LISA BISBEE Star-Tribune correspondent with wire reports | Posted: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 12:00 am
SHERIDAN - Four members of Sheridan-based Vision Beyond Borders are holding out in a Kunming, China, hotel, hoping and praying their confiscated Bibles will be returned and they will be allowed to distribute them to Chinese Christians.
"They have flat out refused to release them," Patrick Klein, Vision Beyond Borders founder and Sheridan resident, said in a telephone interview Monday.
On Sunday, while the Summer Olympics were being staged in Beijing, Chinese customs officials confiscated 315 Bibles from the missionaries' luggage upon arrival. After a 26-hour standoff, the four Vision Beyond Borders members retreated to a hotel. Officials found the Bibles during an X-ray check of the group's luggage.
Previously, the missionaries said they would not leave the airport until authorities returned the Bibles. But Chinese officials would not waver from a law that forbids bringing religious products into the Communist nation for more than just personal use. Klein, who has distributed Bibles and Christian teaching materials around the world, said he, as well as the U.S. Embassy, was unaware of the law that he has since learned went into effect in June 2007.
China's officially atheistic government prohibits proselytizing, but Klein said he is disappointed in the confiscation of the Bibles and the actions of Chinese officials. Klein and three other Vision Beyond Borders missionaries were attempting to distribute the Bibles to Chinese citizens. The Bibles were printed in Chinese.
"We are committed to helping the Chinese Christians," Klein said.
Religious practice is heavily regulated by the China Communist Party, with worship allowed only in party-controlled churches, temples and mosques. Those who gather outside those boundaries risk harassment, arrest and terms in labor camps or prisons.
In China, Bibles are printed at one plant, which is run by a government-backed Christian association, for use in officially sanctioned churches.
"The people here are desperate for Bibles," Klein said. "There's a waiting list of 400,000 pastors who need Bibles. If they were to buy one on the black market, it would cost six months' to a year's salary."
A fax from customs officials in Kunming to The Associated Press said that under Chinese law, foreigners can only bring in one to three religious products for personal use. Letters of proof must be obtained from the religious affairs office of China in order to bring more. This policy was explained to the Americans, the fax said.
Klein feared the Bibles would be burned if left behind. He said each member was given one Bible and told the group could pick up the remaining Bibles on their way out of the country. But Klein remains hopeful Chinese officials will reverse their stance and release the Bibles for distribution.
"We're hoping we'll get a call from custom officials saying that they will give them to us," he said. "That's what we are hoping and praying for."
But if Chinese officials do release the Bibles for distribution in China, Klein said there are other issues that will have to be addressed. Since the Bibles were confiscated, Klein said, Chinese officials have videotaped, taken pictures of and kept watch over the Vision Beyond Borders members. Klein also is leery of any repercussions that may fall upon those who potentially receive Bibles.
"We're a little bit nervous because we don't know if we are being followed," Klein said. "We don't want the Chinese Christians to suffer."
According to Klein, there are 130 million Christians in China, and 75 million of them lack Bibles. His group distributes free Bibles and offers food and humanitarian aid to poor communities in 20 countries.
Klein said his group had visited Vietnam before arriving in China, and planned to leave Thursday for Laos and Myanmar.
Whatever the outcome in China, the members of Vision Beyond Borders want to travel to Myanmar, where they will provide relief and aid to the people whose lives were torn apart by Cyclone Nargis. In the meantime, however, Klein said they will continue to wait in China.
"We're not coming to cause problems here," he said. "We just don't understand why the government is clamping down so hard against Chinese Christians."