Thunderbolt Pastor

Interview with Pastor Zhuang Zefeng who leads the Taiwan Prison Evangelism Team

Photo courtesy/Zhuang Zefeng

Bring God’s warm true light into the dark prison

Every late autumn, a North American short-term mission team crosses the sea to Taiwan. The troops are divided into three regiments (two regiments from Southern California and one regiment from Canada). They travel from east to west, from north to south, and even as far as Green Island and Penghu, traveling all over the country. Through poetry, short plays and life testimonies in 46 prisons and detention centers in Taiwan, he has preached to 10,000 people and led 8,000 people to believe in the Lord over the years. They are like a group of migratory birds, flying into the cold iron windows on time every year, bringing the warm sunshine to the prisoners who have lived inside the high walls for many years. The music from the sky melts their imprisoned hearts, and the great love of the cross comforts their lonely sufferings. With the spirit of creation, life will never be the same again.

"In the past, there were only Buddhist halls and no churches in prisons in Taiwan!" Chaplain Zhuang Zefeng, who leads and organizes the inter-church California Grace Chorus, said that it was entirely God's grace that opened the prison door for them. With the Holy Spirit walking and leading, every prison sermon is a miracle.

Prison Preaching Miracles

In 2006, they held their first sermon in a detention center in the north. While the choir members were rehearsing on stage, they couldn't help but burst into tears as they watched female prisoners in their twenties and thirties wearing slippers and mouse-grey tops filing into the venue. When the program started, the students below were expressionless at first. Then when the singing started, they started to feel moved. When the third song was sung on the stage, many people shed tears. As soon as the pastor called, 90% inmates raised their hands and made a decision. The members felt as if they had won a battle and were extremely excited.

During the trip of the short-term mission team in 2016, there was once fifteen minutes left before the choir started singing, but the projector equipment was still not available. The prisoners in the audience were eager to move. After a period of confusion, the power point could not come out. Pastor Zhuang told Hong Wenfeng, the conductor at the time, that he had no choice but to bite the bullet. "As a result, the conductor raised his hand and the power point came out immediately!" Zhuang Zefeng said with a smile.

During a prison sermon in Keelung, there was no piano, so I finally asked a church in advance to rent a keyboard. The show was about to start that day, but the church door was closed. Zhuang Zefeng calmly came on stage and told the students (inmates) below that modern people like to eat authentically, and today’s choir’s performance must also be presented in an original style.

In the absence of instrumental accompaniment, the choir's performance was astonishing.

"The four-part chorus, even I was surprised, how could it sound so good?" Zhuang Zefeng showed an expression of disbelief, "This is the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit." After the performance, some of the "classmates" at the scene said they wanted to cry. Another man decided to be baptized. As a result, Zhuang Zefeng knelt down and baptized the inmate in front of everyone and the warden.

There was also an evangelistic meeting in Hsinchu in 2015. When the choir started singing, the drum array next door rang loudly. Pastor Zhuang asked the local police to ask them to stop practicing for an hour, but the police were embarrassed, so he had to ask the choir to sing loudly. At the same time, he prayed silently underneath so that the drum array next door could stop when he preached later. Sure enough, when it was Zhuang Zefeng's turn to take the stage to speak, the drums suddenly stopped. When he called, people from 90% raised their hands. Ten minutes later, as soon as the call was over, the drums nearby continued to sound.

There are endless miracles like this, and on average more than 70% of people make a decision in each sermon, which makes Zhuang Zefeng clearly realize that every spiritual battle is real.

"Every prison has at least three to five iron gates. When you go in and out, you hear the clanging sound of the iron gates, which makes you feel very heavy. Plus when you look up and see the barbed wire on the high wall, you can feel that the prison is controlled by the devil. That kind of darkness." Elder Lu Maocai, who spent his own money to return to Taiwan to preach in prisons for eight consecutive years, described the feeling of visiting the prison for the first time.

He said that since the establishment of churches in prisons in recent years, and the follow-up cultivation of Taiwanese Christian groups and churches, the proportion of inmates who have decided to believe in the Lord in prison has increased. "Because of the entry of "light" in the high wall, the original kind of The atmosphere of being dominated by the devil disappeared."

▲The tortured person repented and prayed to God (2012).

Intensive training for evangelistic team members

For many years, she has cooperated with Zhuang Zefeng's short-term mission team. Teacher Chen Shulan, a volunteer from the Care Association, often reminds team members not to regard the inmates as people who deserve death. "We are not necessarily any better than them, we are just "graceful sinners."" Behind every torturer, there are innocent victims and disappointed family members who are unable to be released from the bondage of sin and are waiting. With your help.

When he led the group back to Taiwan for missionary work, Zhuang Zefeng followed the strict spirit of leading the Perak group and conducted intensive training for three months before the trip. Before the group members get ready and set out, they spend two to three hours practicing singing every Saturday morning, making sure to give their best to God. After spending their own money (an average of US$1,500-2,000 per person) to return to Taiwan, they started a two-week collective action life. I got up at four or five in the morning every day, took a bus to the prison, walked through the heavy iron gates, and stayed with the inmates for three hours. I had to catch another show in the afternoon. After a long day, it was already eight or nine when I returned to the hotel.

Not daring to ignore spiritual warfare, Zhuang Zefeng asked the group members to do the first thing when they entered the hotel, which was to wrap the TV in a big towel.

"I can't watch TV for two weeks. I can only do homework and pray after I go back to my room every day. This is a very tiring battle!"

"Thank God for allowing me to be a police officer for twenty years. In fact, preaching is exactly the same as fighting, and you are facing an invisible enemy. When I was a police officer, I could see that although it was underworld and dark; The enemies of missions are completely invisible to you.”

Zhuang Zefeng was once the captain of Taiwan's first Perak team, and was also the captain of the Baoyi team. He has rich experience in the police industry and has experienced countless hot scenes where gunfire and bullets rained down. Because he adheres to his Christian faith and has an upright and upright behavior, he has been consistent along the way and is a role model in the eyes of his subordinates and colleagues. He was once sent to Northwestern University and the FBI for training, and he is an out-and-out police officer.

"My colleagues used to say, Zhuang Zefeng, your promotion is like flying in a helicopter!" Looking back on his career as a police officer, Zhuang Zefeng said that he was guided by God every step of the way and was never earned by himself. His eyes were filled with gratitude.

▲Pastor Zhuang Zefeng was at the grappling boxing training ground when he was a police officer (1988).

My backstage boss is older than him

Zhuang Zefeng, who was born in Fengyuan, Taichung, came from a poor family since he was a child. He studied in Taichung No. 1 Middle School with excellent grades in both junior and senior high schools. The night before he graduated from No. 1 Middle School, his best classmate invited him to his home for dinner and preached the gospel to him, telling him that Jesus loved the world and was even crucified on the cross for the sins of the world.

The classmate spoke very seriously and cried while speaking; Zhuang Zefeng also listened carefully, but he could not understand.

"I just feel that there is something in his heart that I don't have, but I want it very much."

After the two of them prayed sincerely, Zhuang Zefeng still didn't understand; but he clearly remembered that after leaving his classmate's house, a stone disappeared from his heart. "How can there be a world that I have never heard of?" Walking on the street of Fuxing South Road, he felt as if he was floating.

After graduating from high school, he was admitted to college. Because of his family background, he chose to attend the police college. The first week he entered the police academy, he went to church. From then on, he wore his uniform and went to the Taipei Methodist Church next to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to worship every Sunday. From then on, he lived the church life without interruption for forty years.

After graduating from college, Zhuang Zefeng was assigned to the police station in the mountains of Yujing Township, Tainan. Due to his outstanding performance, he was transferred to the Madou Police Station as a supervisor, where he met his wife Sun Chunju. After the two got married, Sun Chunju wholeheartedly supported her husband, who was devoted to the police.

As the "people's nanny" and dealing with people at the bottom of society, Zhuang Zefeng deeply feels the weakness and helplessness in people's hearts. Laws can only prohibit and punish, but they cannot change people's hearts. Most gamblers are repeat offenders. In several large-scale gambling operations, he once caught the same woman four times in six months.

"She told me, supervisor, even if you chop off my hands, I will continue to gamble!" Zhuang Zefeng knew what she said was true, because he had personally seen people without hands still gambling in casinos. There are also mothers who are willing to sell their daughters to pay back the money after losing a bet.

"Although I am a policeman and a Christian, there is still a battlefield in my heart!" Zhuang Zefeng admitted. As Paul said in Romans, if a person does not obey the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he will always be fighting against the flesh and blood, and will not be able to live a victorious life.

From Madou, he was transferred to Xinying, and after receiving FBI training in the United States and returning to Taiwan, he was transferred to Taichung. Then, because of a gangster colluding with the local police to engage in prostitution and gambling, he was transferred to Sanchong and Wanhua in the mixed area of Taipei. and Xinzhuang, responsible for rectification.

As an inspector in the Sanchong Branch, he described the complexity of the place at that time as making him very nervous and he had never had a meal with a police officer. When he went to check on the work force, the director came out and offered him a bowl of Yangchun noodles at the entrance of the alley, but he refused, not even drinking tea.

"You must have this kind of determination! If you really go to the alley to eat a bowl of Yangchun noodles, halfway through eating, someone comes to help pay, and you don't know who it is. It's too complicated."

One time at twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, Zhuang Zefeng received a call from a colleague, inviting him to a restaurant on Zhongshan North Road for dinner, saying that a certain general was present and could help him get promoted.

"Sorry, my backstage boss is older than him!" After hanging up the phone, Zhuang Zefeng fell asleep peacefully.

Perak police officer Zhuang Zefeng

When he served as the captain of the technical training team at the police training base of the Police Department, Zhuang Zefeng was responsible for planning and directing the training of the six groups of the technical training team, including taekwondo, judo, shooting, police dog, combat, and comprehensive application. The members of this technical team are selected from thousands of people across the country, and all of them are national-level coaches. Zhuang Zefeng, who had a pastor's heart, often invited coaches to get up early in the morning to attend Bible study and prayer meetings with him. He led more than 100 coaches to believe in the Lord in one year. Every time he entered the police training center building, he raised his hands and prayed. Having gone through many battles at work, he truly experienced the unexpected peace and joy that God bestowed upon him.

Recalling the hot scenes he experienced while leading the Perak team on duty, the most impressive one was when he was ordered to lead ten sharpshooters to Yonghe, Taipei County to arrest a murderer. During the entire attack, he was praying, asking God to protect his brothers from injury. At the same time, he was also worried that gangsters with heavy weapons would injure innocent people in the crowds. Later, a fierce gun battle broke out for nearly half an hour. The gangster even threw a grenade and rolled it next to a lady. "It's a miracle, it didn't explode!" Zhuang Zefeng said that when the gangster was captured later, he kept roaring, why didn't it explode? Why didn't it explode? "Only God knows!" Zhuang Zefeng said.

Although God called this police hero, he did not immediately let him leave the workplace. Instead, he continued to refine him through the environment.

Zhuang Zefeng did not hide his enthusiasm when he was in the police: "When I was an inspector, I often put my hands behind my back to check on duty." He stood up from his chair and demonstrated to me, "Just like this, I put my two hands in front of my back." Behind." When he got home, Zhuang Zefeng still walked like an officer, but he was often shaken away by his wife.

Captain Perak, who was honest and upright and won the appreciation of his superiors along the way, was later recommended by the then Police Commissioner Chong Heng Dai to work in the office of Presidential Secretary-General Chiang Yan-shi. He reached the pinnacle of his official career and had a private car and driver.

On his first day at the Presidential Palace, Zhuang Zefeng had an appointment with the Secretary-General at seven o'clock in the morning, so the driver took him from home to Jiang Yanshi's official residence early in the morning. After arriving, the driver opened the door for him and said, "Captain, please get out of the car!" He saluted and handed him his briefcase before leaving.

It was almost seven o'clock at that time, and Jiang Yanshi's Cadillac had been waiting there for a long time. Three minutes later, when the elevator opened, the secretary-general came out. At that time, his driver was already sitting in the car and could not get out of the car.

"I'm a secretary. When I saw it, I was stunned. I had to open the door for him immediately. 'Secretary-General, please get in the car!' Three minutes ago, the driver opened the door for me. Three minutes later, I opened the door for another person. "Life is a play, and you have to play different roles, but the change of roles makes Zhuang Zefeng feel as deeply as taking a sauna.

▲Pastor Zhuang Zefeng (middle) family portrait (2014).

Serve the King of Heaven with all your heart

However, he submitted his resignation after only working in the Presidential Palace for a year and a half.

A person only lives once. Zhuang Zefeng said that in the past twenty years, he has served the countries and kings on earth; in the next twenty years, he will serve the king in heaven wholeheartedly.

He was very clear in his heart about God’s guidance and calling, and he did not receive half a dime when he resigned. In 1994, Zhuang Zefeng and his wife went to the United States to study in seminary with their two daughters, who were in junior high school and elementary school respectively. Just like on the road to career, God's grace prepared everything for him, including the first house in California and his wife's first job. He described it as if it fell from the sky.

After graduating from Taifu Theological Seminary, Zhuang Zefeng applied for a position at Irvine Taifu Christian Church in Southern California. During his pastorate, God moved him to preach in rural areas of Taiwan, so from 2001, he began to lead the California inter-church short-term mission team back to Taiwan. In the past eleven years, we have united more than 200 overseas Chinese churches and organized more than 100 short-term mission teams to return to our hometown of Taiwan to hold bilingual gospel camps and character camps, distribute gospel tracts along the streets, preach at night markets, heal the sick and drive out demons, etc. .

Jesus said, "I was in prison, and you came to see me." "Truly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matthew 25: 36, 40) Zhuang Zefeng likes to lead the tortured people to pray loudly, cut off the bonds of the devil in the name of Jesus, and praise the Lord loudly. When the love of Jesus flows into the hearts of these marginalized people, making them feel accepted, heard, and affirmed, their lives are turned around 180 degrees.

Zhuang Zefeng said that the missionary road must be paved with many prayers. He pointed out that there are four key factors for successful prison short-term missions: God’s will, members’ united prayers, God’s preparation of suitable people who are willing to give, and careful preparation plus total dedication.

In the past ten years or so, the Prison Evangelism Team has traveled to prisons in northern, central and southern Taiwan and outlying islands. In order to strengthen the pastoral care of inmates after they repent and believe in the Lord, they have also assisted in the establishment of 34 churches within the high walls. Donated more than twenty pianos. In addition, in the past, I had only heard of prisoners copying Buddhist scriptures, but I had never heard of anyone copying the Bible. Starting two years ago, "We asked the inmates to copy Proverbs and the Gospel of John. After copying, they have to recite it. They can accumulate points and receive bonuses to buy daily necessities."

"My parents have been unable to hold their heads up in my hometown for the past twenty years." Zhang Luoming, who only graduated from junior high school and is the author of the book "From Death to Life," repented and believed in the Lord in prison and determined to become a preacher after he was released from prison. In the past few years, I have followed the Grace Chorus to various prisons to preach the gospel to inmates. "After the sovereignty of my life was entrusted to me, I was refined, pruned, and built up. Then I was integrated with my family and society. In his later years, my father saw the prodigal son turn around and receive blessings. All glory goes to the Lord."

In the Bible, the Lord said to Paul: "I am sending you to them, that their eyes may be opened, and that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God." (Acts 26:18) Whether in the midst of gunfire or bullets, In the police field, or serving humbly in the missionary field, Zhuang Zefeng always regards the harvest field of the soul as the first battlefield. His care for the souls, his compassion for the prisoners, and his complete commitment to the mission of the gospel left a warm mark wherever this short-term missionary team returned home every late autumn, especially in the iron prison. Life turns around.

Shi Lingyu, former Zhongtian News anchor. Now living in Southern California, she has two daughters and enjoys a simple and ordinary home life. A staff member of the Bookstore of Genesis Literary Training.