Chinese pastor Hao Zhiwei is serving an eight year sentence for preaching the gospel and collecting offerings without government authorization.
The Egangqiao Church church pastor was arrested in July 2019 and accused of fraud for taking offering at her church in China’s Hubei province.
Zhiwei was sentenced on February 11, 2022 by the Ezhou Echeng District People’s Court. According to International Christian Concern, she plans to appeal the charge.
Her husband died in 2018, so Zhiwei’s arrest leaves her two sons with no parents in the home. Her oldest son, Paul, who is in college, wrote his mother a letter on the day of her sentencing.
Zhiwei’s reply is not only sobering but a reminder that even 2,000 years later, the church has brothers and sisters in jail for preaching the gospel and still praise God for His faithfulness.