seekers Int’l and ChristianAid Association)
Moving the Mayflower group from fear and captivity in a Thailand Immigration Detention Center to the freedoms and protections offered under the U.S. system was both a costly and challenging undertaking. The ChinaAid Association based in Midland, TX, and Freedom Seekers International based in Tyler, TX, bore the majority of the financial and practical burdens of caring for the Mayflower Church in exile and resettling them in their newfound home.
Other organizations, including China Ministries International in Pasadena, CA, provided personnel, pastoral and practical assistance, along with some financial support.
Now that the Mayflower Church members have arrived in the U.S., their resettlement expenses and sponsorship needs will come through Freedom Seekers International.
The Mayflower Church, led by Pastor Youngguang Pan is grateful to the U.S. State Department for granting them political asylum at a very critical time when they feared the possibility of being deported back to the People’s Republic of China to face retaliation for speaking out publicly against religious persecution in the PRC.
Mayflower Church Pastor Pan and his wife en route to Dallas airport. (Photos courtesy: Freedom Seekers Int’l and ChristianAid Association)
The Mayflower Church’s pathway to freedom was fraught with difficulties. The most recent challenge occurred on March 30th when about 40 Thai immigration police came to the apartment complex where the church members were residing and arrested and detained all 63 members for overstaying their visas.
According to members of the church, weeks before the arrest, one of their members began to be a concern to the group. When his demeanor became combative he was separated by the leaders of the group and kept under close watch. However, during that time he was able to use his mobile phone to communicate with a relative in the PRC and expressed a desire to return to Mainland China. Concerned that their whereabouts might be disclosed, the church members left their residential compound and moved to a secure location. Then security guards at their prior residence reported that two men in business suits escorted the solitary church member away to a yet unknown location.
After the church members returned to their prior residence days later, they were taken away by the Thai immigration police. They were taken first to a local Chonburi police station to pay a fine for overstaying their visas, then later to an Immigration Detention Center where the men were separated from the women and children.
Rev. Dr. Timothy Conkling, a missionary with China Ministries International who assisted ChinaAid to coordinate the first five months of the Mayflower’s relocation to Thailand, reflected on the tragic yet purposeful event that led to the group’s immediate resettlement to the U.S.
“Regardless of who is ultimately responsible for leading the Thai Immigration police to arrest and detain the Mayflower Church, I can say that under the providential hand of God, their arrest turned into release and freedom. Their arrest caused an emergency and expedited their asylum to the U.S.,” Conkling said.
(Photos courtesy: Freedom Seekers Int’l and ChristianAid Association)
On the morning when the Mayflower Church was arrested, providentially, Deana Brown of Freedom Seekers International, an NGO that helps persecuted Christians, had just arrived from the U.S. After a time of encouragement and prayer with the Mayflower Church members, the police arrived. They detained Deana along with another FSI volunteer even though they were not in violation of any law. But as Rev. Conkling reflected, this was God’s intervention, as He used Deana Brown and the FSI volunteer to assist the church members during their detention and arranged for Deana to accompany 59 church members (including the missing member’s wife and daughter) to the airport and then to the U.S. on one of the three planes carrying church members to freedom.
Rev. Dr. Bob Fu, president and founder of the ChinaAid Association worked tirelessly for more than a year for the Mayflower Church to receive political asylum in the U.S., lobbying members of the U.S. Congress and State Department to consider and grant the church members asylum.
Fu, along with supporters of ChinaAid and Freedom Seekers International, accompanied by members of the media and concerned Christians in Texas who had prayed often for the church to be safely relocated to Texas, were on hand on Good Friday to welcome the group to their new home and to freedom.
Fu translated Pastor Youngguang Pan’s message into English. He said, “We didn’t stay in the desert for 40 years like the Israelites. We only stayed for 4 years. We are filled with joy in coming out of Egypt.” Pan then led his congregation to sing Psalm 114, celebrating in a song of praise the Israelites’ escape from Egypt.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN