In April 2020, Xiaomin (a pseudonym) received a phone call that she would never forget. She was informed by the police that her missing mother Fan Mei (a pseudonym) was found dead in a house in Xiqing District, Tianjin.
A few days ago, the police responded to a 110 call from Ms. Guo. She told the police that she highly suspected her friend, Ms. Fan, died at home because she visited Ms. Fan’s house several times, but no one answered the door. In response to this call, the police entered the house and found a middle-aged woman lying on the ground without signs of life. After investigation, the police presumed that she died more than 10 days ago. In her place, the police also found some written materials associated with the Almighty God cult. During the investigation, the police detected that there was something suspicious about the reporter Ms. Guo because her statements couldn’t add up, so they identified Ms. Guo as the potential breakthrough point of the investigation.
After investigation, information about the deceased Fan Mei, 53 years old, was finally revealed. She was born in Dongli District, Tianjin and then moved to Xiqing District, Tianjin. Before her death, she used to get together in secret at home with Ms. Guo and other Almighty God cult followers frequently, where they would read cult books and watch cult propaganda videos and listen to and sing those heretical songs. Because of the lockdown measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Guo was unable to take part in illegal cult gatherings held in Fan Mei’s place for many days. When Ms. Guo finally had the chance to visit Fan Mei, she found no one came to get the door for her any more……
As the investigation continued, details of Ms. Fan’s life in recent years were discovered bit by bit, which was quite thought-provoking.
When asked to assist with the investigation, Xiaomin turned the police down. It turned out that Fan Mei run away from home in 2013 and had not been heard by her family ever since. Therefore, unlike other children, Xiaomin couldn’t have the support and companionship from her mother in both her daily life and work, let alone other important events in life such as entrance examinations, marriage, birth giving, etc., from which Fan Mei was absent altogether. Xiaomin said that her mother was already long gone by the time she left the family all behind ……
Fan Mei lived in Dongli District, Tianjin and used to be an honest and kind country woman.. But after mingling with the Almighty God cult, she confined herself in the narrow circle of cult followers, listening to those brainwashing heretical fallacies all day long. "Evangelists" kept preaching to her that mankind were doomed to face catastrophes where only those true believers could survive with the blessing and protection from Almighty God, that it was a good starting point of the path to the spiritual world to cut off family ties that bound parents and children, husband and wife, and that Almighty God was the Almighty doctor.
Fan Mei kept participating cult parties and praying to Almighty God. She regarded advices and objections of her family members as tests from Almighty God for her. In order to believe in Almighty God, she was drifting away from her family and set foot on a dark path with no return. At last, she ran away from home in 2013 and never contacted her family again.
For more than 8 years, Fan Mei believed that Almighty God could protect her from any illness and misfortunes, so she insisted on not taking any medicine or having any medical treatment in despite of her suffering from diabetes, which took her life at last. Up till now, the pain inflicted by Almighty God cult upon this family still lingers on their mind, showing no sign of fading away with time passing by, as the husband lost his wife, Xiaomin lost her mother, and Xiaomin’s children would never have a grandmother to hold them in arms……
After the fact investigation, the police successfully arrested 5 Almighty God personnels, including the reporter Ms.Guo, crashed an illegal cult church and 3 cult hideouts, confiscated 5 computers, 13 memory cards and hard disks, more than 200 copies of cult books and other illegal publicity materials, and more than 2000 kilograms of food hoarded by the church, which effectively deterred the arrogance of cult activities.
