In Communist Romania, churches were closed and pastors arrested as part of a seven-year drive to “eliminate the nations of all superstition.”

Just as Pastor Li Dexian began his sermon, the doors of the house church burst open. Armed officers of the Chinese Public Security Bureau poured into the room, threatening everyone present and grabbing Li to arrest him.

The prisoner was brought before the deputy commander, a harsh, angry, red-faced woman with broad shoulders. “So, you have been speaking to the prisoners about God again. I am here to tell you it must stop!” Her face illustrated the rage in Communist prisons in Eastern Europe.

“We cannot ask that question. We don’t know the answer!”

For days, the Communist guards would beat the imprisoned pastor, help him gain strength with good food, and then beat him again. He was to be systematically beaten to death, but not a quick death. They wanted him to suffer.

One by one the arrows struck his flesh, and one by one Stanley Albert Dale pulled them out and broke the cane shafts over his knee. The blood flowed from his many wounds and onto the riverbank. The screaming Yali warriors feared that the white man, or duong, was immortal.

He was the most wanted criminal in all of Saudi Arabia. He was not wanted for robbery, or murder, or rape. He was wanted for being a Christian pastor and for leading a large secret church in the Saudi Arabian capital city.

As he slowly came around, his eyes adjusted to the smoke. He cried out for his pastor, but no one answered. Horrified, he quickly began digging his way out of the pile of flesh and rubble.