They monitored my phone for two years before they came

I led a house church of forty believers in a small city. For two years, the authorities monitored my phone, read my messages and listened to my calls. I did not know.

One morning they came to my door. They took my phone, my laptop and every Bible in my home. They held me for eleven days in a cell with no window and questioned me about every name in my contacts.

When I was released, the church had scattered. But within a month, every family had reconnected, through encrypted channels the team at ShephardAid had set up for us. We meet again now, smaller and quieter, but we are not gone.