Over the past twenty-two years, I studied neither Buddhism nor Christianity, nor did I believe in Communism. However, my life was a struggle between the inescapable pain of reality and my idealistic and romantic dreams, until the day I came to know Jesus Christ -- the perfection of all beauty. On that day, I knelt down and dedicated my whole life to him. I have since experienced His great love; and now I walk the path of life with joy and gladness.

Having now been touched by God's love, I often reminisce with tears in my eyes. My previous life was filled with dreams and idealism as well as ugliness and wounds.

Since childhood my father, a strict yet kind man, showed me the beautiful side of life. He taught me English and appreciation for literature, music, etc. How I longed for an ideal human society. At age twelve, in a book report on a fairy tale, Lobo, the Wolf King (which told about how a pack of wolves loved and helped each other just as human beings ought to do), I wrote, "If wolves can behave so well, shouldn't we humans, who hold a higher place in the natural order, behave even better?" My teacher commented that I should not compare wolves with human beings, since wolves were wild animals. But I was not convinced. History has recorded all kinds of human ugliness. In high school, I started reading voraciously. From every kind of literature ranging from Hugo, a romanticist, to Zola, a realist, I gained a better understanding of human nature and the tragedies of life. I came to the conclusion that despite endless sufferings, injustice and suppression, mankind had always longed for an ideal world. But where is such a world to be found? I wondered where human suffering originated. At that time I had no respect for Christianity. I was looking for answers in books of literature and in the human conscience. Despite this sense of thirst and loss within my heart, I look on my first eighteen years of life as a happy time.

In 1989 I was a senior in high school and should have been preparing for college, but the explosive political situation at that time made me unable to sit still in the classroom. I would often sneak out of class and go to Tian-An-Men Square to hear the college students speak. I followed them around, full of admiration. When I got home I would enter into heated arguments with my Mom. When she could not answer my questions she would only say, "I know that there are many problems within the Communist Party, more than you know, but I am a Party member. I cannot say anything against my Party." I jumped up and said, "Communist Party indeed! It is lucky to have members like you who cover up its defects." I got a big slap on the face for that remark.

On June 3rd, about twenty of us high school seniors voluntarily joined the march to Tian-An-Men Square. It is estimated that there were about a million people in the march that day. The spacious Tian-An-Men Square was filled with an enormous surging crowd. Everyone was excited with a passion for patriotism and democracy. Where was our country headed? We were angry about the way those bureaucrats and their followers were making our country into a hell on earth. But after the massacre all was quiet, except for the last remaining stains of blood and a faint echo hanging in the air of Tian-An-Men..

Then life returned to normal. Once again I sat down in my classroom and took the college entrance examination in 1989. However a brand new thought had taken root in my mind: "I want to get out of this place, I want to find a place of justice and truth."

When I threw the admission letter from college into the trash can, I didn't realize that I was throwing myself into a dirty river that would prove to be the most difficult struggle of my life. Unfortunately I did not know the Lord at that time.

My father was an outstanding engineer. He searched long and hard for someone to be my financial sponsor for study abroad. Finally, he found a "foreign business man". Actually, this man had been educated in Communist China but went abroad in 1978. He returned to China in 1980 as a representative for several big American companies. His tactic was to make money by setting up bogus joint-ventures with the help of corrupt and greedy Communist party officials. In exchange for his sponsorship for me, my father had to go to Indonesia to set up a factory for him. I also started working in his company. However, he linked the sponsorship with the signing of a contract. He stated to the American company that I was the daughter of a key Chinese official and asked the company to sponsor me instead. But the company agreed to sponsor me only after the contract was signed. Subsequently more than one year later I finally obtained the letter of sponsorship. Now after a year of hoping, I faced more disappointment. My visa was rejected three times by the American Embassy. Another two years went by, and I was beginning to feel numb.

I started working as a typist in the company, and gradually moved up to translating faxes and technical material, as well as preparing contracts and various documents. I became aware that I was working on dishonest deals. About half of the documents I prepared were actually bogus. Goods worth $10,000 were given a $200,000 invoice. I was also taught to forge signatures. I was working like crazy, helping to cheat others. Many times I asked myself if I still had a conscience or if it had vanished completely due to my own selfishness. At first, I felt angry to see well-dressed government officials betraying national interests for only a few hundred U.S. dollars, and the Commune leaders boasting of their shrewd ways of exploiting peasants. However, gradually I started to laugh with them at their remarks. I seemed to have lost my soul as well as my integrity. When I saw that a few girls in my company were sent to the US due to their "special" relationship with him, I shamelessly accepted his advances. I even forgot my father who was working hard in the blazing heat of Indonesia. I sold him out just to go abroad.

The opportunity to go abroad came slowly, but I was going down fast. Gone was the honest, spirited girl of two years before. I started drinking and going on spending sprees to fill my emptiness. This luxurious lifestyle destroyed my health since I did not know how to protect myself. I went twice to the gynecological clinic within six months and was diagnosed with Meniere's disease at the age of twenty-one. I often considered suicide. But as I gazed into the vast star-lit sky, my dreams seeming so far away, I decided to live to pursue my dream that was meaningless to many, a dream which had cost my youth. Now I realized that I could not wait any longer and I had to leave that suffocating hell on earth.

In July 1992, I sent a fax to the headquarters of the American company on behalf of a certain representative, requesting that I be sent to America for training. Unexpectedly, everything went smoothly after that. I took pleasure in carrying out my scheme and was overjoyed when I came out of the U.S. embassy with a B-1 visa. During the past three years I had been preoccupied with how to get a visa, which had gradually deprived me of any joy. It almost cost my youth. With such a thought, I felt like tearing the visa into pieces. Nevertheless I carefully put it away and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God!", I could not keep from saying.

Through the skies, an airplane carried me across the ocean, away from the place where I had led a life of indulgence -- away from my sorrow-ridden kinsmen -- but closer to God. After my arrival in America, I began experiencing God's love and His greatness through the reading of the Bible and the caring of friends. One day in church I finally opened my heart to God. I wept for a long time like a repentant daughter in her father's arms. I wept for my sufferings and my sins in the past, and I also shed tears of happiness. The Lord reached down to me with his nail scarred hands and soothed my wounds. I looked up at Him, the perfection of truth, kindness and beauty. He is the way, the truth and the life I had been seeking. Through Him my sins were forgiven; I was born again; I found peace, joy, happiness, kindness and love.

What a blessing it has been for me to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior at the age of twenty-two. Although my faith has sometimes wavered, I am assured of the soundness of my decision because of the peace, joy and great love I have received from Him. In times when everyone seems to have turned away from me, my Heavenly Father is still with me and loves me. Each test I have gone through has strengthened my faith. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". (John 3:16). Whenever I recite this passage, tears of gratitude swell up in my heart with unspoken joy at being redeemed. Praise be to the all-true, all-kind, loving and almighty God!

Ms. Esther came from Beijing and is now studying in Texas.