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Bob Fu suffered repeated beatings while in prison before his escape to the United States in 1997. Although Fu now lives in freedom, he still has nightmares bottled up inside himself that he has never shared.

Indeed, most victims of torture, some of them Christians, live alone with their private memories of terror, perhaps not even understanding that they suffer from something that can be treated.

Fu's own transgressions were leading an underground-church training center in a suburb of Beijing, China, while also teaching at an elite school for Communist Party leaders. He also feared that the government would uncover his wife's pregnancy and insist that she have an abortion. Several hospital doctors had already refused to help out of fear of government retribution.

"During the first two days and nights in jail," Fu recalls, "they didn't let me even have a nap but kept asking and asking, rebuking and cursing my beliefs. They gave me little to eat."

When Fu turned his deprivation into a course of fasting and prayer, the police forced him to drink liquid "medicine," causing him further illness. Later, police threw him among hardened criminals who were encouraged to beat him.

"Sometimes, I will dream that I am being chased by my interrogator. I can see his face and hear his name shouted, Yao Da-de! I am running with my wife Heidi and I look back in concern for her. But suddenly we are totally surrounded by the police. Then, I wake up suddenly in sweat-soaked sheets. I look to one side and see my son and to the other and see my wife. I remember I am in America and relax."

The morning after one of his nightmares, Fu says he is unable to concentrate on his seminary studies. But he does not complain. Outwardly, Fu is cheerful and strong. In other dreams he feels guilt about "leaving my fellow Christians in China." This feeling is also typical of torture survivors. "Every time I hear of their suffering I feel so bad," he says.

As American Christians have become more aware of the suffering church around the world, they are stunned to find out that some torture and abuse victims are now their next-door neighbors.

William O. Holston Jr., an elder at Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas, says he was shocked by the accounts he heard while talking with refugee clients as their pro bono lawyer in immigration matters. "I didn't know there were such needs in Dallas. Of course, now more people are aware of persecution. Still, among evangelicals there are two camps here: the majority is empathetic. A minority is incredulous about the refugee stories. But so many of the stories check out."

As a result, Holston joined and eventually became president of Project Onward/Proyecto Adelante, which houses the Center for Survivors of Torture. Project Onward, a 17-year-old ecumenical church-based agency, provides legal representation and counseling for refugees seeking asylum in the United States. In 1997, after a Salvadoran torture victim committed suicide, the project started its torture-victims center with five clients from Central America. Now it has more than 100 clients, mostly from Africa.

Experts estimate that as many as 12 million people have been subject to torture worldwide. Some estimate that more than 200,000 torture victims have fled to the United States. After examining the problem in 1998, Congress passed the Torture Victims Relief Act and allocated $31 million for 1999. Today there are 14 torture-victim treatment centers in the United States and at least 150 around the world.

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March 6 2000, Vol. 44, No. 3