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The photos of the persecuted tell their stories: Sister He, a handsome mother, stripped and beaten with an iron rod. Elder Brother Song, holding out his arms with fresh scars where the bones stuck out; his throat, partly cut, now presenting an ugly jagged scar. Pastor Chan, beaten 20 times, his face staring out kindly with pain discernible in the eyes.

Historically the government has been able to deflect accusations of religious persecution because credible information was so difficult to get out of China. Li's work signals a breakthrough on that front.

A tough childhood, more difficult than most of us can imagine, prepared him for this role. His native Wuhan is a drab, hard-edged, and sprawling industrial city in central China. Li was born in a back-alley room from which his parents were evicted six days after his birth. The Li family wandered from one begging spot to another.

"As long as I've had a memory, I remember suffering," he says.

His family had been on the losing side of China's civil war. His mother's father had been an anticommunist military leader, which doomed the Lis to a dire existence in a tough city.

He tells of once seeing a toy train through the window of another home. "I don't especially like trains, but I was amazed that this toy train could go round and seem to automatically, magically, come out of the mountain. I wondered if I could go somewhere and magically reappear in a new life."

In March 1960, labor camp seemed like such a new start to the 7-year-old Li. He got to see his father, attend the camp's school, and hold his first book. But he found there was a pecking order in prison, too—labeled as counterrevolutionary, Li's family pined away at the bottom.

His father took out his bitterness on his young and loving son by beating him. At the urging of a teacher, the son of an official kept a list of young Li's counterrevolutionary deeds. Li recalls: "Complain about the weather? 'Counterrevolutionary!' Complain about the food? 'Treasonous son of a poisonous weed!' "

He was thrown out of school during the first grade. Li's father beat him again.

"I was dirty every day, and sometimes other kids would beat me up. My mother couldn"t do anything. She only had the right to apologize to people who bullied me. She had to say, 'Oh, your children got hurt.' They got hurt beating on me!"

A deep bitterness and a violent temper gripped him by the time he was released from labor camp after 20 years. He had almost no formal education and no money. He married, but prison life had not prepared him with much social grace. The marriage fell apart after a few years.

A Christian aunt from Taiwan wrote Li about Christ and her daily prayers for him. He paid little attention as he fought his way up the ladder of China's ecomomic boom.

He never forgot, however, the aunt's encouraging words to him while he made red bricks in labor camp as a young boy: "Look at the stars above your bricks. Know that God is with you to the end."

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Also appearing on our site today:

"New" China: Same Old TricksTop communists, despite their denials, endorse arrest and torture of Chinese Christians by the thousands.

What China's Secret Documents RevealThe New York archive of religious persecution in China contains numerous government documents that show how the government controls religion.

China Persecution Dossier: Zhang Wu-JiTortured to the point of death.

China Persecution Dossier: Shi Yun-ChaoBeaten for Hosting Bible Studies.

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March 11 2002, Vol. 46, No. 3