“Dad, where are you? We're looking forward to having you back home for the Spring Festival!”At the mention of his father, Ah Ming would stare blankly into the distance, his eyes moist.

An accident incapacitated Ah Min’s father for work.

Ah Min, a 30-year-old farmer from a remote village in Xiuning County, Anhui Province, is a father of two children. His father Ah Hai is a member of the evil cult of “Almighty God”. Seven years ago, Ah Hai ran away from home, leaving his wife and children behind. Since then, he has never been heard of. Every year, the local Party committee and government staff will visit Ah Min's home to learn about his family situation and try to help him find his father Ah Hai.

"My dad should have been 62 years old this year," said Ah Min. “He used to be a carpenter. When our house was built in 2008, all the carpentry work was done by my dad himself. One morning in September, however, my dad suddenly touched a wire above his head on the roof and fell off the truss. After being hospitalized in a coma for four or five days in the hospital, my father was left with residual problems：He felt dazed due to the damage done to his brain, and because his limbs were too weak, he could no longer work as a carpenter.

Ah Min’s father believed in the “gospel” preached by a fellow villager.

"After that, my dad was work-disabled. He stayed at home all day long and became a little quick-tempered. Around the Spring Festival of 2008,” Ah Min continued after taking a deep drag on his cigarette, “A rural woman about 50 years old came to my house and chatted with my dad for a long time, and showed much care about my dad’s health. I found my dad looking quite happy while chatting with her, so I didn’t pay any attention to what they talked about. From then on, the woman came to chat with my dad regularly, and she gave my dad a few books for reading and studying. I remember the names of two books: “Lightning from the East” and “Do You Hear the Voice of God?” Afterward, my dad read those books every day, and he prayed while reading. Besides, he often went out in the middle of the night and didn’t come home until dawn. Sometimes, when we asked him about his deeds, he would tell us things strange to us. He said that he had been punished by God for his sins and that he prayed every day to make atonement to God, asking for God’s forgiveness and blessing. He also said that he would preach the gospel to make atonement and pray for more people."

For more than two years, Ah Min's father said his prayers almost every day. He preached the gospel during the day and attended meetings in the evening. Sometimes, he would stay away from home for more than ten days before coming back home. It seemed that he had changed into a different person, caring nothing about his family matters.

Ah Min’s father ran away from home after an unexpected arrest.

One day in the summer of 2011, according to people in the village, Ah Min's father and six middle-aged and elderly women were arrested. It was not until that day that Ah Min learned that his father had joined an evil cult. Two of those who had been arrested were put into prison, while Ah Min's father and the others were released after receiving verbal criticism and education. "But I never expected he would have run away from home. It has been seven years since he left," Ah Ming said, patting himself on the head.

On August 5, 2011, when Ah Min, whose daughter was just over a month old, called his father for lunch, he found his father missing. During the past seven years, Ah Min’s family members had been to all the villages and towns nearby, including places in the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, to look for his father, but they found no sign of him. Sometimes, Ah Min heard about similar cases elsewhere of people running away from home under the influence of the "Almighty God" cult. The cult organization didn’t allow its believers to have family ties, saying they were all brothers and sisters. So they were arranged to "preach the gospel" in other places away from home.

Ah Min is looking forward to having his father back home for the Spring Festival

"Of course, we’ll keep trying to look for my dad!" Ah Min lit a cigarette and continued, "Those who joined the ‘Almighty God' cult together with my father in the past have already quit it, and now they are working around their hometown. We currently have good national policies, and as long as you are willing to work hard, your life will get better and better day by day. When I see other families living happily together, I wish that my dad would come back soon, break away with the ‘Almighty God’ cult, and return to normal life as soon as possible. My daughter, who was only a month old when my dad left home, is now eight years old. My son was born this year. If only my father would come back and reunite with our whole family for the Spring Festival!”

“But, Dad, where are you?”