Chen Qian is the eldest daughter of a rich family, with a younger brother and a younger sister. Her mother ran a department store while her father invested about 10 million Yuan in a factory in Guangxi Province. After graduating from university, Chen Qian worked as a salesperson in a well-known daily necessities company in Zhanjiang. She dated her boyfriend Xiao Peng after work every weekend. When evening fell, the young couple who fell in love with each other would walk barefoot on the white sand beach hand in hand, enjoying the intoxicating sweetness wholeheartedly.
However, Chen Qian hadn’t expected that such a happy life would be interrupted one day.
Making a wrong friend
Chen Qian got to know a 25-year-old girl called A-Yue, who worked as a salesperson in a mall. When A-Yue was free, she would come from time to time for a chat with Chen Qian, who felt it was quite agreeable to chat with her after work. When turning to the topic of faith, A-Yue said: "People must have faith to avoid spiritual emptiness; only those who believe in and worship God will be blessed..."
On November 18, 2009, A-Yue took Chen Qian to listen to preaching. The preacher played a video called Noah's Ark for Chen Qian and told her to believe in the "Mayan Prophecy", which stated that the doomsday would fall on December 21, 2012, and that only God could bring salvation to its followers when the doomsday came. Besides, the preacher briefed her about God's "three-step work" and etc. From then on, Chen Qian began to believe in God, with no idea that it would henceforth change her life dramatically.
Getting bogged down
Under the guidance of A-Yue, Chen Qian took part in the Fellowship Meetings for more than a year. Later, she was transferred by A-Yue from the "Newcomer Group" (those who had just joined the church) to the "Elderly Group" (who had been in the church for a long time), and began to be instilled with various "myths". The fact that Chen Qian was admitted into the "Elderly Group" meant she had entered a higher stage of belief in God. At this stage, the content of reading, singing and listening was more extensive in the church, and God’s requirements for its followers were more pressing So, Chen Qian was required to “do her part” by making contributions to God’s work.
Chen Qian once was awarded 2,000 Yuan by her company. Considering that she would need 1,000 Yuan to buy a birthday present for her boyfriend, she devoted only 1,000 Yuan instead of the entire sum to the cult organization. Unexpectedly, the news reached the ears of fellow members of the church. As a result, Aunt Mei, the “Elderly Group” leader, said at a fellowship meeting, "If you want God to lead you into the 'Age of the Kingdom', you must believe in and support God without hesitation. The world is coming to an end, but some people have yet to fully realize the reality and break free from conventions such as love, family affection and friendship of ordinary people. It's extremely terrible. If we believe in God, we have to contribute our money or strength we have before we can get salvation from God." These words seemed to be addressed to Chen Qian. Since then, Chen Qian took the initiative to hand in the "donation money" every month after receiving her salary.
Short-lived marriage
In 2012, Chen Qian’s parents urged her to get married as soon as possible, and the parents of Xiao Peng, her boyfriend, also wanted him to tie the knot. However, there was a problem facing the young couple, as Chen Qian believed in “Almighty God” while Xiao Peng didn’t. Finally, Xiao Peng chose to accept all of her. In Chen Qian's view, the best outcome was to persuade Xiao Peng to believe in God, so that she could enter God’s "Age of the Kingdom" together with him in the future.
After marriage, Xiao Peng perfunctorily attended the fellowship meetings with Chen Qian for several times and then decided not to do it anymore. The little couple lived happily together for only a short period of time before Chen Qian’s affection for Xiao Peng faded away due to their different beliefs. Xiao Peng started to complain about her constant absence from home and her crazy belief in God. Thus their contradictions became more prominent.
In order to facilitate and strengthen her belief in God, Chen Qian moved out and lived in a small rented house alone. The relationship between the couple began to deteriorate. On January 22, 2013, Chen Qian went through the divorce procedures calmly, and Xiao Peng cried holding her in his arms that day. Chen Qian’s outward calmness could hardly conceal her inner sorrow.
Running away from home
Chen Qian felt extremely anguished as she found that her family members seemed to be strangers to her even when sitting together over meals. In her eyes, her brothers and sisters were hardly as friendly as those in the “Church of Almighty God (CAG)” organization. Since she had little in common with her family members, she had no desire to interact with them, only the cat in the house listening quietly to her preaching. Her parents, seeing her preaching the gospel to the cat in the house all day long, gave it away to others. Feeling that her parents gradually estranged her for disapproving her belief in God, Chen Qian became more convinced that her family members were “demons” hindering her belief in God and those without belief in God were villains, the incarnations of Satan!
On March 16, 2013, Chen Qian resigned from the company she worked for, then left a letter for her parents and ran away from home. After being appointed as a “deacon of the gospel”, she went to preach the gospel everywhere.
The darkest days of life
In 2013, the CAG cult organization turned its focus to online promotion, so it was badly in need of people with knowledge of computer operation and video production. As Chen Qian was savvy about how to produce video, she was transferred to Guangzhou to take charge of video production for the CAG cult organization.
Pictures from the Internet
The video production teams were located in an old two-bedroom house in the old town of Yuexiu District, Guangzhou. As the leader of the "Experience Video" team, Chen Qian worked from 7 a.m. until midnight every day. Except for having meals and going to the bathroom, she sat in front of the computer almost all day, sometimes working overtime until 2 a.m. The high intensity of the work made it hard to bear for Chen Qian, who looked green around the gills. Chen Qian worked here for more than one year, but she went out only five times in total. No one was paid a salary, exclusive of the food, clothing, housing and transportation provided by the cult organization. As they were not allowed to carry their personal communication tools with them, they lost contact with the outside world as if they were held under house arrest, living like zombies!
Being reported to police
In October 2014, under the pressure of more severe crackdown by the government on cult organizations, the “Church of Almighty God” told its staff with technical skills to consider going abroad at their own expense to do their part for God. Thus Chen Qian prepared to go home to get her ID card and ask her father for 20,000 Yuan to pay the security deposit for visa application.
On November 5, 2014, Chen Qian came home and told her parents she had come for her passport as she was going to go abroad. Thinking that she might never return after her departure this time, her father had no choice but to report to the police for help. So, Chen Qian was brought to the community help-and-education office, where she was persuaded to abandon her belief in the “Almighty God” and return to the right path. However, in the face of the community help-and-education staff, she still adhered to her foolish way without awakening.
"Who do you think is kinder to you in your heart? Your parent or God?" an educator asked Chen Qian.
"I think God is kinder," Chen Qian replied.
Hearing her answer, her parents who were getting on for seventy burst into tears. They didn't understand what happened to their daughter, what kind of life she wanted, why she didn’t enjoy the happy life in the real world, and why she had to pay such a great price for her so-called faith, sacrificing the integrity of marriage and family! What's wrong with them as Chen Qian’s parents?
