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together they arranged for us to get married.
    This decision cost my mother dearly. When she announced to my family that I was to marry a preacher, my father and brothers were furious. To them, marrying a preacher was worse than marrying a beggar. They knew Yun had no money so he would not be able to give any gifts or money to my family as a bride price. They tried everything they could to stop it, but my mother held firm.
    In those days this was how marriages were arranged in our part of China. These days more young people make their own decision about whom they will marry, although many marriages are still arranged.
    Even after our engagement my family made sure I didn’t have anything to do with Yun, so even though his village was just 1.5 kilometres from mine, we didn’t have another chance to meet or talk before the wedding. Yun’s father passed away before we were married, before I had a chance to meet him.
    I was just a child, aged 18, when our wedding day arrived. My mother told me Yun was a very poor preacher but I should marry him, so I didn’t question it. I had no idea what marriage meant. I had no way of knowing what the future would hold. I was just a young wide-eyed girl, very simple and innocent.
    Before the wedding Yun and I went to the marriage registry office to apply for our marriage licence. After we’d completed the formalities I waited outside for a long time but Yun didn’t come out. I decided I couldn’t wait for him any longer and returned home.
    Only later was I told that when Yun wrote his name in the registry office, the clerks noticed that he was wanted by the PSB for being an illegal preacher, so they arrested him on the spot! They already knew he had been preaching the gospel all over the province.
    This was the start of our life together! Because of the delay when he was arrested, it took a little more than one year from the time we were engaged to the time Yun and I were married.
    Our wedding day took place on a nice sunny day on 28 November 1981. Elder Fu presided over the ceremony, which was held in Yun’s home. There were more than twenty tables set, and eight to ten guests were seated at each table, so about 200 people came. According to our culture, the wedding took place at the groom’s home and neither of my parents were permitted to attend. My brothers and sisters, and all of Yun’s family and relatives were present.
    I remember there was preaching and then Elder Fu blessed us and suddenly we were married!
    On our honeymoon we travelled to a meeting in another place. A sister was travelling with us also. When we were just outside Nanyang City the leader of the Religious Affairs Bureau in our home district recognized Yun. He grabbed my husband by the collar.
    This sister and I rushed into the ladies’ toilet and began to rip up Yun’s Bible and some other Christian books, because we knew he would get into big trouble if they discovered his books had come from overseas.
    That man started to shout out all the crimes Yun had supposedly committed, and in the excitement Yun brushed him off and ran away. I caught up with him later in the day.
    Three or four months after we were married, we were together in a meeting about 30 kilometres from our home. Yun had been arrested but managed to escape from custody, so from that time he became a wanted man and was unable to return home. He therefore went on the run, preaching the gospel all over China.
    Brother Xu introduced us to Zhang Rongliang for the first time and Yun teamed up with Zhang. Xu and Zhang led different house church networks but Brother Xu told my husband, “You go as arepresentative of our movement, make friends and be a blessing to Zhang’s group.”
    The stress of having my husband on the run from the police, and the daily pressures of life were too much for me at that time. Around that time I conceived but after a few months I suffered a miscarriage. We lost a baby boy.
    It was very stressful to go to the train