On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2020, Huang Ming (pseudonym), a villager from Liuli Village, Bangwei Town, Pingguo City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, climbed up a mountain behind his house with the staff from the local Politics and Law Committee. Then, he wormed himself into a cave, from which she took out two woven bags of "Almighty God" cult propaganda materials collected carefully over more than 10 years and handed them to the staff. Holding the book The Word Appears in the Flesh in his hand, he told the crowd of onlookers with bitter hatred: "It is this book and these materials that have ruined my life. They turned me into a complete failure over the past ten years: My farmland got desolate, my money was donated, my family was fragmented, and my loved ones were neglected... From now on, I will make a clean break with the ‘Almighty God’ evil cult.”
He lived a happy life through his hard work
Liuli village is the most remote village in Bangwei town, sparsely populated and difficult to access. However, it has beautiful mountains and rivers, the largest per capita arable land area, as well as abundant water and forest resources.
At the beginning of the reform and opening up in the 1980s, Huang Ming took the lead in setting up camps in the mountain to start a business by using his hard-working hands and woodworking skills as well as the rich land and forest resources of Liuli village. Initially, he was only engaged in rough processing of trees, which earned him little money after a few years. By the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, rural people began to buy a lot of wooden furniture for their new homes when they got married. As the furniture made by Huang Ming was very popular among local people for its fine workmanship, he received a succession of furniture orders from local farmers, making a big sum of money. Meanwhile, Huang Ming and his wife started to raise chickens in the mountain forest. The live chickens raised by the couple deep in the mountain were in great demand due to their excellent quality. So, it was in the mountain that Huang Ming and his wife found the way to get rich by their hard work. Within a few years, their family savings reached more than 300,000 yuan.
In 1999, the clever Huang Ming wanted to set up a furniture business in the town, so that his children could live and study in the town. With that in mind, Huang Ming bought a piece of land in the town and built a four-story building. His two sons attended a primary school and a middle school respectively in the town, while his wife ran the furniture business there. As their business flourished in the town, Huang Ming had to do more furniture processing work in the mountain, so he hired two workers temporarily to meet the increasing demand.
Huang Ming’s family achieved happiness and prosperity through their hard work after the reform and opening up. Also, as a woodworking master well-known in the local area, Huang Ming became an expert at getting rich and set an example for other villagers to follow. He led many farmers to join the wood processing sector and helped them get rich too.
He suffered badly after straying into the “Almighty God" evil cult
Early in 2002, Huang Ming, who had gradually got rich, began to seek new “spiritual sustenance”. He took part in the activities of a Christian church, where he inadvertently came into contact with the "Almighty God" cult organization. Under the influence of a backbone member surnamed Li from the cult organization, Huang Ming joined the "Almighty God" cult activities, which completely changed his life from then on. Being constantly brainwashed by Li, Huang Ming's mind was completely controlled by the heretical fallacies of the "Almighty God" evil cult. He believed that "Almighty God (Quannengshen)" was the God of all gods, who was supreme in power and had absolute control over the universe, gods, and human beings. Also, he believed that life and death, happiness and suffering in the world were all in the hands of "Almighty God". Therefore, he believed without a doubt that the end of the world was coming, that all mankind and all living creatures would be destroyed, and that only by believing in "Almighty God" could one be protected from disasters and one’s whole family kept alive.
The “Almighty God” cult organization required its followers to go and preach the "gospel" to save more people, claiming that the more "gospel" you preach, the more blessings you will receive. In compliance with the requirement, Huang Ming dragged several elderly people around his village into the evil cult. They often gathered to study and spread apocalyptic ideas of the "Almighty God" evil cult among the villagers, creating an atmosphere of panic in the society. Furthermore, they encouraged other villagers to take their money out of the banks and spend it, saying that it was useless to earn money since the world was coming to an end. Also, they recruited other villagers to believe in “Almighty God”, telling them that only by believing in “Almighty God” could their lives be saved.
At that time, Huang Ming, who was afraid of being punished for not doing well enough and thus offending "Almighty God", always lived in suspicion and trepidation. He destroyed the ancestral spirit tablet of his family and instead of participating as usual in the weddings or funerals in the village, disassociated himself from the villagers and his relatives, completely giving up the traditional customs. As Huang Ming alienated and abandoned his family members, with no more contact with his wife and two children, He and his family members had almost become strangers to each other. All Huang Ming thought about was how to avoid the destruction of the earth and save mankind. Hiding in a dilapidated house in the mountain, he and other followers studied the “Almighty God” materials there, with no desire to engage in agricultural production. As a result, his income plummeted, which resulted in him living in poverty.
Huang Ming was disgusted and ostracized by the villagers for his strange behavior. He was also disliked by his family members, who once enjoyed a happy and harmonious life, but now got fragmented and lost the joy of laughter they used to have. Seeing the decline of Huang Ming’s family, his fellow villagers, relatives, and friends often persuaded him to quit the evil cult and return to normal life. However, Huang Ming was too addicted to “Almighty God” to get out of it. No persuasion could bring Huang Ming back to his senses.
He found his entrepreneurial passion again after receiving social care and support
After the local "Almighty God" organization was cracked down upon by the public security organs, Huang Ming was sentenced to administrative detention punishment. However, he showed strong resistance and no repentance. When the local government and the Party committee at a higher level learned about Huang Ming's situation, they coordinated efforts to provide him with appropriate education and help him with the difficulties he was encountering.
The government staff and community service volunteers guided him constantly through scientific theories and concrete examples of how evil cults harmed society, eventually making Huang Ming realize his errors and recognize the ugly face of evil cults. The "Almighty God" evil cult has proved to be a lie that destroys human happiness instead of a savior that protects mankind from disasters. What Huang Ming had experienced was a nightmare to him. He realized with remorse that he had taken the wrong path, so he wrote down his painful memories of falling into the abyss of the evil cult, to expose the heretical fallacies and evil nature of the "Almighty God" cult through his personal experiences.
After escaping the mind control of the “Almighty God” evil cult, Huang Ming finally returned to society. Thinking of his originally happy family, Huang Ming regained the enthusiasm he used to have for work and life. With the help of the local government as well as the Village Committee and the Village Branch of CPC, Huang Ming was determined to work wonders once more with his hard-working hands. Thus, he resumed his furniture processing business, hoping to strive for a happy family life again.
