1977 - Jiu Jinxiu & He Xiuzi

1977

Jiangxi

One of the most tragic martyrdoms in contemporary Chinese history is that of the two Christian girls Jiu Jinxiu and He Xiuzi in Jiangxi Province. During the Cultural Revolution, as Red Guards terrorized the entire country on behalf of Mao Zedong, the two young followers of Christ were arrested and sentenced to death because of their faith in Jesus Christ. In 1977, when they were taken out for execution,

“A fellow prisoner who watched the scene from his prison cell described their faces as pale but beautiful beyond belief; infinitely sad but sweet. Humanly speaking, they were fearful. But Jiu Jinxiu and He Xiuzi had decided to submit to death without renouncing their faith.”[1]

The executioner appeared with a revolver in his hand and slowly walked towards the bound girls, who had been ordered to stand against a wall. As he came closer the girls were shocked and horrified to see that it was their own pastor! The Communists had tortured him and caused him to turn against his own flock in exchange for saving his own life. The girls trembled at the scene—not for their own fate, but for the soul of their beloved pastor. Jiu and He whispered to each other, then bowed respectfully before their pastor and said,

“Before you shoot us, we wish to thank you heartily for what you have meant to us. You baptized us, you taught us the ways of eternal life, you gave us holy communion with the same hand in which you now hold the gun. You also taught us that Christians are sometimes weak and commit terrible sins, but they can be forgiven again. When you regret what you are about to do to us, do not despair like Judas, but repent like Peter. God bless you, and remember that our last thought was not one of indignation against your failure….

May God reward you for all the good you have done to us. We die with gratitude.”[2]

The two girls bowed their heads, and two loud shots rang out. The pastor’s heart had been hardened and his conscience seared.

Instead of the release promised to the pastor, as soon as the bodies of the two girls had fallen to the ground, “the Communist guards put him against the wall for immediate execution. As they shot him, no one heard words of repentance, only the sound of screaming.”[3]

1. dc Talk, Jesus Freaks, no page numbers.
2. dc Talk, Jesus Freaks, no page numbers.
3. Foxe, The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 340.