The Power of Prayer

By Mollie Ziegler

God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father. (Luther’s Small Catechism)

Dr. Gao Zhan, a sociologist and researcher at American University in Washington, D.C., is thankful for the gift of prayer, the privilege of being able to approach God at every hour. She recently experienced a terrifying arrest and false imprisonment for espionage. Held 166 days against her will in Chinese detention centers, Dr. Gao described the experience as “the most horrifying moment in my life,” but added, “God listened and answered our prayers. He sustained me. He is my great redeemer and my Lord.”

Dr. Gao, her husband Donghua Xue, and five-year-old son Andrew, visited China last year to celebrate the Chinese New Year with relatives. A day before they were to return to their jobs in the United States, they arrived at the Beijing International Airport to catch their flight home. The family was met by armed agents who searched their luggage, confiscated it, and whisked each of them away in separate cars. “As a social scientist, I knew about the secret police in China. I knew their secret practices, I knew people who were detained before me,” Dr. Gao remembered. “But in that very short moment, I just didn’t know what would happen to me. There was no way for us to escape. I felt very hopeless.”

After being blindfolded and sent to a detention house for a couple months, Dr. Gao was formally arrested and charged with espionage. The guards took away her glasses and refused to provide her with reading materials. She suffered from mosquito bites and was permitted only three hours of rest a day. Day after day she was grilled for hours at a time by interrogators to reveal state secrets. The punishment for espionage in China, like many other countries, is death or life in prison. Dr. Gao became terrified about her future. She became depressed and even contemplated suicide.

“There were sessions where they pressed me to produce answers I didn’t have to things I didn’t do, to crimes I never committed,” said Dr. Gao. “It was my faith that saved me. It helped me to survive my handlers’ emotional and psychological torture of me.”

With no idea about how long she would be detained or what her fate might be, Dr.Gao turned to prayer.

“For some believers of Christianity, prayer is a daily routine. We’re born into a Christian family and we get accustomed to praying before meals, before sleep. But for me, praying was a method of surviving,” described Dr. Gao. “I had to pray in order to save myself from the tremendous emotional depression and psychological threat I received from my handlers.”

Prayer, however, is not some sort of magic equation where we plug the right words in and get the right response from God. It’s not a button we push to force God to do what we want Him to do. Bringing God our every need, trouble, joy and sadness is a gift He gives us and makes possible because of our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

Dr. Gao began to pray each morning moments after rising. “God, please take me out of here. Take me home.” Later, her prayers became quite targeted. “Lord, help me survive this afternoon. Help me survive this morning, this night.”

“No matter how I begged them for the chance to see my son, to see Donghua, they wouldn’t let me,” Dr. Gao recounts. Unbeknownst to her, her husband and son had been sent home to the U.S. one month after their initial detention. Back in the United States, Mr. Xue began a campaign to get his wife home. Lutherans from around the country and world, along with other Christians, began to pray for Dr. Gao’s release. Lutherans in high-profile positions of government implored senators, congressmen, and officials in the Bush administration to help get Dr. Gao home.

On July 24, 2001, Dr. Gao was convicted in a closed trial on charges of collecting intelligence against China and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, she was allowed to leave China two days later and go home.

Now at home in Virginia, Dr. Gao remarks, “I just can’t imagine how other detainees, how any other people in the same situation I was in could survive that kind of psychological and emotional torture without faith.”

“God is the one who saved my life, who brought me back,” she told her fellow parishioners at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Falls Church, Virginia, shortly after her return. “I prayed three times a day at least. And on the hard days, I prayed countless times. I thank God for sustaining me through this ordeal.”

Mollie Ziegler is Director of Strategic Development for an economic research institution in northern Virginia. She resides in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the board of directors of Higher Things. Photographs by Anne Marie Mullen.