Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Christmas Celebration- Brought to you by Christians in Jail

Although the headlines proclaim Chinese get prison time for Bible delivery, I find the real story to be more frustrating:


Imprisoned Falun Gong and Christians are forced to manufacture Christmas lights for export, according to Friends of Falun Gong and human rights activist Harry Wu.

Assuming the charges are correct, I wonder if those who manufacture the lights know what they are used for? How would you feel if you were forced to make Christmas lights while in jail for being a Christian? Sure enough, I checked the lights I bought last year and the package says "made in China." Were those made by my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? I'll never know. But what I do know is that I'll never look at the lights in the same way again. Will I choose not to purchase Christmas lights again? I don't think so. And my wallet dictates (along with store selection) the cheaper product -- made in China. This isn't the first time charges like that have been made.

On a much more encouraging note: doing the math of the charges, Cai Zhuohua, Xiao Yunfei, and Xiao Gaowen have been incredibly busy: Accused of distributing 200,000 Bibles in 10 years, that equates to 18.26 Bibles per day each.

Time to get busy.

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